Talk:Tamraparni/draft
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Tamraparni (Tamil/Sanskrit) is an ancient name of the river proximal to Tirunelveli of South India and Puttalam of North Western Sri Lanka and the name by which the entire island of Sri Lanka itself was known in the ancient world, with use dating to before the 6th century BC.[1] A toponym, the adjective "Tamraparniyan" is eponymous with the socio-economic and cultural history of this area and its people, centred in Sri Lanka and primarily connected by the Vedic- Siddhar sage Agastya, a highly influential linguist, medicine-maker and royal Hindu spiritual guru and poet established in proto era Sri Lanka, India and Indonesia. Movement of people across the Gulf of Mannar during the early Pandyan and Anuradhapura periods, between this Tirunelveli river of Pothigai, Kalputti of Puttalam, Northwest Sri Lanka, Manthai, Adam's Peak, Trincomalee of Northeast Sri Lanka and across the Indian Ocean via Java and Sumatra of Indonesia – in emulation of Agastya and his acolytes – led to the shared application of the name for the closely connected region and its Hindu-Buddhist culture, by the time of Vajrabodhi up until the late medieval period.[2] Demand for several of its native goods made Tamraparni a famous centre of global trade in the old world. The success of Tamraparniyan civilization is owed in large part to the impact of the Tamraparniyan sea route and this exchange is captured in literature and epigraphy from before the common era. Its legacy is observed most strikingly in the present day in philosophical and spiritual discourse, alchemy, astronomy, law, worship, architecture, the arts, jewellery and couture, place names, irrigation and agriculture, metallurgy, cuisine, language, script, science and medicinal practices of the region. This huge impact of Agastya's research, cultivation and teachings, earning him the title "Tamir Muni" – a godfather sage of Tamraparnism – has led traditions and lineages across the continent to claim descent from him, although his family and acolytes were some of the earliest architects of Hinduism in Sri Lanka. Robert Caldwell, who states "Tamraparni" to be Sri Lanka's oldest known historical name, dates Agastya to at least the 7th – 6th century BC based on the Pandyans rule over the region in the advent of Vijaya and Kuveni, with Buddhist, Vedic and Tamil literature dating him earlier, to the neolithic age. Tamraparniyan spirituality transformed societies across ancient India, to Greece in the west, China in the North to Indonesia in the East. Tamraparni is a rendering of the original Tamil name Tān Poruṇai of the Sangam period, "the cool toddy palm-wine" river.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
This article possibly contains original research. (July 2019) |