Madras To Chennai

The Myth of St Thomas and the Mylapore Temple

2006-09-26T17:48:00.000+05:30

The Story Begins

If St. Thomas was a carpenter slave, then Diogo Fernandez is the gentleman architect who laid the foundation stone for his church on the Mylapore beach. He was Albuquerque's attendant at Goa and is described by N. Figuerdo, in St. Thomas the Apostle in Mylapore, as "a virtuous old man of good conduct'. Very probably he was?so long as the virtue did not interfere with the demands of his Roman Catholic faith. He arrived at Mylapore in 1517 in the company of some wealthy Armenian merchants who were coming from Malacca. They knew Marco Polo's story and knew, too, that the "Thomas" revered by Syrian Christians at Mylapore was not a martyr. This was not a very satisfactory circumstance for them or the Portuguese. Their passionate nature and martyrolatrous religion required a sacrifice.[51] All the apostles had suffered martyrdom except St. John,[52] and St. Thomas was not going to get away with an accidental death in Portuguese territory. Moreover, if the Portuguese knew Marco Polo's story, they knew better the Latin fables Passio Thomae and De Miraculis Thomae, which had been circulating in Europe for a thousand years. Both legends deviated from the Acts of Thomas, in which St. Thomas had been executed by king's men with spears, and described his death as being at the hands of a Pagan priest of the Sun?or Zoroastrian?who, in one, had stabbed him with a lance, and in the other, with a sword. The Portuguese preferred De Miraculis Thomae, in which the priest used a lance, and had the romance published in Portugal in 1531 and 1552 to substantiate the "discovery" they had made at Mylapore in 1523. It did not matter to them that this European story, too, had St. Thomas buried on a mountain, while they had in their possession only a seashore tomb.

Interested in this topic? Continue reading at this site: http://hamsa.org/17.htm

Chennai - Some Facts and Figures

2006-09-25T18:02:00.000+05:30

Area

174 square kilometers

Population

As per the 2001 Census, Chennai has a population of 42.16 lakh. Density of population: 24,231 persons per square kilometers

Climate

Tropical climate - hot and humid. The occasional sea breeze makes it a trifle more bearable at times. Temperatures soar highest in May (Between 40 and 45° Celsius). Winter in Chennai (December, January and February) is not worth the name. Monsoon is intermittent (July-August and September-November).

Geographical Location

Chennai is situated by the 13th north parallel and 80° longitude, along the Coromandel Coast in the southern part of the Indian peninsula.

Topography

This seaside city appears even more sprawling than it is, because of its low skyline. The Cooum river, the Adyar river and the Buckingham canal flow through Chennai.

Coolest Months

December-February

Average Rainfall

Meenambakkam - 1333.8 mm

Nungambakkam - 1266.9 mm

The People

The majority is the native Tamil population. But the city is home to a sizable population from other states. Visitors can manage their way with English. Dubbed a sleepy and slow-paced city for long, is today abuzz with activity - in business, industry, entertainment and leisure. This surge is most marked by the changing lifestyles of Chennai folk, who were once thought to be extremely tradition-bound.
Male - Female break-up: 21,61,605 male and 20,054,663 female
Sex Ratio: 951 females to 1,000 males
Literacy Rate in Chennai: 80.14 %
Male Literacy: 84.71 %
Female Literacy: 75.32 %

Public Transport

Chennai's MTC (Metropolitan Transport Corporation) Bus service provides a network that covers the entire city. This service, operating from 4.00 am to roundabout midnight, is affordable and frequent. Apart from the regular buses, there are Limited Stop services, Express services and Point-to-point services. The Suburban Train service also helps provide fast and inexpensive commuting within the city. The most prevalent mode of hired transport in the city is the Autorickshaw. The minimum metered charge is Rs 7/-.( not applicable mostly).

