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Manonmaniam Sundaram
Pillai
1855 - 1897
V.Sundaram
11 February 2008, Newstoday
The creator of great modern Tamil play
Manonmaniam and the composer of official Tamil
anthem of Neeradum
Kadaludutha of today Professor P Sundaram
Pillai (1855-1897) was one of the most
distinguished men of Tamil letters in the latter
half of the 19th century. Manonmaniam was written
by him in 1891. Thereafter he came to be called
Manonmaniam Sundaram Pillai.
The prayer song Tamizh Thai Vazhthu was first
published by him as the invocation to his play,
Manonmaniam. Nearly 80 years later, it was adopted
as the official prayer song of Tamilnadu by the
State government in June 1970.
His contribution to the cause of Tamil learning,
literature and research was made in the midst of an
active professorial life. His genius has manifested
itself both in critical and creative writing of a
high order. P Sundaram Pillai was born on 5 April,
1855. His father Perumal Pillai was a trader in
Alappuzha (Alleppey) in Kerala to which his
ancestors had migrated from Tamilnadu. Raja Kesava
Dasan (1745-1799) (Valiya Dewanji), the famous
Dewanji of Travancore who is known as the
�Maker of modern
Alleppey�, made Alappuzha a
premier port town of Travancore. It was he who
constructed the Alappuzha port and brought two
Vellala families from Tirunelveli to Travancore in
the 1840s for account keeping.
One was Arjunan Pillai of Vadakkekara and the
other Perumal Pillai of Thekkekara. Sundaram Pillai
was the son of Perumal Pillai and Madathy Ammal.
Early in his childhood, his father initiated him
into the study of famous Tamil works like Thevaram,
Thirukkural and Thiruvachakam of
Manikkavachakar.
Sundaram Pillai studied at the
Maharaja�s College in
Thiruvananthapuram from where he graduated in 1876
after a brilliant academic career. He then joined
the staff of his own college in 1876 and showed
great promise. In 1877, he was appointed as the
headmaster of the Anglo-Vernacular School in
Tirunelveli which soon became a Second Grade
College, known as the M D T Hindu College. He
became the first Principal of this college in 1878.
In 1879 he went back to the
Maharaja�s College on the
retirement of his master Dr Harvey and succeeded
him as professor of Philosophy. He continued to
occupy that chair till his death, except for a
short period of Government service.
As a professor, Sundaram Pillai soon gained
reputation for efficiency and brilliance. His
profound knowledge of the subject and clear
exposition of both Western and Indian philosophy
endeared him to students who held him in reverence.
He was also a keen student of history and
archaeology in which he made original and valuable
research which resulted in his lectures on The
Early Sovereigns of Travancore. At his instance the
Travancore government headed by Dewan Rama Iyengar
established a epartment of Archaeology in which he
served in an honorary capacity.
In addition, Sundaram Pillai had a passion for
English and Tamil literature and modern science. In
reality, he belonged to the now vanished type of
versatile scholars of which Poondi Ranganatha
Mudaliar, Rangacharya and V G Suriyanarayana Sastri
(Parithimal Kalaignar) were well known
representatives in Madras of that period. While he
was in Tirunelveli, Sundaram Pillai came under the
influence of Sundara Swamigal of Kodaganallur, a
famous saint, mystic and Adwaita scholar of that
generation, at whose feet he learnt Vedanta and
Hindu philosophy. He regarded him as his guru to
the very end of his life and has immortalised him
in his play.
Sundaram Pillai�s love of Tamil
took him into the field of research in the history
of Tamils and their ancient literature. In his
time, the history of the Tamils, their language and
literature, and especially their chronology were
still in their infancy. A number of European
scholars, most of whom were Christian missionaries
had begun to do their pioneering work in this
field.
Bishop
Caldwell�s epoch-making book, The
Comparative Dravidian Grammar had been
published in 1856. In its introduction, he had
elaborated certain theories and views about the
antiquity of the Tamil language and literature and
their special features. Caldwell took the view on
the materials then available to him that there
could not have been any Tamil literature before the
9th Century AD and that the earliest and greatest
of the four Saiva Samayacharyas �
Saint
Tirugnanasambandar lived about the close of the
13th century. To quote the appropriate words of A V
Subramania Aiyar in this context:
�These and similar views of
Dr Burnell and other European scholars provoked
Sundaram Pillai into writing his thesis on Some
milestones in the history of Tamil literature or
The Age of Tirugnanasambanda. In it he has shown
with a wealth of knowledge and sound argument
that the saint should have lived in the 7th
Century AD. This conclusion has since been
confirmed by other evidence and finally accepted
by modern scholars. This essay and his book on
early Travancore kings and other papers
constitute research work of a very high
order.�
Besides this, Sundaram Pillai translated into
English three of the ten poems of Pathupattu, including the
longest, Maduraikanchi and
Tirumurugarruppadai.
