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Friends, 

The latest batch of Voter Identity Cards carry the 
place-name of SRIRANGAM properly.

This is no great news except for those who are aware
that the previous Voter Cards displayed the 
place-name of this Holy-of-Holies in a vulgar
alteration.

Thanks are due to 

~ Sri Mrityunjay Shadangi, IAS,
Chief Electoral Officer,
Government of Tamil Nadu,
Fort St George, Chennai-600009,

~ Sri Manivasan, IAS,
District Collector,
Tiruchirappalli-620001,

for restoring this sacred name in the Voter Cards,
responding in positive manner to public opinion.
I would also record my thanks to two of my
press friends who pursued the matter with the
district collector.

Name-alterations are insidiously effected
through the deep-penetrating political chauvinism
of our society. The southern bank of river kAvEri
has the ancient settlement known as 'chintAmaNi',
and the bus conductor would tick you off if you
utter this name: the new ticketing stage is
'aNNA-Silai'.

The bus also halts at the divya-dESam (second in
serial order of our 108 divya-dESam) and
sannidhi of uRaiyUr kamalavalli-t-tAyAr.
You took a ticket for 'nAcchiyAr-kOyil'.
Now you need to apologise and explain to the
busman that you meant 'vekkALi-amman'.

Everyone knows that tiru-uRaiyUr (abode of tiru,
Sri) was the capital of the early Cholas, who styled
themselves 'kiLLi', hence the kiLLi maNDapam 
(one of the oldest structures in the second enclosure 
rAja-mahEndran tiru-c-chuRRu) of the Great Temple 
of Srirangam. 

I have a reasonable guess that the quasi-mythological 
king dharma-varman (who has lent his name to the first 
enclosure, tiru-viNNAzhi pradakshiNam, and) who is 
said to have discovered the sand-covered Sriranga-vimAnam,
is simply a sanskritisation of the name of Chola king
nalam-kiLLi. 

According to the Great Temple chronicle,
kOyil ozhugu (which despite the mythical strain
of the early chapter, is rich in astonishingly
authenticated historic data), 

Lord Sriranga came to be fondly known as
the Bridegroom Beautiful (azhakia maNavALan,
ramya-jAmAtA) after he wedded kamalavalli,
daughter of the chOla king nanda of uRaiyUr.
[The stunningly beautiful mUla / dhruva-murti / 
worship deity, of azhakia maNavALan, stands
with kamalavalli-t-tAyAr in uRaiyUr, while
the equally pretty utsava / festive deity of
maNavALan (who also got to be known as
nam-perumAL) is worshipped together with
the 'ubhaya-nAcchimAr' in front of the
reclining deity, periya perumAL, in the
Sriranga-vimAna sanctum. For the devotees,
it is sheer heaven to see kamalavalli-t-tAyAr 
and namperumAL / azhakia maNavALan
seated together when the Lord visits 
tiru-uRaiyUr during the panGuni brahmOtsavam.]

My reasonable guess extends to this 
that the said nanda chOla could be the sanskritisation
of the historic king neDum-kiLLi of uRaiyur. 
It is evident that Sri, synonymously Lakshmi, 
with the attribute of being seated on lotus (kamalam), 
was the dynastic deity of the early kiLLi-chOlas. 

It is this fragrant name of kamalavalli-nAcchiyAr
which is tacitly getting replaced by the
bus-stage name of vekkALi amman !

Name-alterations bypass such beautiful and
historically authentic names like tiru-uRaiyUr.
(The name stands as the semi-literate British
official heard it from the semi-literate Indian
'subject' ~ Woriyur !)

The commercial business of religion thrives
in the Tamil Nadu atmosphere of illiteracy, daftness and 
charlatanism. The money-making and criminalised
god-men cults abound. In Srirangam, you have
a wine-shop, and a separate chicken bar named after 
Lord Sriranga. Some religion this !

aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan,
T.S. Sundara Rajan, in Srirangam.


From: <ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2001 7:28 PM
Subject: [ramanuja] Digest Number 78


Message: 1
Date: Sat, 17 Nov 2001 16:13:47 +0530
From: Tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan <surangam@xxxx>
Subject: Mis-naming of SRIRANGAM.

Friends,

The voter-identity cards issued last year in Srirangam
indicated most areas of Srirangam
as 'Palaya rangam', whatever it means.

I posted an e-mail to THE HINDU Chennai on November 5
protesting at this mischievous and daft mis-naming of Srirangam,
but the newspaper has not picked up the letter.

Is any Post Office in the country aware of
a city by name 'Palaya rangam' ?
Will a letter posted with this name inscribed reach ?
Or, is this an insidious way of erasing from popular memory
the sacred name of SRIRANGAM ?
Srirangam municipal outfit was merged,
rather unwarrantedly, in the Trichy Municipal Corporation,
but the fiction cannot be extended further
as the Srirangam city does continue to exist !
And, 'Palaya Rangam' is an offensive name too !

