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Great Tamil Brahmins

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As I contemplated on posting the achievement of Geat Tamil Brahmins my mind wandered to great many personalities our communities have thrown to the society for example, Bharathi, U.Ve.Swaminathaiyer. nobel Laurate C.V.Raman and so on. I invite all the members to dig out their treasures and recount for all of us the great achievements of our elders. I wish to start off on a musical note with three great Maestros. Alathur Srinivasa Iyer, Lalgudi Jayaraman and Palghat Mani Iyer give a great concert in this youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg2rCuObeYo&NR=1
 
Gopalakrishna Bharathi - father of modern katha kaalakshEbham

'''Gopalakrishna Bharati''' (1811 - 1896) was a Tamil poet and a composer of Carnatic music. He wrote a ''katAkALatcEpam'', ''NantanAr Carittiram'' (Nandanar Charitram), two other works in this genre, and many independent ''kritis''.

Bharati was a contemporary of Tyagaraja whom he is said to have met, and who asked him whether he ahd composed anything in the ''rAga AbhOgi''; Bharati subsequently composed on of his most popular ''kriti''s in ''rUpaka tALa'', ''CapApatikku''. The great Tamil literary figure, wrote two sources for Bharati's life: a biography of the composer and his own autobiography, which contains references to Bharati, who was his ''guru'' in music.

Early life


Gopalakrishna Bharati was born near Mayavaram in Thanjavur district of today's Tamilnadu, south India. His father was Ramaswami Bharati, a musician. Gopalakrishna learnt ''Advaita'' and ''yoga SAstra'' from a ''guru'' in Mayavaram. Though he never took the vows of a renunciate, he led an ascetic life, and never married. Hailing from family of music exponents, Gopalakrishna showed inclination towards music even at a very young age. He had a commendable ability to grasp and reproduce complex music. He also listened to a number of the leading Carnatic vocalists of Thanjavur district.

Compositions


Gopalakrishna Bharathi composed several ''kritis'' on the principles of ''advaita''. Gopalakrishna Bharathi's ''kritis'', portraying several musical facades, were extremely well received by the public and were sung in a number of concerts during his lifetime. This prompted several musicians to approach Gopalakrishna Bharathi. The musicians would express his vision for a new kirtana and Bharathi would always oblige and compose a song to fit the musician's requirement.

Gopalakrishna Bharati used the ''mudra'' (signature) ''Gopalakrishna'' in his compositions. These include famous ''kritis'' like ''varukalAmO'' (''rAga mAnji''), ''varuvArO'' (''sAma'') and ''ennEramum'' (''rAga dEvagAndhAri'').

''NantanAr Carittiram'' is a ''katAkALatcEpam'', a genre of religious story-telling with music that was popular in Tamilnadu in the 19th and early 20th centuries before the advent of film, especially the talkies. ''Nandan Caritiram'' was based on the story of a ''paraiyAr'' (''dalit'' or 'untouchable'), Nandanar known also as TirunAlaippOvAr NayanAr. A great devotee of Siva, he yearned to visit Chidambaram the greatest of Siva temples. He greatly feared that caste prejudice would prevent him from entering the temple, but his devotion overcame this obstacle, and he obtained his desire, becoming physically merged with Siva in a blaze of light. Bharati's version of ''NantanAr Carittiram'' is a masterly development of the story narrated in Sekkizhar's ''Periya PurANam''. He included many forms of Tamil regional music, and is praised for his ability to capture dialect and popular expression. The eminent Tamil literary scholar, Meenakshisundaram Pillai, however, criticised him for grammatical lapses.

Peformance history


''Nandan Caritiram'', as performed by Bharati, proved very popular and he published it in his lifetime. The highly regarded Thanjavur Krishna Bhagavatar, who developed the art of ''katAkALatcEpam'' by introducing elements from Marathi peformance practice and elements of dance, made it one of his masterpieces. Many adaptations appeared, including stage plays and three film versions. Individual songs of Gopalakrishna Bharati became popular with Carnatic musicians. Later, Bharata Natyam dancers, including T. Balasaraswati, took up select pieces for interpretation as ''abhinaya''. The album of the film version starring the singer M. M. Dandapani Desikar as Nandanar (with music direction by Papanasam Sivan) remains popular.

http://celebrityspy.org/indepth/Gopalakrishna Bharathi
 
Great concert!!

