The contribution of Mauritius to Tamil language,culture, religion and the global Tamil diaspora

The Role of Temples

KRISH PONNUSAMY

FORMER SENIOR CHIEF EXECUTIVE

GOVERNMENT OF MAURITIUS

Thimidee

Thimidee is a ceremony celebrated island wide in Mariamen Kovils. Again, the rituals are strictly observed by all devotees, including those who would walk on fire. As a rule, the one carrying the karagam would be the first to walk on fire. The Mariamen kovil near my residence would, on Thimidee day, organize the Cavadee in the morning with an impressive procession starting from Sockalingum Meeneeatchee Amen kovil to Mariamen Kovil. The Cavadee would be followed in the afternoon by the walk on fire ceremony with the participation of hundreds of devotees, including those of other communities. Men, women and children would line up in religious fervour for the divine walk on fire at sunset. While the Thimidee continues to be organized once yearly in various localities, the one in Mariamen kovil of Port Louis remains the largest crowd puller.

Mariamen Canjee

Canjee ceremony is yet another very popular celebration of Ammen. Elaborate rituals are carried out at different periods in kovils, attended by numerous devotees. In Tamil Nadu, after the prayers, devotees would be offered the Canjee consisting only of boiled rice. Tamils in Mauritius have over the years embellished the ceremony both in terms of rituals and food preparation. From a nearby river, devotees carrying the manjal neer or pal kudam will proceed to the kovil for the Mariamen Talatu. After the prayers at around noon, Canjee is served as a full meal consisting of boiled rice mixed with yogurt, onion and spring onion, served on banana leaf with murunga kiirai, and kattarikkay (eggplant), coconut and other chutneys, sundal, fried chillies, accompanied by sarkkarai pongal, paal kozhukkattai and sliced fruits together with a cup of paanakam. Tamils have perfected the art of preparing Canjee. A kovil Canjee can attract as many as 2,000 persons. The Canjee ceremony is also organized at home as a family event. The Ammen cult is permanent in Mauritius.

Some 285 years ago, the first Tamils brought the idols of their deities which they placed under the trees and near ponds for common prayer in the sugar estate. They later constructed small kovils which have today been transformed into wonderful temples, representing the best of Dravidian architecture. Any visitor to Mauritius will immediately feel the presence of Tamils through the Kovils. Over a hundred kovils are registered with an umbrella organization called the Mauritius Tamil Temples Federation (MTTF, founded in 1957) which receives a financial grant from the government for distribution to the kovils and acts as an indispensable coordinating agency for all religious matters. All the ceremonies and festivals celebrated in Tamil Nadu are likewise celebrated here, Some of them are: Varusha Pirrapu, Thaipoosum and other Cavadees, Aadi Perukku, Govinden Thiruvizha, Navaratree, Krishna Jayanti, Vinayagar Chaturthi Vijaya Dasami, Deepavali, Nombu, Pongol, Maha Shivaratri and Panguni Uthiram. The religious calendar is full to the brim. It only shows the permanent bond which unites the Tamils with their religion.

One common factor in all kovils is the Friday prayer during which a bajanum session takes place and extracts from Thevaram, Thiruvasagam and Thiruppugazh are recited and sung. Some Kovils have their own specificities. For example, the majestic Amma Tookai kovil in the South. Each prayer session attracts large crowds from Tamils and other communities. It is the only kovil which allocates a whole day for the annual free distribution of sarees, followed by anandanam. All the kovils are generally well managed and follow the Dravidian tradition of organising a Maha kumbabishegam every 12 to 15 years. The financially strong temples are able to employ swamis from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka while other kovils employ trained locally achagars.

How have the Tamils fared in terms of official statistics?

The table below, which is extracted from the Population Census Reports, gives us alarming figures.

Gurunaden Vydelingum, former Deputy Director of Statistics and a prominent member of the Tamil League, has made the following remarks on those statistics. The accuracy of the official figures depends mostly on the responses given. The language of our forefathers is definitely Tamil. As far as language usually spoken at home is concerned, we must be true to ourselves and give the correct answer. Our religion is Tamil notwithstanding the debate whether Tamil is a religion or not. In case we mention something else, e.g Tamil Hindu, the response gets diluted and you are merged with the category ‘OTHER’.

