B.Meenakshi Sundaram
Ever since the day paper was discovered, it has hardly realized the politics played by man behind it. Although wall posters made of paper were once food for stray donkeys and goats in the crowded town, the responsibility of these animals seems to have been shifted to the unruly mob of men, who tear them in wrath, raise slogans against their opponents and stage a road roko in an evening. When the same posters were pasted on the same walls, the animals gazed in awe, as the posters were not ripped up this time. Perhaps it was due to the play of another dull, yellow sheet of paper, on which a case got registered against the ones that tore the posters. And when you look at the same persons smiling on those newly-pasted posters, you are sure to notice their giving a hint that the more their posters are torn the more their appearance would be.
The evolution of paper arrived at another point when a statesman narrated the story which he found on a piece of paper. The narrator just informed that the sheet of paper showed the members of a particular section of society in poor light by terming them as 'sons of prostitutes' As his effigies were burnt across the state and an unconditional apology was demanded from him, the one who, long ago, termed the section as 'sons of prostitutes' kept mum and stood smiling at the tussle.
Following the discovery of paper, the printing machine was invented to document valuable manuscripts. The first manuscripts that got printed were Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and The Bible. While Canterbury Tales parodied the corrupt clergymen of 14th-century England, the sheets of paper in The New Testament portrayed Mary Magdalene as a repented prostitute. The woman, who was a witness to Jesus' crucifixion and the one who first saw the newly-risen Christ, was, later, popularised as the mother of a child by Jesus in Dawn Brown's paper The Da Vinci Code.
John Milton's Areopagitica, a pamphlet against the Licensing Order of 1643 which required authors to have a license approved by the government before their work could be published, emphasized that God endowed every person with reason, free will, and conscience to judge ideas for themselves. However, Karl Marx, when he was the Editor of Rheinische Zeitung, a German morning newspaper, had to submit his writings to the censor of the government, wait for their return and work on the paper tediously again in the wee hours. Marx penned various articles, particularly on the Divorce Bill and the dire economic straits of the Mosel vintners. Since his writings criticized the draconian Prussian Government, it decided to ban the newspaper.
At the same time, there was no censor to clear Kalki's historical novel Ponniyin Selvan, which replaced a heinous crime in the history of Cholas with a romantic affair. The fictional pages of the novel have now taken a new structure of scenes on the silver screen.
Centuries before such sheets of paper began to play hide and seek in history, events that deserved importance were all inscribed on slabs of stone.
Stone inscriptions are not like sheets of paper which yield to the will of fiction writers. Like how you tear sheets of paper or edit or delete video recordings, you cannot do away with letters inscribed on stone.
Such a stone inscription dating back to 998 A.D is found at the Anantheeswarar Temple at Udayarkudi in Kattumannarkoil of the Cuddalore district. The inscription bears testimony to the assassination of the Chola prince Adiththa Karikala in revenge for his decapitating the Pandya king Veerapandiya.
Eminent historian K.A Nilakanta Sastri, in his article on the inscription to Epigraphia Indica, Volume 21, on page 167, writes thus:
" ...Aditha II Karikala fell a victim to assassination at the hands of some persons who, to judge from their names and titles, must have been highly placed Brahman officials in the army"
Sastri also adds more about the incident mentioned in the inscription:
" ...It recounts that Soman......... and his younger brothers Ravidasa and Parameswara had been found guilty of treason (Drohihalana) for their murder of Karikala Chola 'who took the head of the Pandya' "
Avvayar, the Tamil woman poet in her Moodhurai, a collection of venbas with ideas of morals to mankind, compares the help rendered to good people with letters inscribed on a slab of stone for all eternity. But the same given to the wicked would be just like writing on the water!
Then, how about being a snake in the grass and killing someone at an odd hour? Such an act would also look like the clear letters inscribed on the Udayargudi inscription!
https://simplicity.in/coimbatore/english/article/1347/A-novel-idea-to-suppress-a-snake-in-the-grass
