THIS is in response to Ariff Shah’s letter on Ponggal festival (“Ponggal is not Tamil New Year” — NST, Jan 17).

Ponggal is harvest festival celebrated by Tamilians

He had refuted my contention that Ponggal is the Tamil New Year.

Chitirai, which has a religious tag, cannot be a New Year for all Tamils, as there are Tamil Muslims, Tamil Christians, Tamil Buddhists and Tamil atheists who would not celebrate a festival with Hindu connections.

To overcome this problem, K. Sarangapani, a leader of Tamils in Malaysia and Singapore, a few decades ago advocated that the first of Thai  be  observed as the  Tamil New Year.

Ariff  questioned the credibility of the event at which 500 Tamil scholars in India discussed and decided that Ponggal should be the Tamil New Year.

There is ample evidence about that meeting and almost all prominent Tamil scholars attended it under the leadership of Maraimalai Adigal on Jan 18, 1935 at Pachaiappan College, Chennai.

At that meeting, Maraimalai Adigal proved through his research that Tiruvalluvar was born 30 years before Christ. Some of the illustrious Tamil scholars who were present at the conference were Professor Namachivayam, K.S. Pillai, Sachithanandam, N.M. Vengadesasamy, V. Kalyanasundaram, Somasundara Bharathiyar, U.V. Swaminatha Iyer, K.V.P. Visvanatham and poet Bharathithasan.

It should be noted that not all who participated had an affiliation to Periyar’s Dravidian Movement. In fact there were many staunch Hindu leaders and Brahmins among those who attended.

It was decided at that conference that the Tamil New Year should be based on the birth of Tiruvalluvar and that first of Thai  should be celebrated as Ponggal and the Tamil New Year.

Dr. M. Varatharajan, a well known Tamil research scholar, has said that in the early period the Tamils celebrated Thai as their New Year and not Chitirai and that is the reason why Ponggal is being celebrated not only in the villages but also in towns and cities.

There is also evidence that Chitirai was introduced only after the 14th century in Tamil Nadu.

The ancient Tamil astrologers studied the revolution of the earth around the sun and noted the movement of sunlight to the north and south of the equator for six months each. The movement of sunlight towards the north was named Uthraayanam and  that towards the south as Thatchana ayanam. This is pure scientific evidence and nothing to do with religious beliefs.

Hence it is beyond any doubt that the Ponggal festival is the Tamil New Year.

Dr G. Johnson, Masai, Johor

source: http://www.nst.com.my / New Straits Times / Letters to the Editor / January 27th, 2012