The Formation of Seminal Fluid and Ovum.
The scientific character and remarkable accuracy of observations pertaining to the genesis of the ovum are quite amazing really. I doubt very much whether at about the time of Tirumular (4th-5th cent AD) there were other texts in the world related to gynecology such as this. If there were, even in Kashmir, I will be happy to learn about them.
The tone of the verses and the use of technical terms like ‘eez taatu” and so forth also indicate that there were already many texts related to this discipline but which unfortunately have not reached us. However I must mention that there are many ancient texts like JivooRpatti Cintamani and so forth, which provide more details. We have also a massive text but a very late one, probably 17th cent. -Njanaveddiyan- which also has many details about fertilization, the growth of the fetus and so forth.
Perhaps there are many such other texts still in manuscript form and which if studied will throw immense light on the sciences the Tamils developed in the deep past.
The processes in the body that result in the genesis of the ovum must be seen against the cosmic gynecology where BEING remains the Potu Vittu, the most general and universal SEED of all generative processes.
The human is just a local expression of something universal and where BEING is present at the depths as the agent of all.
While the technical terms may not be sufficiently precise but such observations as ovum emerging from the blood and so forth and that it stays active for 21 days and so forth are quite accurate, I think, and something that will be condoned even by modern studies though they may not agree with Tirumular that BEING is there as the real agent of all. They may not also agree with Tirumular that the human gynecology is only a local expression of the general universal cosmic gynecology and that we get to understand exhaustively a local phenomena such as human gynecology only by relating it to the cosmic.
In the Hermeneutic science of Tirumular we do not have theoretic thinking from which we generate hypothesis to be refuted and so forth. The local is penetrated into and the DEPTHS reached and seeing the phenomena as a TEXT, the observable is taken as the Surface Structure and which has the features it has because of the Deep Structure that remains along with it at the depths configuring everything so that SS has the features it has.
This is UNDERSTANDING a phenomena and in which the inherent IGNORANCE about it destroyed. The phenomena becomes something TRANSLUCENT, like a book that one has read and understood quite well and hence without any more mysteries or opacities about it.
11.
1933.
அருந்திய அன்னம் அவை மூன்று கூறு ஆம்
பொருந்தும் உடல் மனம் போம் மலமென்னத்
திருந்தும் உடல் மன மாங்கூறு சேர்ந்திட்டு
இருந்தன முன்னாள் இரத மதாகுமே
உரை:
உலகில் விளங்கும் நாதவிந்துக்கள் உட்கொளத்தகும் உணவாக மாமாயையைத் திரித்து உதவ, அவை உடலோடு பொருந்திய உயிர்களால் உட்கொளப்படும்போது, அவை சீரணமாகி தசைகள் என்றும் மனத்திற்குரிய ஞானசக்தி என்றும் கழிபொருட்களாகிய மலம் என்றும் திரியும். இவ்வாறு திரிவதற்கு முன், உணவிலிருந்து பிழியப்பட்ட சாரமாக, இந்த மூன்று கூறுகளையும் பிரியாவகை தன்னுள் கொண்ட இரதமாக இருக்கும்.
11.
1933.
aruntiya annam avai muunRu kuuRu aam
poruntum udal manam poom malamennat
tiruntum udal mana maaGkuuRu ceerntiddu
iruntana munnaaL irata mataakumee
Meaning:
The Natam and Vintu of the world transforms the Maamaayai into edible food stuffs, which when eaten by the jivas with a body, get transformed into three kinds of stuff - the tissues that go into building up the body, the power that serves the Manam or the cognitive tools and the excreta that gets thrown off from the body. But before such transformations the essences extracted from the food taken in, remains in the body as a kind of fluid or juice containing within these three possibilities.
12.
1934.
இரத முதலான ஏழ்தாது மூன்றின்
உரிய தினத்தின் ஒரு புற் பனிபோல்
அரிய துளி விந்துவாகும் ஏழ்மூன்றின்
மருவிய விந்து வளருங் காயத்திலே
உரை:
இரதம் முதலாகத் தோன்றும் தாதுக்கள் ஏழாகும் - இரதம், உதிரம் , எலும்பு , தோல், இறைச்சி, மூளை, சுக்கிலம் என்பவற்றில், இரதம் உதிரம் சுக்கிலம், குறிப்பட்ட காலத்தில் , ஓர் புல்லின் மேல் நிற்கும் பனித்துளி போல், ஓர் அரிய துளி இன்னொரு உயிரை உற்பவிக்கத் தரும் சீவவித்து வாகும். இந்த சீவவித்து, கருதரிக்க வல்ல ஓர் பெண் உடம்பில் இருபத்து மூன்று நாட்கள் இருந்து வளர்ந்து (பின் சிதைந்து விழும்)
12.
1934.
irata mutalaana eeztaatu muunRin
uriya tinattin oru puR panipool
ariya tuLi vintuvaakum eezmuunRin
maruviya Vintu vaLaruG kaayattilee
Meaning:
The elementary bodily stuffs are: the essence-fluid, blood, bone marrow, skin, flesh tissues, brain matter and the seminal fluid. Out of these and from the three, essence-fluid, blood and seminal fluid, in appropriate time emerges the ovum like dew on the blade of grass. It stays (in the body of a woman) for twenty-one days (and after which it disintegrates and leaves the body)
Comments:
After dealing with the most general and cosmological processes underlying the gynecological, in these two verses Tirumular comes to the details of how these cosmic mechanisms are at work and generate the OVUM, called here the drop-seed, the tuLi Vintu in the human body. With an amazing scientific accuracy for that period in time, he notes that the food taken in gets transformed into three kinds of Taatu- the elementary building blocks of the body and out of these the food-essence, blood and seminal fluid bring forth the OVUM that lasts (in the body of a female) for 21 days and after which it gets disintegrated and rejected form the body.
It is implied that the anna-rasam, the fluid-like extract from the food already contains within it, the Cosmic Seed, the Potu Vittu and gets localized here as the ovum. It is also implied by this that BEING remains all along the POWER behind it all just as in the case of the cosmos as a whole.
Taking the human body as his local stage, BEING enacts the drama of generating the OVUM, drop-like seed, that has the capacity to produce out of itself another life form and with that help in the process of perpetuating the species.
Loganathan @ Ullaganar
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