When a Language Becomes a Mother/Goddess
An Image Essay on Tamil
Most dramatically, Bhārat Mātā’s body sometimes completely replaces the map of India, her sari, her limbs, and her hair tracing out the familiar shape of the country, as in Figures 12 and Figure 13:
In such pictures and images, many of which circulated in the Tamil country, some even originating there, Bhārat Mātā lays claim to Indian national territory as its sole embodiment, symbol and sign. The outline map of India (whole or partial, roughly drawn or finely sketched) plays a critical role in visually enabling such a claim to be staged. It is this claim to sole proprietorship that Tamiḻttāy increasingly challenged as Tamil nationalism grew in strength over the course of the first half of the twentieth century, and as it questioned the very existence of a unitary state called India of which Tamilnadu was deemed an inevitable part. What is worth underscoring is the use of scientific cartographic instruments—maps and globes—to visually wage this struggle.
Consider, for example, an illustration that appeared in 1966 in a Tamil textbook meant for school children (Figure 14):
In this illustration, Tamiḻttāy stands proudly as a four-armed goddess, a large halo radiating rays around her head. In two of her four hands, she holds books, the gift of Tamil knowledge as embodied in the sacred texts Tiruvacākam and Nālāyiram, sacred to the Saiva and Vaishnava communities of the region. She is also elaborately adorned with the various “jewels” of Tamil literature, the titles of many of which are inscribed in the picture. Most saliently for a principal argument of this image-essay though, Mother Tamil’s body occupies the entirety of the map of India (whose northern, western and eastern borders have all disappeared), one of her toes even reaching out to claim a part of the Tamil-speaking part of the island of Sri Lanka that we know as Jaffna.
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Figure 14
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The school child who looked at this picture in 1966 also read an accompanying 4-page lesson in which Tamiḻttāy herself introduces the language to its young speaker: “I am dear Tamil, your mother. I am also called Tamiḻ Aṇaṅku as well as Tamiḻ Teyvam [Tamil goddess].” She tells her “children” that for two hundred years, she had been ignored and cast aside by them while they had paid allegiance to the foreigner, Queen English. In that process they had forgotten her primeval presence in the country, and that she had been raised by the divine Agastya himself who had fed her on the honey of iyal (literature), the fine milk of icai (music), and the sweet candy of nāṭakam (drama), as she frolicked in the cool waters of Courtalam and played on the southern Potiyam mountains touched by the gentle southern breeze. As she grew, she received homage from the ancient Tamil kings of the Pandya, Chola and Chera domains, as well as from poets and learned savants who adorned her glowing body with numerous jewels. Thus, the poet Ilango Adigal composed the Cilapatikāram, a story about a stolen anklet, which now adorns her feet. Another poet Cittalai Sattanar had written the Manimēkalai, “the jeweled girdle,” which she wears around her waist, and so on. During the reign of Queen English, however, her children having turned indifferent to her, Tamiḻttāy began to waste away: she was cast into the prison of colonialism for two hundred years where she languished in darkness. When Bhārat Mātā was liberated through the heroic actions of her patriots, Tamiḻttāy as well was liberated from her cell. She now flourishes as her children have once again started to adorn her with new jewels, and her reign has been re-established.
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