Ettayapuram
Encyclopedia
Ettayapuram is a panchayat town in Thoothukudi district
(also known as Tuticorin district) of Tamil Nadu
, India
. It is notable for being the birth place of the great Tamil
Poet
Mahakavi Bharathiar. Muthuswami Dikshitar
, one of the triad of Carnatic music
also was patronised in his final years by the ruler of Ettayapuram. V.Muthusamy Thetchadhar,one of the Three Karnataka Music Legends called " Sangeetha Mummoorthikal". He was born at Tiruvarur on 1775 and died in 1835 at Ettayapuram. Umaru Pulavar
a Tamil Islamic poet also lived here.
. After 150 years of rule by the descendants of Ettappan, Ilasanadu became Ettayapuram in 1565. Even today, some people call it Ilasai. Notable among them is Ilasai Sundaram, who is a Tamil Scholar.Veeran Alghumuthu Konar was born in this Ettayapuram, called as first freedom fighter against the English Ruler.
Subramanya Bharathi better known as Mahakavi Bharathiar (Maha Kavi meaning Great Poet) in Tamil, deemed as one of the greatest poets of twentieth-century India
was born here on 11 December 1882. A prolific writer, philosopher and a great visionary of immense genius and perspicacity, Bharathiar was also one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement
in South India
. He studied in a local high school named "Raajah's High School", where he showed exemplary poetic talent even at an early age of 11. At various points in time, he was patronised by Ettappan, the local ruler, even though differences used to crop up between them often.
Ettappan carries a mixed image. The negative impression is because he gave away the information regarding Veerapandiya Kattabomman's whereabouts to the British, which eventually led to the arrest and hanging of Kattabomman. In fact, Ettappan came to be used as a metaphor for a whistleblower
or traitor. On the other hand, his namesake
descendant was admired by some of the natives for his welfare activities including arrangements for water supply through huge tanks. His spouse name is Ettamaal. He was also a patron of poets and musicians. Notable examples are Bharathy and Muthuswami Dikshitar.
. It was in Kovilpatti constituency
till 2006 general Elections and Now it comes under the Vilathikulam
constituency of Tamil Nadu legislative assembly from 2011 Elections.S.Alagarsamy was the longest serving -5 Terms from 1967 to 1990 Member of Legislative Assembly to The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly representing the Kovilpatti constituency
. He was born near a small village Ramanoothu a mile away from here and lived in Ettayapuram since 1971 and died in Ettayapuram on 6 March 2009.
, Ettayapuram had a population of 12,800. Males constitute 48% of the population and females 52%. Ettayapuram has an average literacy rate of 69%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 61%. In Ettayapuram, 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.
People of Ettayapuram are primarily engaged in weaving
, making match
es and agriculture
. Currently all these trades have become less remunerative and the people here migrate to cities like Chennai
to work as labourers in grocery shops.
Most of the people living here are traditional weavers who weave cotton yarn
using handlooms
. These handlooms are not suited for weaving complex patterns as designs on the cloth. There are some recent moves by National Institute of Fashion Technology
to train people on Jacquard loom
s, which is suited for weaving complex patterns in a semi-automated way using punched cards. Some people who are relatively wealthy, use power loom
s. People are also employed in other allied trades of preparing the thread for weaving, dye
ing etc.
The area of land under cultivation has fallen due to failing rains and relatively poor soil fertility. The soil type is black soil, which supports crops like kezhvaragu
, cumbu, cholam, cotton
, sunflower
etc.
Kanni breed of goats, a drought-resistant variety reared for its meat, is most common in this region.
, Thoothukkudi, and Tirunelveli
by road. Train services are available from Chennai, Bangalore
, Madurai, Thoothukkudi, Tirunelveli and else where in India, up to Kovilpatti, which is 15 km from here.
Raja's Higher Secondary School, where Mahakavi Bharathiyar studied.
Educational Institutions in Ettayapuram:
Thoothukudi District
Thoothukudi District, also known as Tuticorin District, is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. Thoothukudi is the district headquarters. It is also known for Pearl cultivation with abundance of pearls found in the seas of Thoothukudi...
(also known as Tuticorin district) of Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu is one of the 28 states of India. Its capital and largest city is Chennai. Tamil Nadu lies in the southernmost part of the Indian Peninsula and is bordered by the union territory of Pondicherry, and the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. It is notable for being the birth place of the great Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
Poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Mahakavi Bharathiar. Muthuswami Dikshitar
Muthuswami Dikshitar
Muthuswami Dikshitar is a South Indian poet and composer and is one of the Musical Trinity of Carnatic music...
