A careful look at the original Tamil version Akshara manamalai for instance, will reveal that the lines look very uniform across the verses and letters shifting left & right quite a bit, breaking and combining words.
Also, many letters at the end or beginning of words seem to morph into somewhat similar sounding or even different letters from what the original words should have spelled as.
Often there is a good amount of confusion regarding what the right pronunciation should be, what the exacts spelling should be as these texts are transliterated to other languages.
While those who are knowledgeable in Tamil poetry would either already know that the poetic texts may appear quite different from the prose texts or would assume so.
However, the non Tamil listeners and chanters often get confused at these texts as they get transliterated. Even very experienced Tamil speakers may find the original texts difficult to repeat as written.
At this point, with an exception of Telugu parayana texts, the other langauge transliterated texts are simple and straight conversions of slightly modified original texts letter by letter.
A letter in Indian languages will be the combination of consonant and vowel together. No effort is given to reviewing the entire words of set of characters to see whether they can be written for better representation in any language.
Tamil language has fewer written consonants than what is spoken. க represents all four of k/kh/g/gh consonants in sanskrit, ச represents s/ch/sh/j/jh, ட represents t/d, த represents th/dh and ப represents p/b/f.
Tamil speakers fluidly decide to say one of the pronunciations of these variations depending on the context or with the prior knowledge of the word and different people may also say the same words differently when they are spelled the same.
The confusions are also due to the lack of understanding that these are poetic texts conform to phonetic requirements of a chosen verse type rather than the word boundaries as one might try to comprehend them.
Traditional Tamil poetry is composed with seers instead of words and seers are collection of one/two/three/more asais, which are phonetic approximations of just two types:
a. single syllable that feels straight, referred to as nEr. ex: nA in aru-nA-chala
b. double syllable that feels like a wave, referred to as nirai. ex: aru as in aru-na-chala
For instance, the first numbered verse of Akshara manamalai is presented below in Tamil with a very straight transliteration in English. The hyphens are added to separate each seer into its corresponding asais.
A third line is added to present the syllable components as nirai or nEr. One can then see how the words are decided to be coined together phonetically while ignoring the word boundaries.
அரு-ணா சல-மென வக-மே நினைப்-பவ
aru-nA chala-mena vaka-mE ninaip-pava
nirai-nEr nirai-nirai nirai-nEr nirai-nirai
ரகத்-தைவே ரறுப்-பா யரு-ணா-சலா
rakath-thaivE rarup-pA yaru-nA-chalA
nirai-nirai nirai-nEr nirai-nEr-nirai
But this same verse might have been written very differently in many transliterated texts in the past, as differently as shown below:
அருணாசலம் என அஹமே நினைப்பவர்
arunAchala mena ahamE ninaippavar
அஹத்தை வேர் அறுப்பாய் அருணாசலா
ahathai vEr aruppAy arunAchalA
The accompanying audio for the parayana will most likely sound somewhere in the middle of what may seem like two extremes of how someone may sing these letters.
Which becomes a cause of confusion regarding how exactly this should this be chanted. Often there are criticisms and debates around these extremes, even to the point of saying is one version is "wrong" or there are "mistakes" in these texts.
First of all, both these texts will intellectually mean the same, whether in the written form or chanted form. The variations one sees are due to the fact the first text is the purest form of Tamil poetry, as composed by Bhagavan and would have been done similarly by other authors.
