Monday, Jun 05, 2006 S. MUTHIAH on Madras' Tamil tombstone Reader K.R.A.Narasiah has become an indefatigable sleuth in helping out this column - and in the process has re-discovered the oldest Tamil tombstone in `British Madras'; `Portuguese Madras' might have a Tamil tombstone or two, and if they exist, I have no doubt now that Narasiah will find them for me. The tombstone that he has found - and photographed to accompany this piece - was the one mentioned in Miscellany (April 3), that of Thaniappa Mudaliar aka Lazarus Timothy, one of the "founders of Pondicherry". This tombstone is one of the 101 paving the front courtyard of St. Mary's in the Fort. It is located almost at the eastern end, just outside where the organ is sited. Covered with earth and debris, it was cleaned up for his picture by Narasiah and, though the lower part is missing, has enough of the inscription visible to clearly reveal what I had quoted on April 3. What seems curious at first is the fact that the tombstone of a Roman Catholic is found in a Protestant church, midst those of the early Anglicans of Madras. But thereby lies the story of Madras's first cemeteries and churches. The oldest British cemetery in South India was in what was known as the Guava Garden; today, the Law College occupies the site. In the Fort, St. Andrew's, a church predating St. Mary's by nearly 50 years, was a Roman Catholic shrine which Fr. Ephrem de Nevers, in a nice touch of early ecumenism, allowed the Protestants in the Fort to use for their separate worship. Thaniappa Mudaliar was one of those buried in St. Andrew's. After the French occupation of Madras (1746-49) and their subsequent siege of the city after its rendition (1758-59), the English decided to raze the Guava Garden cemetery the tombs of which had provided the besiegers protection, and St. Andrew's Church, whose clergy the British felt had aided the French. The tombstones from both were re-located in 1763 where they now are. They were dug up in 1782 to be used as gun emplacements on the ramparts when Hyder Ali threatened Madras. And they were put back, helter skelter and many broken in the process, in 1807. It was the decision to respect the ecumenism of St.Andrew's that led to its tombstones finding a place in St.Mary's. Thaniappa Mudaliar, it appears, was a Mylaporean who teamed with Francois Martin, the founder of Pondicherry, when the latter lived in San Thomé during its occupation by the French. Thaniappa Mudaliar's descendants were also dubashes of the French East India Company, I now find. His son Moutiappa aka as Antonio aka André helped the French bring back to Pondicherry the weavers who had fled during the Dutch occupation. Moutiappa's grandson, Pierre Kanagaraya Mudaliar, obtained for the French the right to mint Arcot rupees and negotiated with the Raja of Tanjore and acquired Karaikal for the French. Kanagaraya Mudaliar - known as a member of the Motha family, a contraction of Timothy - and the famed Anandarangapillai, Governor Dupleix's dubash, were always at odds, particularly as Jeanne Dupleix favoured the Mothas. The descendants of both families, I hear, still live in what is now Puducheri. Incidentally, Cotton's Inscriptions... of Madras mentions another early Tamil tombstone in the City. It states that the tombstone of Muthu Nayakar, in what is now St. Mary's Cathedral in Armenian Street, is the oldest in the church. Muthu Nayakar, the son of Babu Nayakar, was christened Francisco Muthu Nayakar and was known as Francis. He died on November 11, 1751, and the inscription states that he belonged to the "Kavarais (a caste) of Madras" and was "aged over 50 years". http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2006/06/05/stories/2006060500440500.htm ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India