Thank you, Sri Amoorkan. I greatly enjoyed that 'Thodi' alapana by the great trio. Must have happened long time ago. The video quality wasn't that good. I never heard of Alathur Srinivasa Iyer but know LJ and PM.

As I contemplated on posting the achievement of Geat Tamil Brahmins my mind wandered to great many personalities our communities have thrown to the society for example, Bharathi, U.Ve.Swaminathaiyer. nobel Laurate C.V.Raman and so on. I invite all the members to dig out their treasures and recount for all of us the great achievements of our elders. I wish to start off on a musical note with three great Maestros. Alathur Srinivasa Iyer, Lalgudi Jayaraman and Palghat Mani Iyer give a great concert in this youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg2rCuObeYo&NR=1
 
Dear Silverfox,

Alathur Srinivasa Iyer (1911 - 1980) is a Tamil Brahmin born in Karnataka, achieved musical fame in Tamilnadu and was Aasthaana Vidwaan of Travancore Maharaja. Together with Sivasubramania Iyer who is NOT his brother he formed a successful duo famously called "Alathur Brothers". The great musician and famous actor M.K.Thiagaraja Bhagavathar had intense training under Alathur Brothers. (It may be news to many that M.K.Thiagaraja Bhagavathar was also a Naadhaswaram vidwan!)
 
Dear Silverfox,

On this topic I wish to add that while Lalgudi (as Sri Jayaraman is fondly called) is a living legend, Palghat Mani Iyer's Thani aavardhanam on a CD is being carried by the space craft voyager that is now in the outer space beyond the solar system!

Regards,
 
Dear Sri Silverfox,

There is something more about Palakkad Mani. He is the Sambandhi of the legendary D.K.Pattammal whose grand daughter is the world famous child prodigy of Carnatic Music Smt. Nithyasree Mahadevan who was born of all the places at Thiruvaiyaru the seat of Carnatic Music!
 
Dear Sri Amoorkan:
Thank you for the nice tidbits about these great musicians. Do you know, I was born very near to Thiruvaiyar; my grandparents (our family, being Thanjavurians, carnatic-music is in our genes!!) used to take me to the annual Thyagaraja Swami music festival.
Sri D.K. Nagarajan, brother of DKP, lives nearby (Maryland side). He has been teaching carnatic music to very many youngsters in this area.
Never heard of this young lady, Nithyasree. This is what happens to somebody like me who was cut-off from Tamil Nadu for a very long time!! (over 40 years!) Now I am rediscovering our heritage!
 
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Cost of ignoring our thalaivar

Never heard of this young lady, Nithyasree.

Again SF, the price you have paid for ignoring our thalaivar Rajni.

Padaiyappa song - 'Min...sarakk kanna....yen manna....en aanai kettu' is a Nithyasree number.

yep padam paarkaadhaarkkum uyivundam,
uyvillai thalaivar padam parkka marandarkku.
 
Dear 'Thiruvalluvar" Hari!
Good stanza (I didn't understand completely but sounds great!).

There was a song (melodious) which got stuck in my head when I was in Chennai. It goes like this: "vaseegara......". was this sung by Nityashree?

Again SF, the price you have paid for ignoring our thalaivar Rajni.
Padaiyappa song - 'Min...sarakk kanna....yen manna....en aanai kettu' is a Nithyasree number.

yep padam paarkaadhaarkkum uyivundam,
uyvillai thalaivar padam parkka marandarkku.
 
There was a song (melodious) which got stuck in my head when I was in Chennai. It goes like this: "vaseegara......". was this sung by Nityashree?

Bombay Jayashree. Film : Minnale, Music Director : Harris Jayaraj (He graduated from the same college as i did, different years though)

I am little more patronizing to the hindi version - zara zara. Film : Rehna Hai there dil mein.

Sorry Amoorkan sir, i have the habit of nagging Sri SF for ignoring Rajni. I realise how serious the thread is and my heartfelt apologies for my flippancy.

SF,

A man who forgets to see any other movie has a life,
there shalt be no life for him who forgets Rajni movie

was the import of my ahem ahem "kural".

Saint Thiruvalluvar Avargale : I apologise.
 