These are the some of the poetic characteristics of the original poetic texts
- Every single verse in Parayana is composed as some predefined type of verse, with the type being known for centuries. For instance, the 108 verses of Akshara manamalai follow
- the type called Kural Venba, containing two adis (appearing as separate lines)
- First adi contains four seers, not words and second contains three seers
- The first four + two seers of each verse have two asais, which are either double syllable like aru or single syllable like na; the last seer is aru-nA-chala, which contains three asais
- The words are broken and combined as required to satisfy poetic grammar, for example,
- arunAchalam Ena becomes aru-nA chala-mena
- agath-thai ver aruppai becomes agath-thaive rarup-pai, with some more letter changes explained later
- They also conform to a few of many rules imposed on different types of verses and incorporate a few of many arrangements that are highly appreciated
Here are some more characteristics:
- These words contain only the original Tamil letters. For instance, Tamil historically used the same letter க to represent Ka, Ga & Ha
- Often have more Tamil spellings and pronunciations. For example, Aham from Sanskrit might be pronounced as Agam but written as Akam (அகம்)
- Letters appearing in between words morph quite a bit in Tamil, even in casual use, to facilitate smooth pronunciation. For example:
- chalam ena becomes chala-mena, with terminating m and beginning e fusing together
- mena agath-thai becomes mena vagath-thai, with a becoming va
- mena aga-me becomes mena vaga-me, with a becoming va
- ninaip-pavar agath-thai becomes ninaip-pava ragath-thaive, with r shifting and fusing rightward
It is very common for people to sing such verses differently from how it was originally written. Often the difference you see between the extremes of chanting may arise due to, but not limited to, the preferences between the extremes
- clearly sounding out the phonetically accurate poetic seers as it was written and literally accurate & clearly separated words
- the pacing and speed of chanting where faster chanting might benefit from words fusing with each other over time versus slow chanting can accommodate clear pronunciation of separate words
- Being Tamil speakers vs non Tamil chanters, being traditional versus not so strictly traditional chanters affects their choice of choosing one over the other
- As the consonants க can be be ka/kha/ga/gha, ச can be sa/cha/ja/jha/sha, ட can be ta/da, த can be tha/dha, ப can be pa/pha/fa/ba/bha, and often the freedom was given to allow people to say these consonents as they choose to, different people may choose to pronounce these differently.
- Sentimental and idealogical choices of strictly adhering to the original renderings as opposed to the easing into more modern versions as languages evolve
It is also better to see two extreme versions of the absolute first verse of Akshara manamalai, which is the introduction to the same from Muruganar.
Presented below is the original Tamil verse with the english transliterated verse try to stick to the original as much as possible. Once again, it is done so with spaces separating the seers and hyphens separating asais:
தரு-ணா ருண-மணி கிர-ணா வலி-நிகர்
tharu-nA runa-mani kira-nA vali-nigar
தரு-ம க்ஷர-மண மகிழ்-மாலை
tharu-ma kshara-mana magizh-mAlai
தெரு-ணா டிய-திரு வடி-யார் தெரு-மரல்
theru-nA dia-thiru vadi-yAr theru-maral
தெளி-யப் பர-வுதல் பொரு-ளாகக்
theli-yap para-vuthal poru-lAgak
கரு-ணா கர-முனி ரம-ணா ரிய-னுவ
karu-nA kara-muni rama-nA riya-nuva
கையி-னாற் சொலி-யது கதி-யாக
kaiyi-nAr soli-yathu gathi-yAga
வரு-ணா சல-மென வக-மே யறி-வொடு
varu-nA chala-mena vaga-mE yari-vodu
மாழ்-வார் சிவ-னுல காள்-வாரே.
mAzh-vAr siva-nula kAl-vArE.
But this same verse can also be written or chanted as given below if the attention given to the syllable requirements, traditional word combinations and the poetic rules are relaxed and more attention is given to comprehension and ease of chanting:
தருணாருண மணி கிரணா வலி நிகர்
tharunAruna mani kiranA vali nigar
தரும் அக்ஷர மண மகிழ் மாலை
tharum akshara mana magizh mAlai
தெருணாடிய திரு அடியார் தெரும் அரல்
therunAdia thiru adiyAr therum aral
தெளியப் பரவுதல் பொருளாக
theliyap paravuthal porulAga
கருணாகர முனி ரமணா ரியனுவ
karunAkara muni ramanA riyanuva
கையினால் சொல்லியது கதியாக
kaiyinAl solliyathu gathiyAga
அருணாசலம் என அகமே அறிவொடும்
arunAchalam ena agamE arivodum
ஆழ்வார் சிவனுல(கு) ஆள்வாரே.