Valuable even as his research studies in several
fields were, yet Sundaram Pillai�s
greatest achievement lay in the field of creative
writing, both in prose and poetry. His work
Manonmaniam which was a poetical drama of over
4,500 lines was published in 1891.
This great work of drama met with a warm public
reception. Rich tributes were paid by eminent Tamil
scholars of that time. Sundaram Pillai in his
preface stated: �Among the rich
and varied forms of poetic composition extant in
the Tamil language, the dramatic type, so
conspicuous in Sanskrit and English, does not seem
to find a place. The play here submitted to the
public is a humble attempt to see, whether the
defect may not be easily removed.�
Sundaram Pillai himself made it clear that
Manonmaniam was a literary play which was meant to
be read aloud and not staged. It was written in the
old Tamil metres, mostly in the Ahaval form which
he handled with unusual dexterity, dignity and
power.
Though the play Manonmaniam contained many
modern ideas about love, patriotism etc, yet it
embodied in fine language, the poetic style and the
atmosphere of the drama in a truly classical
manner. What is interesting to note is that for his
theme Sundaram Pillai went to a Victorian English
poet and novelist
Lord Bulwer Lytton (1803-1873) . Sundaram
Pillai�s classic play was based
upon Lord Lytton�s poem
The Secret Way found in his
Lost Tales of Miletus. Sundaram Pillai did his
literary adaptation in such a clever and subtle
fashion that the foreign origin of the story cannot
easily be seen.
I can clearly see that Sundaram Pillai when he
wrote his classic Manonmaniam was swayed by the
philosophy, eloquence and elemental passion for
ancient history of Lord Bulwer Lytton.
Lytton�s work embodied some of the
most significant intellectual currents of the 19th
Century. Influenced by the approach of Lytton,
Sundaram Pillai treated intelligently and
interestingly perennial themes of good and evil, of
freedom and despotism, egoism and altruism, life
affirmation and the power of will. He found fertile
material in the dialectic of egoism and
idealism.
Sundaram Pillai�s exquisite
description of the extraordinary loveliness of
nature in all its forms in his Manonmaniam was also
inspired by the following description of Lord
Lytton:
�It was a dark and stormy
night or to give the sentence in its full glory:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in
torrents � except at occasional
intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust
of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in
London that our scene lies), rattling along the
housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty
flame of the lamps that struggled against the
darkness.�
Through his extraordinary genius Sundaram Pillai
created the atmosphere of the ancient Tamil land in
his Manonmaniam and made his vital and vibrant
characters belong to the native soil. Though the
Pandya
and Chera
royal families are mentioned, the play was not a
historical one. To quote A V Subramania Aiyar once
again:
�Manonmaniam develops a
purely romantic story with well knit plots and an
array of firmly drawn characters. It has many
superb poetical passages and songs, of which the
Sivakami Charitham (again an adaptation of
Goldsmith�s Hermit) is the
most exquisite in its language, music and
import.�
Considered from the point of view of its poetry
and dramatic art, it is Shakespearean in its
general pattern and takes the first place among the
few Tamil poetical plays that now exist. A Tamil
treatise on science and philosophy on original
lines in prose, called Noorrogai Vilakkam was
Sundaram Pillai�s next outstanding
achievement. In this book he pleaded for a
widespread diffusion of Western culture and modern
scientific thought and an intelligent understanding
of our own religion and philosophy. The Madras
University of British India freely availed itself
of his services. The government honoured him with
the title of Rao Bahadur in recognition of his
services to Tamil language, culture and literature.
When he was at the height of fame and intellectual
power he passed away in April 1897, causing a
permanent void in the world of Tamil letters. He
will live forever in the legends and annals of
Tamil literature. Manonmaniam Sundaranar
University will serve as a fitting monument to
his glory and memory.
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