The Hindu has come out with the details of the preparations for the
door-to-door voter enumeration which has commenced on November 5
and is scheduled to be held till December 4.

It is our sacred duty to resist the gross voter-card misnaming
of SRIRANGAM, and impress upon the authorities that
the name of this sacred city SRIRANGAM should be indicated
as such on all the voter-cards which would be issued
on the basis of the on-going voter-listing effort.

I believe a protest-mail campaign is warranted
addressing the Chief Minister, the Chief Electoral Officer
(Shri Mrutyunjay Sarangi) at Chennai, the District Collector of
Trichy (Thiru Manivasan), and The Hindu newspaper, of course.

aDiyEn rAmAnuja-dAsan
T.S. Sundara Rajan
at Srirangam.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Subject: Voter roll. Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 16:49:14 +0530
From: Tirumanjanam Sundara Rajan <surangam@xxxx>
To: Hindu <letters@xxxx>

The Editor,
The Hindu, Chennai.

Sir,

The Hindu has come out with the details of the preparations for the
door-to-door voter enumeration which has commenced to-day (November 5)
and is scheduled to be held till December 4.

May I, in this context, place before the Chief Electoral Officer, Shri
Mrutyunjay Sarangi, a request on behalf of the citizens of the Temple
city of Srirangam in Trichy district?

Srirangam authorities earned notriety of a kind when a heap of voter
identity cards (EPICs) was discovered on the dumps a few years back, but 
the authorities secreted to themselves the wisdom on this palpable
outrage. The more outrageous incident, in my opinion, was the manner in
which the cards were programme-designed and issued over the last 12
months or so. A petulant Clerk of the government asked me, Do you know
that the initials to a name are not to be displayed in the voter roll?
Truly speaking, I didn't. I am less offended by the presumed behaviour
of the Clerk than confused since I was issued my card on March 11 1995
while in New Delhi, carrying my initials and name exactly as you read it
at the subscription to this letter. I do not know if the Election
Commission rules have since changed so as to omit the initials. I
think the initials are a necessary part of the 'given name' and will be
one of the confirmation elements of a voter's identity and should,
therefore, be retained both on the voter roll and on the identity card.

It is most objectionable that in the latest identity cards, the
residences in certain parts of Srirangam have been indicated as "palaiya
rangam, Tiruchirappalli", and the name of Srirangam is just missing !
It is quizzical why at all such a blasphemous city non-name was devised
for Srirangam, and it is evident the postal department would have a
problem with such a daft messing up with the name of an ancient and
sacred city like Srirangam. [Srirangam municipal outfit was merged,
rather unwarrantedly, in the Trichy Municipal Corporation, but the
fiction cannot be extended further as the Srirangam city does continue
to exist !] Am I to read in such non-naming an insidious and
deliberate attempt to deface and then altogether efface the identity of
Srirangam?

I have checked a run of ICards and find that few of the persons involved
in the voter list and IC process have the ability simply to copy a name
written in Tamil. When my card was earlier issued in Delhi, the voter
was requested to satisfy himself with the spelling of his name, and
approve of his own photo, both on the computer's monitor itself.
Can this not be adopted in Tamil Nadu as well?

'Sri' being the equivalent of 'Mr' in the style of referring to a
person, the IC software has been so dumbly made out as to omit 'Sri'
wherever it occurs, and hence the cards show all Srinivasan-s as
'Nivasan-s'. What a bad joke !

May I request the Chief Electoral Officer please to issue immediate
instructions to restore the name of the city as SRIRANGAM both on the
new voter rolls and also on the identity cards which need to be issued
to those who missed it earlier? A proper streamlining of the
procedures and checks is to be ensured on the above lines so as to
establish the credibility of the whole exercise. I believe that, in a
democracy, an identity card should identify.

Yours sincerely,
T.S. SUNDARA RAJAN,
17-C \ 7, Rohini Apts.,
Raghavendra Puram,
Srirangam - 620006.
_______________________________________________

Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2001 03:42:20 -0800 (PST)
From: krishnan srinivas <rengamani_2000@xxxx>

friend, i do agree that the name of the ancient and
the foremost among the sacred places on earth i.e
srirangam has been mis-spelt and this error on their
part is unpardonable. the autorities go to any extent
to appease the muslim brethrens and at the same time
offend the sentiments of hindus, in spite of being a
hindu country, it is extremely sad and depressing to
note that the authorities are running over the
sentiments of hindus in a rough and partisan manneer.
let's all unite and resist this blasphemous move on
the part of electoral authorities.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





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