In-depth debates have been initiated on how to improve the performance in all sectors. To this end, a number of Tamil organisations have been set up. Some of them like the Tamil League, the MTTF, the Hindu Maha Jana Sangham, the Union Tamoule de Maurice, regional Tamil Associations and Federations, Thiruvalluvar Circle, Hindu Band, Veeramundar Band, regional Tamil Ladies Associations, Tamil Speaking Union, Tamil Cultural Centre and ATMA have brought about a new awareness in pooling resources to improve the implementation of projects for a “Renaissance”. The results are encouraging.

Tamil Diaspora

Mauritius has undeniably maintained an umbilical relation with Tamil Nadu which has always been generous in sharing its values and wisdom together with its educational, religious and cultural gems with us. Imbued with the grandeur of the Tamil civilization, we have thus been able to produce talented singers of Carnatic music, bharanatyam dancers, Tamil, English and French book writers, artists in different fields, professionals in various disciplines along with the English and French of the Thirukural. One Tamil senior lecturer at the MGI, Dr Sangahramanie Manikkam, had the brilliant idea of translating in Tamil the French play TARTUFFE by the famous writer, Molière.

Direct flights between Mauritius and Chennai have brought us closer still. Moreover, we have been able to forge closer links with our immediate neighbours, Reunion Island and South Africa and the more distant countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, UK, France, Australia and Canada. We are proud to have sent our priests to Reunion Island, France and UK to officiate during Cavadee and Thimidee ceremonies. With Malaysia, we had excellent exchange programmes thanks to the collaboration between the Tamil League and a Malaysian Tamil senior lecturer, Paramasivam Muthusamy who incidentally wrote an excellent book “Mauritius Tamils-Language, Culture and Society’’ in Tamil and English.

Mauritius is the first country to have raised the Sri Lankan tragedy at the United Nations. Since Independence, Mauritius has hosted several international conferences and seminars on Tamil language, culture and religion and has likewise sent delegations to other countries. Those interactions have led us to examine perspectives for the Tamil community in a global manner. The Tamil League organised a regional conference on Tamil diaspora in 2007 under my chairmanship and the last major conference in Mauritius was the 2014 International Conference on Tamil Diaspora, organized under the aegis of Armoogum Parsuramen, our former Minister of Education and UNESCO director. He is also the main architect behind the International Thirukural Conference which has successfully conducted 28 international conferences by zoom, with talks from eminent Tamil personalities around the world. The ultimate objective is to propagate the immortal teachings of the saint poet Thiruvalluvar to the entire universe and to hold as early as possible an international conference at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris with a resolution to declare Thirukural as part of the UNESCO World Heritage.

With less than 300 years of contact with Tamil language, culture and religion, Mauritian Tamils are proud to pay a vibrant tribute to their ancestors and the thousands of unsung heroes. We are happy to have served the larger interests of the community, especially in this age of modern communication technologies. We are determined to bring our modest contribution to a strong, dynamic and innovative Tamil diaspora. This is our mantra.

Conclusion

There are undeniably a lot of challenges on our way. We stand a better chance to ride the waves if we remain united. One way to achieve unity is to set up a permanent Tamil Observatory to monitor effectively the progress of the community and help to shape our future generations. We hope this will be one of the resolutions of this conference.

The End

References

1. Addison J and Hazareesingh K, 1999. A New History of Mauritius.
2. Ammigan T, 2009. Pensées anciennes pour un monde nouveau-un code moral universel.
3. Chemen Jeevendiren, 2020. Thirukkural-A soul inspired pathway to virtuous living.
4. Duraisawmy Sivanandren, 1997. Remembering Hindu Traditions.
5. Karupudayyan Kavinien and Ahnee Marek, 2015. Le paysage intérieur – Psaumes tamouls, translated in French.
6. Manikkam Sangahramanie, 2014. A Transcreation in Tamil of Molière’s Le Tartuffe ou L’imposteur.
7. Muthusamy Paramasivan, 2010. Mauritius Tamils Language-Cuture-Society.
8. Parsuramen Armoogum and Peerthum Satyendra, 2022. In search of our Ancestors.
9. Sangeelee Mootoocomaren, 1998. Tiroukkoural in French.
10. Sooriamoorthy Ramoo. Les Tamouls de Maurice.
11. Tamil League publication, 2012. Lest we forget-biography of Tamilians, Mauritius.
12. Tamil Publication, 2007. Report of the International Conference on Tamil Diaspora.
13. Tiroumalechetty P, 2014. Tamil Cultural Identity in Mauritius.