AzhvAr sivanula(gu) AlvArE.
But one can see clearly that the words in the second texts as they get distinctly separated, the original poetic compositions phonetic perfection start eroding slowly.
The erosion of poetic beauty, is not due to the just the length of words changing. It is also due to changing many letters that originally appeared differently between words that enabled smooth and continuous sounds give way to phonetically disconnected words but easier to comprehend.
Muruganar, wrote the above introductory verse in a poetic metre call virutham (விருத்தம்), எழுசீர்க் கழிநெடிலடி ஆசிரிய விருத்தம் to be precise, spending so much effort in coining the verse together using words that bring quite a bit of rhyming into this verse.
If one looks carefully, one can observe many poetic perfections:
- The verse is of four adis with seven seers. It is written as eight lines of 4+3 composition for spacing reasons
- The first seer of all four adis have excellent rhyming, especially due to the second syllable ru: Tharuna, Theruna, Karuna & Varuna. This is called Ethugai and highly appreciated in poetry
- seers across four different adis are in perfect similarity phonetically as you break them down as double wavy syllables or single straight syllable. Examples
- 2nd: runa-mani, diya-thiru, kara-muni & chala-mena
- 3rd: kira-na, vadi-yar, rama-na & vaga-me
- 4th: vali-nigar, theru-maral, riya-nuva & yari-vodu
- 5th: tharu-ma, theli-ya, kaiyi-nar, mazh-var
- 6th: kshara-mana, para-vudhal, soli-yadhu & siva-nula
- 7th: magizh-malai, poru-laga(k), gathi-yaga, gal-vare
- Many seers in similar positions also start with the same consonent or the same syllable which is called Monai, the next preferred poetic sophistication. For example: tharu-na & tharu-ma, theru-ma & tharu-ma
In an ideal ancient, Tamil world, such poetry should be written, read and chanted exactly it was originally intended to be while chanting. But while explaining the meaning to someone or reading it, it could be written with words separated as required.
As one can see, if we have to see the verses seeking its meaning, we might lose focus on the poetic and phonetic sophistication. And if we seek the poetic beauty, we start struggling with intellectual comprehension and ease of pronunciation (from what we are normally used to in prose).
Mapping for Indian languages is often straight forward and the unicode block assigned to each language had tried to give the same position for similar letters in each language. So, transliteration between languages is simply shifting the language block, only adjusting for characters that do not have exact equivalents.
For example, the consonant क occupies the same position (21st) within each Indian language's unicode block of 128 (0x80) characters:
0x0915 (Devanagari): क,
0x0995 (Bengali): ক,
...,
0x0B95 (Tamil): க,
...,
0x0D15 (Malayalam): ക
The character mapping used to convert from Tamil/Devanagari originals to each language is presented in the help texts for non Indian languages. They have been chosen to be so based on information available online and some discussions with speakers of that language.
The mapping for some languages are not reviewed by anyone and hence may not reflect the most acceptable mapping. Please send an email to dev@sriramana.org if you have suggestions regarding changing these character mappings.
Please do keep in mind that no transliteration can be perfect when highly traditional and poetic texts from Tamil language are converted to other languages even to other Indian languages, let alone totally foreign languages.
Different people tend to choose different characters to represent the same sounds. Transliterations are given only as an aid that accompany the audios or what you hear during chanting.
They themselves do not and can not represent the actual phonetic representation of the originals accurately. Even for Tamil speakers, hearing others chanting and clarifying when there are doubts eventually makes the chanting possible, not just simply reading the texts a few times.
In this practical, multi-lingual and non-traditional world we live in, many variations in chanting or spelling will always be seen and would not hurt anyone or anything and there is not always a "right" or "wrong" way to chant if the differences are very minor.