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Dear Hari (You have the most satisfying name unlike me and Silverfox!), actually I am enjoying the discussion. I know that Nithyasree is doing a great many Carnatic Music Concerts. Does she still play back singing in the films? Also Hari, why don't you post on some of the very successful Tamil Brahmins that you know of?

Dear Silverfox, go to youtube and type Nithyasree and you can get a few songs and you can actually see her too!

Regards,
 
Hi Every Body
To Me Neively Santhaana Goplan Is One Of The Best Musician In Vocal . He Is Now Tuting Many In This Feild. Once Listen His Recital And Tell Me . He Is The Disciple Of T.n.shesagopalan
 
Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888 in Tiruchinapalli, Tamil Nadu. He was the second child of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Parvathi Amma. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics, so he had an academic atmosphere at home.

In 1907 he gained his M.A. degree, obtaining the highest distinctions. After a brief stint with the government as the Assistant Accountant General, Raman went on to become a Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta. Simultaneously, he continued doing research at the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science where he became the Honorary Secretary. Raman used to refer to this period as the golden era of his career. Many talented students gathered around him at the IACS and the University of Calcutta. He was president of the 16th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1929.

Raman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect. Raman spectroscopy is based on this phenomenon. Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities. This does a better job in explaining bowed string vibration over Helmholtz's approach. He was also the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridangam.

In 1934, Raman became the director of the newly established Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where two years later he continued as a professor of physics. In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India.

He also started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1943 along with Dr. Krishnamurthy. The Company during its 60 year history, established 4 factories in Southern India.

He was knighted in 1929 and awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1954. Raman was also awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1957).

CV Raman is the uncle of three world renowned Physicists Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Nobel laureate, Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar FRS, known for Liquid crystal research and Sivaraj Ramaseshan, ex director of Indian Institute of Science.

India celebrates National Science Day on the 28th February of every year to commemorate Raman's discovery in 1928.

He retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and a year later he established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore Karnataka, serving as its director and remained active there until his death in 1970, in Bangalore, Karnataka, at the age of 82.

His famour Quote:

When he was offered a toast during the Nobel function: Being a strict teetotaller he responded,

"Sir, you have seen the Raman effect on alcohol; please do not try to see the alcohol effect on Raman."

Raman was an athiest and was a close friend of another atheist Coimbatore G.D.Naidu.
 
If Gopalakrishna Bharathi was the father of Katha Kaalakshepam

Paruthiyur Krishna Sastri was the 'Father of Pravachans"
Courtesy: Wikipedia

Paruthiyur Krishna Sastri also Known as Brahmasri Paruthiyur Krishna Sastrigal (1855 – 1911) was born in the calm and tiny village Paruthiyur on the northern banks of Kudamuruti River, near Sengalipuram, in Thiruvarur District of Tamil Nadu, in a Brahmin family to Ramaseshan and Lakshmi. Even as a young child Krishna Sastri was a keen observer of the daily prayers of his parents and he would recite a few mantras along with them. Little did they know at that time that this little Krishna would be a great Mahaan one day.

As children of his community in those days, Krishna Sastri started his gurukul education at an early age of seven under Sengalipuram Muthanna Sastri. Within a few years he learnt Prose, Poetry, Grammer, Kavyam, Nadakam, Alankaram and Veda Sastram and Vedantha. Muthanna Sastri encouraged him to conduct discourses in the Ramayana and presented him with a “ Srimad Ramayana” book. Later from the age of fourteen, he underwent intense training in the Vedas and the Sanskrit language and the from RajaMannargudi Mahamahopathyaya Thyagaraja Mahi Raju Sastri. By the age of 18, Krishna Sastri took all the required examinations conducted by Thiruvananthapuram Government for completing his education in the Vedas and received all the awards of distinction. He soon became a great scholar in Vedanta and the Sanskrit.

Before this Gurukul life, Krishna Sastri had got his "Ramanama Manthropadesam" from Marudhanallur Kodandarama Swamigal at the age of twelve. The Swami blessed him, gave him a Manthropadesam and said that no other mantra or sloka is more powerful than “ Rama Nama ” and if he recites the Rama Nama a crore times with love and devotion he could even see the Lord himself! Ever since then, “ Sarvam Rama Mayam ” - everything was Rama for Krishna Sastri and all what he did all his life was Ram Nam Japam. Rama-Rama, Rama-Rama.

