Science and Tamil - Part 2

Energy and Matter concept in formation of letters

The concept of Energy and matter is not new to us and does not start with Einstein’s days of E=mc2. Let us look at how our letters are formed from Aksharas then people would know that the concept of Energy and Matter is old as our language. In Tamil there are two kinds of Aksharas/Letters. They are உயிர் எழுத்து - Uyir Ezhuthu (Life / Energy letters – 12 letters) and ெமய் எழுத்து - Mei Ezhuthu (Body / Matter letters – 18 letters). Both put together it is 30 letter pack for Tamil as alphabets. Now both have to combine to give letters called “body with life” which are called uyir mei Ezhuthu. This combines to form 18*12 which is 216 letters as Uyir Mei Ezhuthu. For example க்+ அ = க in Tamil and क़ + अ = क in Sanskrit.

So the formation of letters itself is a science where Matter (Body) combines with Energy (Life) and then the living organisms (Body – life letters) are formed.

The following table lists vowel (uyir or life) letters across the top and consonant (mei or body) letters along the side, the combination of which gives all Tamil compound (uyirmei) letters.

In the above example க்+ அ = க, க் is the body and அ is life. So as per our language sciences be it Tamil or Sanskrit the matter is formed first and then the life came and attached to it. This is very well documented in Tamil scriptures as follows:

உடம்புடன் உயிர் வந்து ஒன்றுவது இயல்ேப - ெதால்காப்பியம் . This is over 2500 years old which states that life comes and joins a body in language and this is nature.

ெமய்ெயாளி உயிெராலி சிவணுதல் இயல்ேப – ஐந்திறம் (Aintiram). This is over 12000+ years old which states that same thing and adds that body is like light and life is like sound and they merge and this is siva’s nature. This certainly means that both Body and life are not formed at the same – as popularly believed. Life comes and joins the body to give a living being – in the above case the letters are the living beings.

Masculine and Feminine names based on ending letters

I am also going to give you as to how Indians distinguished masculine from feminine names. Kanchi Maha periyavar, the Sage of Kanchi had explained this beautifully in his “Arul Vakku”. I am giving a gist of it here just to conclude this:

Masculine names: All the names shall end with the phonetic a, im, in , ir, aha etc. Examples are Ram, Shyam, Raman, Kannan, Kishan, Vivek, Adam. So phonetically names like Catherine is a masculine name because it ends with “in” phonetically.

Feminine names: All names ending with phonetics aa, e, I, oo etc. Examples are Radha, Ramya, Savithri, Gayathri, Uma, Rosy, Isabella etc. Same way phonetically Joshua is a feminine name. Vishnu and Lalitha sahasranamam follows this rule and hence one invokes Shakthi as lalitha and the other invokes Purusha as Vishnu.

Just to conclude this part, I think we looked at how science is an integral part of our language formation and for us science has always been about the knowledge and nature of the space and we believed that space manifested itself as the physical world.

Source: Time = Space by Raguram Gopalan, http://ragsgopalan.blogspot.com