SRIMATEH RAMANUJAYA NAMAHA
--------------- In ramanuja@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "Ramanujam Varada
Srinivasa Thatta" <acharyatvsr@xxxx> wrote:
> The name "Ayya" itself should have been derived from ARYA in
Sanskrit to
> address an exalted person (not to be confused with word Aryas and
Dravidas
> as used by Christian and Marxist historians to divide and rule).
> Even the word "Ayyar" or "Iyer", which is the title used by Tamil
speaking
> Vaideekas, should be a distorted form of "Aryar".
> I personally feel that the titles have more mundane origins rather
than some
> deep philosophical origins.
> Regards,
> Ramanujam.
>
-------------------------------------
Some more inputs from my little understanding of Tamil.
There is a sutra for Aryar in Tamil
"aaryar mlehchar nallOr enbathu idai-ch-cholaavaam/
aariyE kadhavu chozhan azhagodu mEnmaikkum pEr//
By this it is stated that Aryar are mlechchar, foreigners. Also means
good people. This is a clear indication to Aryar being different from
Tamil people. But the term has been used with 'aan' idai-ch-chol
(middle term)like aaryaan to denote people who are good natured. That
is in writing, it is not 'aaryanai' or 'aaryanukku. It is 'aaryAnai'
or aaryAnukku'. But this word has not been used anywhere to denote
Brahmins or vaidiks or learned persons. It is only to denote people
who did not belong to the Tamil country. This shows that they have
referred to only the aryans in the north of Vindhyas.
But there is a root word 'aari' in Tamil, which is the other name for
Chozha king and to any one who was great. Here also there has never
been any specific refernce to Brahmins.
In contrast,Aiyar has 'ai' root denoting chief or respectable person
(I have covered this in my previous mail on this topic)which when
connected with 'an' or 'ar' vighuthi to denote respect to the person
became aiyan or aiyar(like ai+an= aiyan. ai+ ar= aiyar)
Aiyan was originally (in olden texts)used to denote Lord Iyappan,
while resepctable persons were addressed to as 'ai' only. In course
of time, ai+ an = aiyan came into usage (poetry, prose and
colloquial) and used to denote anyone who was respectable and
deserved to be worshipped. That is how this word came to mean god as
well as learned Brahmins. Aiyan was used as aiya and aiyanE in
address in II person.
As you said, the term had been of mundane relevance and not of
philosophical, which was only later attributed (the 5 attributes).
This is proved by the 'punarchi' vidhi of Tamil grammar which has
rules for how words are to be joined. For numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc,
the rules are different. For instance if the term Iyengar were to
have originated from aindhu (no 5), it would have been ainkaar not
iyENgar, for the word aindhu becomes ain as in ainthiNAi (aindhi +
thiNAi), ainkurunooru (aindhu + kurumai + nooru), aimpaal (aindhu +
paal), aimpori (aindhu + pori) etc. But that the word has 'iyan'
shows that the derivative is not from aindhu (no 5), but from iyan.
If we were to say that it was aindhu + kaaryam or aindhu + angam,
then by grammar rule (which decides the way that such combinations
occur)it will be aingaaryam and aindhangam. Clearly, no 5 can not
have become the root of Iyengar. The 'an' vighuthi only makes the
difference.If it still be assumed that no 5 had been the basis, then
the other questions arise as to who coined this term and when -
which need to be answered.
Regards,
jayasree saranathan
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