Sastri read the Ramayana again and again and was able to understand greater depths of the epic. He did not use his knowledge of the Vedas or Vedanta for making money. His love and devotion to Lord Rama dominated his life. When Thiruvanandapuram Maharaja’s government offered him a job to teach Vedanta, he refused and made a living only through Ramayana Pravachans. Sastri soon became an authority on Valmikis’s Ramayana to the extent that he came to be called by people of his town as “ Ramayana Sastrigal ”. He had an amazing knowledge of the Sanskrit and Tamil language that was seen in his captivating discourses that even his guru was astounded by.

In course of time, Brahmashri Krishna Sasthrigal became a great exponent of the Ramayana and his Discourses were very famous during his time. He started his first public Pravachans at the age of 17 at Sethubala Swamigal Madam at Vadakarai. On the first day of his discourse there were 4 people listing to him, the next day there were 40, the third day there were 400 & and from the fourth day onwards there were about 4000 people filling the streets of the small village listening to the captivating Pravachans. The news of the captive and emotional Pravachans spread far and wide. People started coming from near by towns and far away villages to listen to him. Imagine addressing such a big audience during the days when technology was not developed. There were no mikes or amplifiers. He was very fluent in Tamil and the Sanskrit languages and his stories and interpretation of the Ramayana were very captivating. The words were flowing from him like a river. He composed beautiful and intricate slokas and introduced them into his Pravachans. Hearing about the Pravachan, Kings, members of the royal family, ministers, landlords, zamindars, attended the Pravachans and Sastri started receiving valuable gifts and sanmanams. Gifts came as clothes, grains, jewellery, and money. Reading the original sloka and presenting the meaning was the methodology followed by Pravachan Pundits before. Paruthiyur Krishna Sastri was the first exponent who gave various interpretations and commentary to each verse and created a new style and was considered the ‘Father of Pravachans’

In 1893, Krishna Sastri came to Madras and conducted “Bhagavatha Saptaham” a seven day Pravachan at Govinda Nayakar Street. Bhagavata purana written by Vyasa propagates was Bhakti yoga or divine love. Famous industrialist of that time, Meiyappa Chettiyar who organized the program in Madras presented him with a big valuable gold medal after the Pravachan. Sastri literally had to travel back to Paruthiyur with loads of appreciation and gifts from devote

This particular incident that happened in Madras needs special mention. Sastri’s eloquence in Sanskrit and Ramayana and the way in which he was able to explain things attracted a large audience and one day during his lectures in George Town Madras, the street was over crowded and the local police had issues of managing the crowd. The then British Governor of Madras Beilby Lawley, 3rd Baron Wenlock (1891-1896) who happened to pass through was thrilled by the way Sastri mesmerized the large crowd into pin drops silence. Beilby Lawley asked “ Sastri Sir how did you managed such a large crowd? What magic did you use?” Sastri smiled and replied, “ I can also make them sound in a single voice” He then turned towards the audience and said: “ Jai Janaki - Kanta Smaranam ” And the crowd in a single voice replied “ Jaya Jaya Rama Rama ”. The Governor was further impressed. He reported the Sastri’s scholarship to his higher authorities and soon Sastri received a certificate of appreciation along with a golden Anklet Ring (Toda) with the Royal British Emblem.

This Mahaan attained Kapala Moksha at an early age of 56. It was the month of Thai, Krishnapaksha Dhvadasi, the same day of the year his Guru Sri Muthannaval, had had also died.
 
S.Ramanujam!!!

I guess there are/were many who excel in their fields in India. Ramanujam is a great mind.But Indians dont know his findings like some American authors do. ( Why there is so little good authors in India on good subjects?)

One more thing to point out. Though many people are not in the eyes of public many people are doing good work as well as leading a good moral life.There are many such people in TamBram community. I feel all those are no less than the people who have made a mark in their field.
 
AgnimeelE purhOhitham!

Dear Sri Fire!

I totally agree with you. I am so scared that these precious few people called the Brahmins who keep the fire of knowledge growing would be extinguished if we don't heed the warning of Dr. Subramanian Swamy: "Thondi, Rasathipuram, and other places prove that the Muslim mind suffers from a dangerous duality---of seeking secularism when out of power and imposing a brutal demeaning theocracy for non-Muslims when in power.

