KOMBU- TUSK- HORN-BRANCH The word KOMBU in Malayalam and Tamil has first meaning asHorn. Though elephants have tusks different from horn, still while talking wesay- Kombanana for male elephant.
Tusk is extension ofteeth and grown from mouth. Horn is grown from skull and we can say extensionof skull. With this difference, we can understand why the animalshaving horns are sensitive on touching it. Both horn and tusk continue to growtill the end of life. In very simple wordshorse has no horns due to mutation in genes. I was recollecting my purchase of a set of wooden elephantsfrom a roadside shop in Trivandrum- One male, one female and an infant. He hadfitted with some white material tusks. On reaching home I found one tusk was notthere. How to keep in show case? As expected my wife blamed for my carelessnessand I rushed again to the shop. Smilingly he gave twohorns at no cost.After placing thehorns firmly in the holes I kept it in the show case. To cut short, when I cameto Chennai, I was specific to take the horns in my bag while packing andfitting on reaching. Whereas Asian elephants have tusks for males and theta(appearing as small tusk) forfemales sometimes, African female elephants also have tusk. When the growth is more, tusks are cut after taking theirpermission of those domesticated. I have seen a TV show of taking permission,their nodding, pooja and cuttingtusk using hacksaw within minutes. I could gather permission is only forone or two minutes. Whether extension ofteeth as tusk or extension of skull, as horn animals uses horn them for theirdefending when attacked. We have the legend of Deer sage RISHYA SRINGA, having hornsin the head. He conducted the Puthrakamaishti yagya for king Dasaratha, on theadvice of Royal priest sage Vasistha. In fact king DASARATHA HAD A DAUGHTERSANTHA THROUGH QUEEN KOUSALYA and gave in adoption to king Lomapada. SageRishyasringa was brought to conduct homa to get rain in the dried out lands inthe country, and later Santha was given in marriage to sage Rishya sringa. A beautiful Malayalam film VAISALI depicts this story. In short PuthrakamaIshtiyagya was performed by his son-in-law for Dasaratha- We know the story of the broken tusk of Lord Vinayaka. VEDAVYASA wanted Ganesato write the Vedas after codification. Ganesa agreed on specified conditions.He started writing breaking one of his tusks. There isscientific explanations for the horns of Rhinos, branching of horn in deer’setc. A small tree branch is often called Kombu. Cutting treebranches is called Kombu murikkal. A saying relating to it- IRIKKUNNA KOMBU MURIKKARATHU.One should not cut the tree branch on which one is sitting irrespective of theside he is sitting. Chances of the branch itself break and fall down is there We used to get honey grown on tree branches- it is told as Kombuthen. Kombu is one of the musical items in the Panchavadyam. A semi-circular pipegrowing at the end and we can see its playing in Trichur Pooram. KUTHIRA KOMBU (HORSEHORN) is a usage meaningvery difficult to finish a task. Writer- R. GopalaKrishnan dated 28-4-2016. Reposted on 2-4-2021 after editing and updating. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1517889715.2295476.1617355051643%40mail.yahoo.com.
