The Navhind Times I Sunday June 18, 2017
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4 Views & Analysis
SPICMACAY provides
an opportunity
for thousands of
volunteers to work for
the promotion of Indian
culture
Knkaapura
hhTensing Rodrigues is engaged
in research on Konkani Language
and People
There exists a strong
body of evidence to
support the thesis
that there did exist
Konkani texts prior
to the arrival of the
Portuguese
Why Modi must listen
to SPICMACAYs beats
Mark Tully
S
tudent politics these days
centres on nationalism
which divides campuses
provoking battles, police
intervention, and even al-
legations of sedition. I heard Prime
Minister Narendra Modi speaking
by video-conferencing to stu-
dent nationalists on strengthen-
ing the unity of India by spread-
ing knowledge and indeed love
of Indian culture. There were the
1,200 students attending the 5th
five-day International Conference
of SPICMACAY, The Society for the
Promotion of Indian Classical Music
And Culture Amongst Youth. The
Prime Minister told these students
music and culture could a big step
towards ending divisions and play-
ing a vital role in connecting India.
Since journalists are obsessed
with controversies, Modi speaking
on an occasion no one could object
to got little notice on TV or in the
papers. In my view SPICMACAY has
never had the notice it deserves for
its remarkable achievements. It has
850 chapters spread all over India,
and over the last three years they
have organised some 1,500 events,
mainly concerts. Most events are
held in schools. SPICMACAY pro-
vides an opportunity for thousands
of volunteers to work for the pro-
motion of Indian culture. There are
only three paid employees.
Perhaps the low profile of
SPICMACAY has something to do
with the low profile its founder
Kiran Seth adopts. While reading
mechanical engineering at Co-
lumbia University in America he
was dragged reluctantly to hear a
concert given by Aminuddin Dagar.
He emerged walking on air. When
he returned to teach at IIT Delhi
40 years ago he was determined
to convey his new found passion
to others. But only five students
turned up for the first concert
he arranged and three of those
walked out before the end. Unde-
The Konkani Adiparva
Tensing Rodrigues
S
ukhthankar must have been
saddened after realising
that his colossal effort to
collate all available manu-
scripts of Mahabharata
for the BORI Critical Edition, he
was still missing a manuscript of
Konkani Adiparva. As he mentions
in his Prolegomena, he accessed
235 manuscripts of the Adiparva,
of which 107 were in the Devana-
gari script, 32 in Bengali, 31 in
Grantha (Tamil), 28 in Telugu, 26
in Malayalam, 5 in Nepali, 3 in
Sarada, 1 in Maithili, 1 in Kannada
and 1 in Nandinagari. But we now
know that there did exist a Konkani
Adiparva in Goa; fragments of the
same in Roman script have been
found in a codex of the writings of
Christian missionaries of the 16th
and 17th centuries [Codex 771 in
Braga Library, originally from Ra-
chol Seminary]. Was it merely oral
till the missionaries recorded it?
Almost certainly not! There exists a
strong body of evidence to support
the thesis that there did exist Kon-
kani texts prior to the arrival of the
Portuguese, and even much earlier.
In his Oriente Conquistado a Jesu
Christo Pelos Padres da Companhia
de Jesus da Provincia de Goa, Fr
Francisco de Sousa S J writes: This
year (1576) eight brothers had
joined the Salcete College to study
the Canarin language, Father Rec-
tor had further ordered that the
following shall be done very strin-
gently: every day practice with the
natives during the specified hours
and learn to read and write in the
script used by the natives. The
phrase read and write in the script
used by the natives in the above
passage makes it amply evident
that the natives wrote in Konkani
in a native script [de Sousa, 1710:
Oriente Conquistado a Jesu Christo
Pelos Padres da Companhia de
terred Kiran persevered, build-
ing SPICMACAY quietly, shunning
publicity for himself, an example of
nishkaam seva as the Prime Minis-
ter pointed out.
Its sad but not surprising that a
good news story centred on a man
as modest as Kiran escapes the
notice of the press. But its shame-
ful that its been virtually ignored
by the government. SPICMACAY
doesnt have an annual grant. Its
volunteers have to do go down
on their knees to extract a com-
paratively meagre sum each year.
They depend mainly on donations
Jesus da Provincia de Goa, Vol. 2,
105].
It also suggests that such litera-
ture was in the possession of the
missionaries. We have conveniently
brushed aside the mystery of dis-
appearance of the pre-16th century
Konkani literature, laying the blame
on the all-encompassing fire in
which the Portuguese conquerors
are believed to have reduced the
native culture to ashes. But where
did the Konkani treasures in the
possession of the missionaries go?
An even larger question remains;
the slash and burn method of con-
version was used only in the Velhas
Conquistas Ilhas de Goa, Salcete
and Bardez. By the time the rest
of Goa Novas Conquistas: Antruz
navhindart@gmail.com
including a sizeable contribution
from the Norwegian government
and the generosity of the artists
who perform for a pittance. The
Santoor player Pandit Shiv Kumar
Sharma always hands back his
cheque and wherever Pandit Hari
Prasad Chaurasia goes for a public
concert he finds time to play in
a school. The flautist has been
performing for SPICMACY since its
beginning.