Source: http://www.chennaibest.com/

The Meaning of Madras

2006-09-25T12:25:00.000+05:30

The name Madras is derived from Madraspatnam, the site chosen by the British East India Company for a permanent settlement in 1639. The region was often called by different names as madrapupatnam, madras kuppam, madraspatnam, and madirazpatnam as adopted by locals. Another small town, Chennapatnam, lay to the south of it. This place was named so by Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, Nayak of Wandiwash in remembrance of his father Damarla Chennappa Nayakudu. He was the local governor for the last Raja of Chandragiri, Sri Ranga Raya VI of Vijayanagara Empire. The first Grant of Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu makes mention of the village of Madraspatnam. In all records of the times, a difference is made between the original village of Madraspatnam and the new town growing round the Fort. Thus it is probable that the village of Madraspatnam existed under that name, prior to the English settlement of 1639-40 and the site of Chennapatnam was that of modern Fort St. George. The original village of Madraspatnam lay to the north of the site of the Fort and within a few years of the founding of Fort St. George the new town which grew up round the Fort was commonly known to the Indians as Chennapatnam, either in deference to the wishes of Damarla Venkatadri or because the site originally bore that name. The intervening space between the northern Madraspatnam and the Southern Chennapatnam came to be built over rapidly so that the two villages became virtually one town. The English preferred to call the two united towns by the name of Madraspatnam with which they had become familiar with while the Indians chose to give it the name of Chennapatnam. In course of time the exact original locations of Madraspatnam and Channapatnam came to be confused. Madras was regarded as the site of the Fort and Chennapatnam as the Indian town to the north.
Some believe that the British favoured the name Madras while the other locals called it Chennapatnam or Chennapuri. The word Chenna is a Dravidian word and seems to have originated from the Telugu word Chennu meaning beautiful. It is believed that the original Portuguese name is Madre de Sois, named after a Portuguese high authority who was one among the early settlers in 1500. There have been suggestions though that Chennai may not be a Tamil name while Madras may be of Tamil origin. Another version is that the name Madras was perceived to be of a derogatory reference to coolies of the area, which was short for Mad Rascals.

The city was renamed Chennai in August 1996.

Source: wikipedia

http://www.roydondomnic.blogspot.com/

Important Links for Information about Chennai

2006-09-25T12:12:00.000+05:30

Official website of the Corporation of Chennai
History of Madras
Chennai Airport
Chennai Metro Bus service
Chennai Consulate
Tamilnadu Government
Chennai News
Madipakkam - One of the happening suburbs in chennai...Check Out!!!
Chennai travel guide from Wikitravel
Archive of historian S. Muthiah's articles on Chennai, published in The Hindu
Moving around in Chennai
Th. Brinkhoff: The Principal Agglomerations of the World, 2005-01-30
Current weather in Chennai
Coordinates: 13.09° N 80.27° E
Maps and aerial photos
Mapping from Multimap or GlobalGuide or Google Maps
Aerial image from TerraServer
Satellite image from WikiMapia
Accurate Latitude Logitudes of Chennai Areas and Landmarks

Source: wikipedia

History of Chennai

2006-09-25T11:32:00.000+05:30

Ancient Times http://www.roydondomnic.blogspot.com/

The region served as an important administrative, military, and economic center as far back as the 1st century. Records indicate that the ancient province of Tondaimandalam had its capital and military headquarters at Puzhal, which today is a small village on the northwest fringe of Chennai.
It is hypothesized that the apostle St. Thomas had immigrated to India in 52 to preach the teachings of Jesus, and he preached from on top of a hillock in the southwest part of the city. He was later said to be assassinated around the year 70.
Over the centuries many rulers ruled over the region as the South Indian empires grew stronger. The Pallavas who were the most prominent built several large temples in and around Chennai, which include the Kapaleeshwarar temple at Mylapore and the Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram.

Early European Settlers

Modern Chennai had its origins as a colonial city and its initial growth was closely tied to its importance as an artificial harbour and trading centre. When the Portuguese arrived in 1522, they built a port and named it São Tomé, after the Christian apostle St. Thomas, who is believed to have preached there between the years 52 and 70. The region then passed into the hands of the Dutch, who established themselves near Pulicat just north of the city in 1612.