, one of the triad of Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
also was patronised in his final years by the ruler of Ettayapuram. V.Muthusamy Thetchadhar,one of the Three Karnataka Music Legends called " Sangeetha Mummoorthikal". He was born at Tiruvarur on 1775 and died in 1835 at Ettayapuram. Umaru Pulavar
Umaru Pulavar
Umaru Pulavar was a Tamil Muslim poet from Tamil Nadu, India. Umaru Pulavar was born in 1642 in the town of Ettayapuram in Thoothukudi district. He is celebrated as one of the greatest Islamic Poets of India.-Early life:...
a Tamil Islamic poet also lived here.
History
Ettayapuram was originally Ilasanadu, which was ruled by the Pandya Kings. When they could no longer rule directly, Ettappan was appointed as ZamindarZamindar
A Zamindar or zemindar , was an aristocrat, typically hereditary, who held enormous tracts of land and ruled over and taxed the bhikaaris who lived on batavaslam. Over time, they took princely and royal titles such as Maharaja , Raja , Nawab , and Mirza , Chowdhury , among others...
. After 150 years of rule by the descendants of Ettappan, Ilasanadu became Ettayapuram in 1565. Even today, some people call it Ilasai. Notable among them is Ilasai Sundaram, who is a Tamil Scholar.Veeran Alghumuthu Konar was born in this Ettayapuram, called as first freedom fighter against the English Ruler.
Legacy of Subramanya Bharathy
See also Subramanya BharathySubramanya Bharathy
Mahakavi Subramanya Bharathiyar was a Tamil poet from Tamil Nadu, India, an independence fighter and iconoclastic reformer. Known as Mahakavi Bharathiyar , he is celebrated as one of South India's greatest poets...
Subramanya Bharathi better known as Mahakavi Bharathiar (Maha Kavi meaning Great Poet) in Tamil, deemed as one of the greatest poets of twentieth-century India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
was born here on 11 December 1882. A prolific writer, philosopher and a great visionary of immense genius and perspicacity, Bharathiar was also one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
in South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
. He studied in a local high school named "Raajah's High School", where he showed exemplary poetic talent even at an early age of 11. At various points in time, he was patronised by Ettappan, the local ruler, even though differences used to crop up between them often.
Ettappan
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
or traitor. On the other hand, his namesake
Namesake
Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another....
descendant was admired by some of the natives for his welfare activities including arrangements for water supply through huge tanks. His spouse name is Ettamaal. He was also a patron of poets and musicians. Notable examples are Bharathy and Muthuswami Dikshitar.
Civic administration
Ettayapuram is a town panchayat that is part of the Thoothukudi district, which was carved out of the erstwhile Tirunelveli districtTirunelveli District
Tirunelveli District is a district of Tamil Nadu state in southern India. The city of Tirunelveli is the district headquarters. A unique feature of this district is that it encompasses all five geographical traditions of Tamil Literature; kurinji , mullai , marudham , neithal and palai...
. It was in Kovilpatti constituency
Kovilpatti (State Assembly Constituency)
Kovilpatti is an Assembly Constituency and was part of Sivakasi Lok Sabha Constituency in Tamil Nadu. As per order of the Delimitation Commission in respect of the delimitation of constituencies in the Tamil Nadu, the Kovilpatti assembly constituency has been a segment of the new Thoothukkudi .[3]...
till 2006 general Elections and Now it comes under the Vilathikulam
Vilathikulam
Vilathikulam is a panchayat town in Thoothukudi district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is a small town near the southern tip of mainland India....
constituency of Tamil Nadu legislative assembly from 2011 Elections.S.Alagarsamy was the longest serving -5 Terms from 1967 to 1990 Member of Legislative Assembly to The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly representing the Kovilpatti constituency
Kovilpatti (State Assembly Constituency)
Kovilpatti is an Assembly Constituency and was part of Sivakasi Lok Sabha Constituency in Tamil Nadu. As per order of the Delimitation Commission in respect of the delimitation of constituencies in the Tamil Nadu, the Kovilpatti assembly constituency has been a segment of the new Thoothukkudi .[3]...
. He was born near a small village Ramanoothu a mile away from here and lived in Ettayapuram since 1971 and died in Ettayapuram on 6 March 2009.
Demographics
India censusCensus
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
, Ettayapuram had a population of 12,800. Males constitute 48% of the population and females 52%. Ettayapuram has an average literacy rate of 69%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 78%, and female literacy is 61%. In Ettayapuram, 10% of the population is under 6 years of age.
People of Ettayapuram are primarily engaged in weaving
Weaving
Weaving is a method of fabric production in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads are interlaced at right angles to form a fabric or cloth. The other methods are knitting, lace making and felting. The longitudinal threads are called the warp and the lateral threads are the weft or filling...