It is this duality that patriotic Hindus must re-shape by modern education and other means, as also retain its demographic overwhelming majority in India . We do not have much time, in fact about 45 years, as the X-graph of statistical regressions estimated by J.S. Bajaj and colleagues shows. 'X' represents the two trends—Hindu percentage declining and Muslim percentage rising, and intersecting in the year 2061."

(See his full article published on page 6 under the thread "pseudo secularism")
Regards,
 
The great mathematician Ramanujam!

I guess there are/were many who excel in their fields in India. Ramanujam is a great mind.But Indians dont know his findings like some American authors do. ( Why there is so little good authors in India on good subjects?)

One more thing to point out. Though many people are not in the eyes of public many people are doing good work as well as leading a good moral life.There are many such people in TamBram community. I feel all those are no less than the people who have made a mark in their field.

I was going to write about Srinivasan Ramanujam but then thought people would know about him anyway. I was wrong! The North Indians do not know anything about Ramanujam! Of course, the KKK wouldn't recognize anybody who is a Brahmin!!! When I came to the US for graduate studies, I was taken aback when my professors kept asking me about Ramanujam and asked me if I was related to him since I had the same last name!! Ramanujam Srinivasan vs. Ranganathan Srinivasan!!
Yes, the Americans (the academias at least) know more about Ramanujam and his works than the Indians!
 
Dear Silverfox,

I want to read your write-up on Ramanujam a genius whose works are still fathomed. Please post.

Regards,
 
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Chandrasekhar was the third of ten children born to Sita Ayyar and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar, a senior officer in the Indian Audits and Accounts Department, who was posted in Lahore as the Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways. Chandrasekhar's mother was devoted to intellectual pursuits and had translated Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House into Tamil. His father was an accomplished Carnatic music violinist who had authored several books on musicology. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Nobel-prize winning physicist C. V. Raman.

Chandrasekhar attended the Hindu High School, Triplicane, Madras, British India during the years 1922-25. Subsequently, he studied at Presidency College from 1925 to 1930, obtaining his bachelor's degree, B.Sc. (Hon.), in physics in June 1930. In July 1930, Chandrasekhar was awarded a Government of India scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he became a research student of Professor R. H. Fowler, and was admitted to Trinity College. On the advice of Prof. P. A. M. Dirac, Chandrasekhar spent a year at the Institut for Teoretisk Fysik in Copenhagen, where he met Prof. Niels Bohr.
In the summer of 1933, Chandrasekhar was awarded his Ph.D. degree at Cambridge, and the following October, he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933-37. During this time, he formed friendships with Sir Arthur Eddington and Professor E. A. Milne.
In September 1936, Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy, who he had met as a fellow student at Presidency College, Madras, and who was a year junior to him. In his Nobel autobiography, Chandrasekhar wrote, "Lalitha's patient understanding, support, and encouragement have been the central facts of my life."

The following year (January 1937), Chandrasekhar was recruited to the University of Chicago faculty as Assistant Professor by Dr. Otto Struve and President Robert Maynard Hutchins. He was to remain at the university for his entire career, becoming Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in 1952 and attaining emeritus status in 1985.

In the 1950s he investigated plasma physics and hydrodynamics and concentrated on the stability of a variety of magnetic fluid configurations. Much of his work in this area is to be found in Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability (Clarendon Press, 1961), which has been a benchmark since its first appearance. Chandra next directed his attention to the classical problem of the stability of rotating ellipsoidal figures. The results in the framework of Newtonian mechanics and gravitation were organized in the monograph Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium (Yale University Press, 1968). This line of thought brought him to the gravitational theory of general relativity, with which he treated stellar pulsations, discovering the relativistic instability of radial oscillations of white dwarf stars, and the Chandrasekhar-Friedman-Schutz instability, which has ultimately developed into a mechanism for the gravitational wave emission of black holes. The dynamical properties of the rotating black hole were expounded by Chandra in The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes (Oxford University Press, 1983). His discoveries did not stop there. In his subsequent work with Valeria Ferrari on exact solutions of the equations of general relativity, the singularities that arise in interacting gravitational waves came to light. Chandra also developed the post-Newtonian approximation that has become the standard formal approach to calculating the gravitational waves from dynamical systems of massive particles and has served as the basis for the post-post-Newtonian formalism.
Chandra accomplished the difficult task of a formal general-relativistic treatment of the instability of radial stellar pulsations in recent work with Ferrari, and the final paper was essentially finished at the time of his death. The problem is of particular interest because without the emission of gravitational waves (that is, in Newtonian gravitation) the system is stable unless some other form of dissipation is introduced. In his last years Chandra became increasingly interested in Newton's Principia. He published his review of Newton's work in a monograph, Newton's Principia for the Common Reader (Oxford University Press), which appeared just two months before his death.
Chandra's book Truth and Beauty (University of Chicago Press), published in 1987, contains a number of essays, including his well-known Ryerson Lecture, "Shakespeare, Newton and Beethoven," which is only one of his explorations of the motivations, ambitions and aesthetic rewards of the artist and the scientist.
Chandra served as editor of the Astrophysical Journal from 1952 to 1971, transforming it from a more or less private journal of the University of Chicago into the national journal of the American Astronomical Society, still published by the University of Chicago Press.

Chandra was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars, though he was upset that the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing this as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement.

Chandra's own death on 21 August 1995 at the age of almost 85 marked the passing of an era in which physicists first reached inward to understand the atom and the fundamental particles and outward to embrace the stars. Chandra never wavered in his pursuit of the physics of the stellar object in its diverse forms.
Wikipedia and Eugene N. Parker
 
Continuing Mr.Amoorkan's thread on greats in carnatic music, may I point out
sir that there were many others like Ariyakudi Ramanuja Ayyangar, Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer, Madurai Mani Iyer, GNB, DK Pattammal and her brother
DK Jayaraman, not to speak of Madurai Pushpavanam, Harikesanallur Muthiah
Bhagavathar and others.
Late B.Rajam Iyer's " Rambles in vedanta " is a master-piece on philocophy.
Rajam Iyer died at a very young age.
Subramaniam Siva was a freedom fighter and he has authored many books
like " Moksha Sadhana Rahasyam" and others.
Kavi yogi Suddhananda Bharathi was a well-known philosopher-author.
Late Rt.Hon'ble V.S. Srinivasa Sastri was an orator with a silver tongue
and his spoken English was impeccable.
Swami Sivananda is from South India, who later established an Ashram in Rishikesh.
Late C. Rajagopalachari was a great statesman and has authored two
great epics - Ramayana and Mahabharata.
And the list goes on ...
 
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Dear Friends,
A feeble attempt is made here to indicate some great people here and possibly represent .001% of the great Tamil Brahmins.
1.Administrators
Before independence most of great geniuses in administration who held posting under the British were Brahmins. Some of the greatest were Sri Seshaia sasthri, Sri.T,.Muthuswami Iyer, Sri.P.S.Sivaswamy Iyer, Rt.Hon.Sreenivasa sastry, Sri.C.P.Ramaswamy Iyer, In the post independence period they mostly moved away from the spheres of administration but the notable among them was Sri.T.N.Seshan.
2.Freedom fighters
The Brahmins though by nature not interested in politics fought side by side with others for making our nation free. They were the greatest social reformers of that time also. Possibly the greatest among them was Sri.N.C.Rajagopalachari (Rajaji) who also became the first governor general of India, He was also a very great writer as well as social reformer. Some of the other notables were , Va.Ve.Su.Iyer, Mahakavi Bharathi, Vanchi who killed the collector of Tirnelveli, Sri.Santhanam who was our first railway minister ,SriSathya murthy and Sri.Bhashyam iyengar.
3.Writers.
The Brahmins simply dominated the writing scene of Tamil Nadu for a very long time. The first novelist , Vadavur Dorai Samy Iyengar, The great lady writer who wrote for creating social awakening Smt.Vai.Mu .Kothainayagei ammal, Sri.U.Ve .Swaminatha iyer who wandered all over Tamil nadu and collected folk and ancient Tamil literature(called Tamil Thatha), Kalki the greatest writer of historic fiction, Maha Kavi Subramanya Bharathi who is acknowledged as the greatest poet of modern times, Nadodi,Chavi, Gomathy Sunbramanyam, Ki.Va Jagannatham are some of the few all time greats.
Among the savants who contributed to Sanskrit literature were Ganapathi shastri, Gopala shastri, Thethiyur Subramanya sastri, Prathivathi bhayangaram Annangaracharyar and so on.
Ramachander
 
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