Arrival of the British

By 1612, the Dutch established themselves in Pulicat to the north. In the seventeenth century when the British East India Company decided to build a factory on the east coast they selected Armagaon (Durgarazpatnam), a village around 35 miles North of Pulicat, as the site in 1626. The calico cloth from the local area, which was in high demand, was of poor quality and not suitable for export to Europe. The British soon realized that the Armagaon was not a good port and it was unsuitable for trade purposes. Francis Day, one of the officers of the company, who was then a Member of the Masulipatam Council and the Chief of the Armagaon Factory, made a voyage of exploration in 1637 down the coast as far as Pondicherry with a view to choose a site for a new settlement. At that time the Coromandel Coast was ruled by the Rajah of Chandragiri who was a descendant of the famous Rajas of Vijayanagar Empire. Under the Rajah, local chiefs or governors known as Nayaks, ruled over the different districts.
Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, local governor of the Vijayanagar Empire and Nayak of Wandiwash ruled the coastal part of the region, from Pulicat to the Portuguese settlement of San Thome. He had his head-quarters at Wandiwash and his brother Ayyappa Nayakudu resided at Poonamallee, a few miles to the west of Madras, and looked after the affairs of the coast. Beri Timmanna Chetti dubash(Interpreter)of Francis Day was a close friend of damarla Ayyappa Nayakudu. Beri Thimmanna migrated in the early 17th century to Chennai from Palacole, near Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh. Ayyappa Nayakudu persuaded his brother to lease out the sandy strip to Francis Day and promised him trade benefits, army protection, and Persian horses in return. Francis Day wrote to his Headquarters at Masulipatam for permission to inspect the proposed site at Madraspatnam and examine the possibilities of trade there. Madraspatnam seemed favorable during the inspection and the calicos woven at Madraspatnam were much cheaper than those at Armagaon.
On 22 August 1639, Francis Day secured the Grant by the Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu, Nayak of Wandiwash giving over to the British East India Company a three-mile long strip of land, a fishing village called Madraspatnam, copies of which were endorsed by Andrew Cogan, the Chief of the Masulipatam Factory, and are even now preserved. The Grant was for a period of two years and empowered them to build a fort and castle on an approximate 5 square kilometre sand strip.
The English Factors at Masulipatam were satisfied with Francis Day. They requested Francis Day and the Damarla Venkatadri Nayakudu to wait until the sanction of the superior English Presidency of Bantam (in Java) could be obtained for their action. The main difficulty, among the English those days, was lack of money. In February 1640, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan accompanied by a few factors and writers, a garrison of about 25 European soldiers and a few other European artificers, besides a Hindu powder-maker by name Naga Battan, proceeded to Madras and started the English factory. They reached Madraspatnam on February 20, 1640; and this date is important because it marks the first actual settlement of the English at the place.

Francis Day, his dubash (Interpreter) Beri Thimmanna Chetti and their superior Andrew Cogan can be considered as the founders of Chennai, then Madras. They began construction of the Fort St George on 23 April 1640 and houses for their residence. This area came to be known as 'White Town'. When Indians came to live near it, this gave rise to another settlement. The Company called the new place 'Black Town', as the Indians here met its needs of cloth and indigo.
The grant signed between Damarla Venkatapadri and the British had to be authenticated or confirmed from the Raja of Chandragiri - Venkatapathy Rayulu.The Raja , Venkatapathy Rayulu was succeeded by his nephew Sri Rangarayulu in 1642. Sir Francis Day was succeeded by Thomas Ivy. The grant expired. So, Thomas Ivy sent Factor Greenhill on a misson to Chandragiri to meet the new Raja and get the grant renewed. A new grant was issued in 1642 copies of which are still available. It is dated October - November 1645. This new grant signed in 1645 empowered the English to administer justice and gave them an additional piece of land known as the Narimedu (Jackal-ground) which lay to the west of the village of Madraspatnam. All the 3 grants are said to be engraved on gold plates that do not exist now.
The Fort St George became the nucleus around which the city grew. The Fort still stands today, and a part of it is used to house the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and the Office of the Chief Minister. Elihu Yale, after whom Yale University is named, was British governor of Madras for five years. Part of the fortune that he amassed in Madras as part of the colonial administration became the financial foundation for Yale University.

1750s to 1947

In 1746, Fort St George and Madras were captured by the French under General La Bourdonnais, who used to be the Governor of Mauritius. The French are then described to have plundered the village of Chepauk and demolished Blacktown, the locality across from the port where all the dockyard labourers used to live [1].