The culture the Prime Minister
was talking about when he praised
SPICMACAY encouraged the reali-
sation that we are one with nature,
with the Mahadevans analysis of
(Ponda), Sanguem, Quepem, Cana-
cona(1764), Pernem, Bicholim and
Sattari(1783) was acquired by the
Portuguese, the fury of evangelisa-
tion had died out; and the Inquisi-
tion had lost its teeth by then.
For had a manuscript of Kon-
kani Adiparva been found by
Sukhthankar, it would have entered
into the BORI Critical Edition of Ma-
habharata, and we, following Ma-
hadevan, would have been able to
trace more accurately the itinerary
of the Konkani bramhana. It is now
for a serious researcher to take
up the critical comparison of the
available fragments of Konkani Adi-
parva and the versions contained in
the BORI Critical Edition.
Till then we have to make do
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the understanding that material
needs are important but are only
part of a fulfilling life. The students
attending the SPICMACAY conven-
tion lived the way Modi would
have them live. They started their
days at 4 a.m. with three hours
of yoga. That was followed by
shramdaan, cleaning the venue.
Then students interacted with
artists and heard performances.
What more does a prime minis-
ter who established World Yoga
Day and launched a campaign to
clean India want to persuade him
this is a venture worth support-
difference between the Malayalam
the migrations of the bramhana
into the southern peninsula. We
said earlier that there are two dis-
tinct families of Mahabharata ver-
sions in the south: the Malayalam
and the Tamil-Telugu.
The Malayalam version of the
Southern Recension (SR) is far
shorter than the Telugu-Tamil ver-
sions of the SR; it also aligns better
with the Sarada text of the North-
ern Recension (NR). The itinerary of
migrations that Mahadevan derives
from this is as follows: two dis-
tinct waves of Brahmans arrived
in the Tamil-Kerala country in the
pre-modern period from the Vedic
regions of Northern India. The
first wave of bramhana carrying
the Sarada text entered the Telugu
territory crossing the Vindhya and
from there moved into the Tamil
territory around 50 BCE, whom
Mahadevan calls purvasikha bram-
hana on account of their tradition
of wearing their hair tuft in front.
Around 4th to 7th century CE a
branch of the purvasikha bramhana
moved to the Malabar region of
Kerala through the Palghat gaps to
become the nambudiri bramhana of
Kerala. A second group of brmhana,
that Mahadevan designates as the
aparasikha bramhana, on account
of their tradition of wearing their
hair tuft at the back, began to ar-
rive at the upper-peninsula regions
from 5th century CE onward, reach-
ing the Tamil country proper in
significant numbers by 8th century
CE. They carried a Mahabharata
text that is longer and aligns better
with text of NR, which eventually
yielded the Telugu-Tamil versions
of the SR. It is important to re-
member here that the Sarada text,
derived from the text, is shorter
than the text of NR.
Where Mahadevan probably
makes a mistake is in opting for
a roundabout explanation of the
ing? What more did the press need
to attract them to the opening
night of the SPICMACAY conven-
tion than the opportunity to hear
Girja Devi, the Queen of Thumri,
sing. She was followed by violin-
ist Vidwan TN Krishnan and his
daughter Krishnan playing together
as though they knew exactly what
was going on in each others minds.
The musicians did connect North
and South India. Girja Devi belongs
to the Banaras Gharana and the
Krishnans are from the Carnatic, or
South Indian musical tradition.
(HT Media)
and the Tamil-Telugu versions of SR
by making the purvasikha bram-
hana move to Malayalam territory
around 4th to 7th century CE, to be
replaced simultaneously with apar-
asikhabramhana in the Tamil-Telugu
territory. A much simpler, yet more
realistic, hypothesis would be to
suppose that two different groups
of bramhana travelled to Malay-
alam and Tamil-Telugu territories,
first a group of bramhana from the
Sarada/ text territory (the Kuru
realm) travelling to Kerala and later
another group from the text terri-
tory (the Magadha realm) travel-
ling to the Tamil-Telugu territory.
That fully explains the difference
between the Malayalam and the
Tamil-Telugu versions of SR, and
makes better geographical sense
as well.
Historically there has been a
movement of people from the
western Indo-Gangetic plain south-
wards along the Konkan coast (to
Thane-Sopara, for instance), and
from the eastern Indo-Gangetic
plain into the Telugu territory, via
Kalinga (Orissa). The possibility that
the bramhana carrying the Sarada
text travelled to the Malabar coast
by sea is rather too strong. Accord-
ing to Aiyangar, during the reign
of the Kadamba king Mayurasarma
(early 4th century CE), bramhana
settled first at Gokarnam in South
Kanara, where they were made to
shave their hind lock and to grow it
on the front their migration to the
south from this centre must have
taken place during the 6th and 7th
centuries. [Aiyangar, 1914: Tamil
Studies, 348]
Could it be that the Konkani
bramhana too did the same? Gokar-
nam is, after all, nit too far from
Kusasthali. It is interesting to note
that both the Konkani bramhana
and the Malabari bramhana claim
their allegiance to Parsurama.