Mavittapurm, Keeramalai And Some Questions Raised By Place-Names Folk Lore
Prof. Chandre Dharmawardana
In an interesting recent internet article published in dbsjeyaraj.com, Ms. Dushyanthini Kanagasabapathipillai has repeated one version of an old anecdotal explanation of the place-name “Mavittapuram”. This story is somewhat in the same tradition as the story given to “explain” the place-name “Yalpanam” in terms of a blind lute player; the latter story does not find favour with historians as well as older authorities like Fr. Rasanayagam.
The story regarding ‘Mavittapuram’ claims that ‘Ma’ could refer to horse in Tamil, while ‘Vitta’ could be construed to mean ‘removed’, while ‘puram’ (Sanskrit, ‘Pura’ and ‘(p)Ur’ in old Tamil) means city. So the intriguing ‘horse-removed-city’ name is substantiated with the following story:
“A teenage Chola Princess in South India was cursed by a ‘Muni’ (a sage ) who was angered when he was laughed at by the princess – clearly a very spiteful sage! In some versions of the story, the sage had a “horse-like” face and it was this that caused the princess to laugh at the sage. The curse turned the face of the princess into that of a horse. In order to undo the curse, the princess had to come to Lanka and bathe at the Keerimalai sacred springs, and offer penance to Lord Murugan”.
However, we should consider the old Tamil word ‘maavital’, and also the word ‘mavita’ in Sanskrit, signifying ‘bound’, ‘marked-of’ or ‘tied together’ (Monier-Williams Sanskrit dictionary) before re-invoking this traditional but far fetched horse-removed-city name? Perhaps the legendary story fits better with Dushianthini K’s interest in presenting her story associated with the Murugan temple. Nevertheless, it is important to look at a more prosaic, if less exciting point of view that may be closer to reality. Of course, there is no water-tight proof of any of these explanations about place-names unless we can find clenching literary or archeological evidence. Such support is available only rarely. But it is not difficult to recognize pure folk-lore for what they are.
