As a young man I used to read extensively the Western philosophic classics
by way of noting the similarities and differences between Tamil and
Western. Then I noticed that it is the writings in Philosophic Hermeneutics
that parallels in some ways with the Tamil philosophies especially Saiva
We can understand better Meykandar Sastras if we equip ourselves
with a good knowledge of the Western classics in Philosophic Hermeneutics.
Let me summarize what I have said in many places and quite in detail:
1. As a young man I read quite extensively the phenomenological writings of
Husserl and the writings on Philosophic Hermeneutics by Heidegger, Gadamer,
Paul Ricouver and many others. I really enjoyed reading Heidegger’s
'Being and Time', Gadamer’s 'Truith and Method' and Paul Ricouver's
'Conflict of Interpretations' and so forth. I owe a lot to Heidegger’s
views on Time where he distinguishes between Temporality and physical
time which is, interestingly enough the same as Tolkaappiyar’s
KuRippu Kaalam and Cuddu Kaalam. Heidegger also showed that
the understanding is projective because of which it is temporal and so forth.
In Tolkaapiyam this notion exists as Nutippu, Nutalvatu etc.
2. Gadamer introduced the very interesting notion of fusion of horizons and
which gave an idea of the soul fusing in understanding with BEING as part
of its evolution towards Moksa etc. This notion of FUSION of Horizons is what
Tirumular calls Ottup Pootal and which also exists in Tolkaapiyam as in
Otta kaadci Utti. Here the fusion is Intentional Fusion, a central notion in Tamil Pedagogy.
The human understanding strives towards fusing with the understanding
of BEING and which is Civanjaanam There is a difference here. While Gadamer
sees the fusion of horizons as endless, in Siddhanta, soul comes to an end in
the evolution of understanding on reaching the Civanjaanam, the Absolute
Understanding.
3. Despite many similarities there are fundamental differences between the two
ancient traditions. I believe that the West has not gone beyond Philosophic
Hermeneutics and have not developed the Hermeneutic Sciences though the
works of Paul Ricouver may be in this direction. In Tolkaapiyam, we have
Hermeneutic Science(HS) developed as Utti Science where the notion of
Utti comes closest to the notion of ‘interpretation’ in the Western
Hermeneutics. However Utti means an interpretive movement of the mind
that brings about a clarity of understanding, a mental movement that ushers
in the SUN ( uti) so that the doubts and uncertainties disappear. This is
also understood as reducing the hold of Malam. This is the
Literary Hermeneutics of Tol, the Utti Science which also gets mentioned
in Kaudilya’s Artha Sastra. While the Vedantic tradition killed this Utti Science
in Sanskrit culture, fortunately the Tamils retained it. Even now there are many
studies of the various in literature poetry and so forth.
4. Now the greatest classic in the world on HS is Meykandar‘s Civajnaana Botham and which
developed Metaphysics as the most inclusive HS. Here we have the dream
of Husserl to transform Philosophy into a rigorous science already
accomplished beautifully. Not only that – in this Meykandar also transforms religion
into a field of science i.e. HS, an achievement that made Saivism Open and
critical. You can see that in all the Meykanda Sastras there are no authorities
in terms of Vedas, Agamas etc where the only authority is TRUTH as is the
case with all the sciences. The ideal is Mey KaaNal, Truth Seeing and the one
who has done it is a Mey Kandar. Once the mind moves in search of TRUTH
and nothing else, then it becomes Open, Logical, Self Critical and so forth. It is
not an accident that a student of Meykandar wrote the massive Siddhiyar
where almost all the different schools of Philosophy at that time are
deconstructed with Siddhanta shown as beyond deconstruction The Siddhanta
system is a system of axiomatic truths and hence already in the mind of all.
5. Now the greatest difference between the Europeans and Tamils is in
Ontology. While Heidegger recovered ontological investigations in the West
long lost since the days of the Greeks, but he or any other philosopher came
nowhere close to establishing the Fundamental Ontology of Pati, Pasu and
Paasam that Tirumular formulated first and Meykandar established as an
Axiomatic Truth later in his Botham, an achievement parallel to which there
is none in the world (as far as I can see). It is this accomplishment that
serves AruNandi to deconstruct all metaphysical systems in India at that time.
It is also this profound insight that allows us to deconstruct any Non Indian
metaphysics that is not triiadic . Now there were many sciences that
were developed by the Tamils presupposing this Triadism in which
Agamic Psychology is one. There are many branches as developed by the
Siddhas since the days of Tirumular all of which remain to be recovered and
cast into modern language and applied to solve the problems of
human sufferings and so forth.
( Note : Most of the Indological studies compared European philosophy
with the Vedantic philosophy. None has ever been compared with the
Tamil philosophy, which has unfortunately been ignored due to the world
fascination with Sanskrit and Vedantic. Ullaganar's study showers some
light on the Tamil philosophy and its comparision with both Western and
Vedantic. We hope now the world recognizes the enormous contribution
of the Tamils, beginning from the days of the Sumerians. )
( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )
( images from wikipedia with thanks )
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment