ATTHANI-CHUMATU THANGI-
CHUMAITHANGI
Dear friends,
To write on this topic was suggested to me by our groupmember Sri VenkatRaman
Perinthalmanna. I was thinking today morning about it. Thefollowing are few
information I gathered as well as remembered. I hope thewrite up could be
interesting.
Sincerely,
Gopala Krishnan 3-6-2021
1 Chumatuthangi
While studying in primary class about Kings of Kerala,among the reforms most
kings done were widening of roads, planting of trees onroad sides and erecting
chumatu thangi along the roads. My teacher asked us tolook for chumatu thangi
along the road near us.
In convenient locations along the road two equal heightgranite pillars are
erected and a granite slab is placed over them. Pillarswould go at least 4 feet
below earth. Pillars as well as slab had thickness of about6 inches and width
of 1.5 feet. Separation between pillars about 5 feet.
During boyhood days we could not touch the graniteslab since the pillars were
to a height of about five feet. One such pillar wasin the Main central road
opposite to Library in my home.
Inscriptions were there about the king erected andperiod in Malayalam era. In
that slab letters were inscribed that it was erectedby King SrimoolamThirunal.
Later I observed such pillars are at many locations along themain road as well
as sub roads.
It was common on those days head load people keep theload on atthani’s and take
rest under the shade of trees.
If some loads were transported by bullock carts anddistributed, these loads
were kept on the athani (pillar). From there it wascarried as head load.
My grandmother was getting pattam(lease) of a paddy fieldabout 12 KMs away- an
arrangement done by grandfather, as paddy in bags. Sheused to ask head loaders,
how many atthani they kept before coming. As paymentfor labor she used to open
one of the bags, and give 2 or 3 changazhi paddy foreach bag brought, in
addition to the lessee gave to them.
2 Location
Chumatu thangi was used to tell the people location ofa place with respect to
it. In fact our home library was located as opposite tochumatuthangi. Bus stop
was located, about 100 feet more from Chumatu thangi.
Local sastha temple and Mahadevar temple were told as go to athani at
Alummoodu,take turn to left for sastha temple and right, about 5 KM for
Mahadeva temple.
3. Local Sivatemple
There is a story behind local Siva temple in my home.The Pandalam royal family
residing Kochukokkal areas were finding it difficult to go long wayto
Thazhathu Mahadevar, their family deity. So a new Siva temple wasconstructed
close to my home for their worship.
4. Places namedChumai thangi
There are two places named chumai thangi in Tamilnadu.One near Wallajapet in
Vellur district and another in Tiruvarur.
The earliest two munciplities in Tamilnadu wereWallajapet and Madurai. Madurai
became corporation, still Wallajapet remain as municipality.A diversion road
from Wallajapet leads to famous Sholingur Anjaneyear temple.
5 Gaya sradha
Still I recollect the first elderly member respondedto me after I wrote about
Gayasradha and pitru’s liberation and no necessity offurther srardha was
Chumaithangi Kuppuswamy. He responded his relief on reading it- No sin by not
continuingfurther srardhas since he had alradyperformed Gaya srardha and more
aged.
6 Film Chumaithangi
('Bearer of Burdens') is a 1962 Indian Tamil languagedrama film, directed by C.
V. Sridhar. The film features R. Muthuraman, GeminiGanesan and Devika in the
lead roles. The film, produced by Kovai Chezhiyan,had musical score by
Viswanathan–Ramamoorthy and was released on 7 December1962.
7. Presentcondition of chumai thangi.
Many chumatu thangi in Kerala are removed due to wideningof roads. Many have
fallen down. But a good percentage still remains in Kerala as well as
Tamilnadu giving memoriesof old rulers.
8 Usage- Chumatuthangi
Normally in a family the centre pillar is the familyhead- Father. When sudden
demise of father occur eldest son has to take theresponsibility of maintaining
family. He may have to discontinue education, do jobsto bring up youngsters.
Thoughexceptions are there many youngsters forget the efforts put up by
elders.
There are a number of films in Malayalam also with thetheme.
For members seeing Malayalam serial “Karthika Deepam” in Zee TVshows the doctor
brother depicting no gratitude to his elder brother a farmerwho took all
efforts to bring up his brother from younger days after the demiseof their
father. Sumai thangiwas neglected.
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