The British regained control in 1749 through the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. They then strengthened and expanded Fort St George over the next thirty years to bear subsequent attacks, the strongest of which came from the French (1759, under Thomas Arthur, Comte de Lally), and Hyder Ali, the Sultan of Mysore (1767). The 1783 version of Fort St George is what still stands today.
The British were in complete control of the city, after a decade's feud with the French, they expanded the city by encompassing the neighbouring villages of Triplicane, Egmore, Purasawalkam and Chetput to form the city of Chennapatnam, as it was called by locals then.
In the latter half of the 18th century, Madras became an important English naval base, and the administrative centre of the growing British dominions in southern India. The British fought with various European powers, notably the French at Vandavasi (Wandiwash) in 1760, where de Lally was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote, and the Danish at Tharangambadi (Tranquebar). The British eventually dominated, driving the French, the Dutch and the Danes away entirely, and reducing the French dominions in India to four tiny coastal enclaves. The British also fought four wars with the Kingdom of Mysore under Hyder Ali and later his son Tipu Sultan, which led to their eventual domination of India's south. Madras was the capital of the Madras Presidency, also called Madras Province.

The development of a harbour in Madras led the city to become an important centre for trade between India and Europe in the eighteenth century. In 1788, Thomas Parry arrived in Madras as a free merchant and he set up one of the oldest mercantile companies in the city and one of the oldest in the country (EID Parry). John Binny came to Madras in 1797 and he established the textile comapy Binny & Co in 1814. Spencer's started as a small business in 1864 and went on to become the biggest department stores in Asia at the time. The original building which housed Spencer & Co. was burnt down in a fire in 1983 and the present structure houses one of the largest shopping malls in India, Spencer Plaza. Other prominent companies in the city included Gordon Woodroffe, Best & Crompton, Higginbothams, Hoe & Co and P. Orr & Sons.
Madras was the capital of the Madras Presidency and thus became home to important commercial organisations. The Madras Chamber of Commerce was founded in 1836 by Fredrick Adam, Governor of the Madras Presidency (the second oldest Chamber of Commerce in the country). The Madras Trades Association was established in 1856 and The Madras Stock Exchange in 1920.
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Post-independence

After India became independent, the city became the administrative and legislative capital of Madras State which was renamed as Tamil Nadu in 1968.
During the reorganisation of states in India on linguistic lines, in 1953, Telugu speakers wanted Madras as the capital of Andhra Pradesh and coined the slogan "Madras Manade" (Madras is ours) before Tirupati was included in Andhra Pradesh. The dispute arose as the city had come to be inhabited by both Tamil and Telugu speaking people. Earlier, Panagal Raja, Chief Minister of Madras Presidency in early 1920s had suggested that the Cooum river be the boundary between the Tamil and Telegu administrative areas. In 1953, the political and administrative dominance of Tamils, both at the Union and State levels ensured that Madras was not transferred to the new state of Andhra Pradesh though the city was geographically part of the Andhra region. With time, migration of Tamil speaking people from other parts of Tamil Nadu to the state capital increased the percentage of Tamil speaking population.

Today, though a cosmopolitan city, the majority of residents in Chennai are native Tamilians. There are also a sizeable native Telugu, Anglo Indian and migrant Malayalee communities in the city. As the city is an important administrative and commercial centre, many communities like Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and Marwari communities and people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar migrated to the city and have contibuted to its cosmopolitan nature. Today, Chennai also has a growing expatriate population especially from the United States, Europe and East Asia who work in the industries and IT centres.
From 1965 to 1967, the city was an important base for the Tamil agitation against the perceived imposition of Hindi, and witnessed sporadic rioting. Chennai witnessed further political violence due to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, with 33 people killed by a bomb planted by the Tamil Eelam Army at the airport in 1984, and assassination of thirteen members of the EPRLF and two Indian civilians by the rival LTTE in 1991 [2], [3]. In the same year, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in Sriperumbudur, a small town close to Chennai, whilst campaigning in Tamil Nadu, by Thenmuli Rajaratnam A.K.A Dhanu. Dhanu is widely believed to be have been a LTTE member. In 1996, the Government of Tamil Nadu renamed the city from "Madras" to "Chennai" by DMK Government. The 2004 tsunami lashed the shores of Chennai killing many and permanently altering the coastline.
Modern Chennai is a large commercial and industrial centre, and is known for its cultural heritage and temple architecture. Chennai is the automobile capital of India, with around forty percent of the automobile industry having a base there and with a major portion of the nation's vehicles being produced there. Chennai is also referred as the Detroit of South Asia. It is a major manufacturing centre. Chennai has also become a major center for outsourced IT and financial services from the Western world.

Source: wikipedia

http://www.roydondomnic.blogspot.com/

Madras to Chennai

2006-09-25T11:23:00.000+05:30

This blog covers the history of the city of madras and the story of how it came to be called chennai.