Ramanuja Kavirayar

Ramanuja Kavirayar (1780, Ramanathapuram – 1853, Madras) was a Tamil savant and poet. Living in Madras, at that time the scene of the literary labours of several eminent Tamil scholars, many of whom were his own students, he dominated the world of Tamil letters.

Ramanuja Kavirayar pioneered the work of bringing Tamil classics into print for the first time, and wrote commentaries on some of them. He was also a poet. His greatest service, however, like that of Minakshisundaram Pillai, was as a teacher of Tamil. He trained a band of fine native Tamil scholars and was guru or munshi (the term then current to denote language teachers) to many of the European Tamil scholars in Madras between 1820 and 1853.

Few details of Ramanuja Kavirayar’s early life are known. His father was one Rangien as stated in a verse at the end of a Tamil translation of a Sanskrit work called ‘Atmabodham’. Ramanujam was a contemporary of Ashtavadhanam Peria Saravanaperumal Kavirayar of Ramanathapuram. Both of them learnt Tamil at the feet of Somasundaram Pillai, a deeply learned and religious man, one of the 12 personal disciples of the celebrated Sivagnana Swamigal.

Ramanuja Kavirayar was the guru of Dr George Uglow Pope (1820–1908), a Christian missionary who spent many years in Tamil Nadu and translated many Tamil texts into English. His popular translations include ‘Tirukkural’ and ‘Tiruvachagam’. His efforts were recognised by the Royal Asiatic Society in the form of a gold medal. He served as the principal of the Bishop Cotton Boys School, Bangalore, before returning to Oxford in the late 1880s.

Dr Pope has given currency to an interesting story relating to Ramanuja Kavirayar, which throws some light on his early life.

My first teacher of Tamil (Ramanuja Kavirayar) was a most learned scholar long dead (peace to his ashes) who possessed more than any man I have known, the cleverness, ingenium perfervidum. He was a profound and zealous Vaishnavite. I remarked one day about a long white line or scar on his neck, where his rosary of Eleocarpus beads are hung and ventured to ask him (I had to wait for such occasions for the mollia temporafandi) its history.

Well, said he, "When I was a boy I could learn nothing. Nothing was clear to me and I could remember nothing. But I felt my whole soul full of intense love of learning. So in despair, I went to a temple of Saraswathi (the goddess of learning) and with a passionate prayer, I cut my throat and fell bleeding at her feet. In a vision she appeared to me and promised I should become the greatest of Tamil scholars. I recovered, and from that day, by her grace I found all things easy and I am what she said I should be. I believe he was so and from that noble, enthusiastic teacher I learnt to love Tamil and to reverence its ancient professors."

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