, making match
Match
A match is a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. A typical modern match is made of a small wooden stick or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface...
es and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
. Currently all these trades have become less remunerative and the people here migrate to cities like Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
to work as labourers in grocery shops.
Weaving
Yarn
Yarn is a long continuous length of interlocked fibres, suitable for use in the production of textiles, sewing, crocheting, knitting, weaving, embroidery and ropemaking. Thread is a type of yarn intended for sewing by hand or machine. Modern manufactured sewing threads may be finished with wax or...
using handlooms
Loom
A loom is a device used to weave cloth. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the warp threads under tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads...
. These handlooms are not suited for weaving complex patterns as designs on the cloth. There are some recent moves by National Institute of Fashion Technology
National Institute of Fashion Technology
National Institute of Fashion Technology is a prestigious fashion institute in India. It was set up in 1986 under the aegis of the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India and is a premier institution in design, management and technology, developing professionals leadership positions in the...
to train people on Jacquard loom
Jacquard loom
The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom is controlled by punched cards with punched holes, each row of which corresponds to one row...
s, which is suited for weaving complex patterns in a semi-automated way using punched cards. Some people who are relatively wealthy, use power loom
Power loom
A power loom is a mechanized loom powered by a line shaft. The first power loom was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785. It was refined over the next 47 years until a design by Kenworthy and Bullough, made the operation completely automatic. This was known as the...
s. People are also employed in other allied trades of preparing the thread for weaving, dye
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
ing etc.
Making match boxes
The next major occupation here is making match boxes, which includes manufacturing small boxes that contain matchsticks, preparing match sticks and loading them on to the match boxes. Nowadays, as many people have started using mechanical lighters for starting fire and also due to automated match stick makers, this trade is on the decline.Agriculture
Finger millet
Eleusine coracana, commonly Finger millet , also known as African millet or Ragi is an annual plant widely grown as a cereal in the arid areas of Africa and Asia. E...
, cumbu, cholam, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, sunflower
Sunflower
Sunflower is an annual plant native to the Americas. It possesses a large inflorescence . The sunflower got its name from its huge, fiery blooms, whose shape and image is often used to depict the sun. The sunflower has a rough, hairy stem, broad, coarsely toothed, rough leaves and circular heads...
etc.
Tourist attractions
Ettayapuram is well connected to MaduraiMadurai
Madurai is the third largest city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It served as the capital city of the Pandyan Kingdom. It is the administrative headquarters of Madurai District and is famous for its temples built by Pandyan and...
, Thoothukkudi, and Tirunelveli
Tirunelveli
Tirunelveli , also known as Nellai , and historically as Tinnevelly, is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the headquarters of the Tirunelveli District and the sixth biggest city in Tamil Nadu...
by road. Train services are available from Chennai, Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, Madurai, Thoothukkudi, Tirunelveli and else where in India, up to Kovilpatti, which is 15 km from here.
Places of interest in Ettayapuram
- Bharathiar's House
- Bharathy's Memorial
- Muthuswamy Dikshitar's Memorial
- Umarup Pulavar Dargah
- Ettappan's Palace
- Veeran Alghumuthu Konar was born in this Ettayapuram, called as first freedom fighter against the English Ruler.
Raja's Higher Secondary School, where Mahakavi Bharathiyar studied.
Places of interest near Ettayapuram
- PanchalankurichiPanchalankurichiPanchalankurichi is a small but historic village, 3 km from Ottapidaram and 18 km from Thoothukudi in Thoothukudi district, Tamil Nadu, India. Panchalankurichi was once a Palayam and is best known as the birth place of Veerapandiya Kattabomman, a 17th century Palayakarrar , who opposed the British...
Fort of Veerapandiya KattabommanVeerapandiya KattabommanVeerapandiya Kattabomman also known as Kattabomman was an 18th century Palayakarrar chieftain from Panchalankurichi of Tamil Nadu, India and the 47th King of Panchalankurichi who fought the British. His ancestors migrated to Tamil Nadu from areas in present day Andhra Pradesh during the... - Nellaiappar Temple in Tirunelveli
- CourtallamCourtallamCourtallam is a panchayat town situated at a mean elevation of on the Western Ghats in Tirunelveli District of Tamil Nadu, India. Many seasonal and a few perennial rivers such as the Chittar River, the Manimuthar River, the Pachaiyar River and the Tambaraparani River originate in this region...
waterfalls near Tirunelveli - OttapidaramOttapidaramOttapidaram is the biggest taluk in Tamil Nadu state, India. It is a small town in Tuticorin District. Ottapidaram continues to be a tourism centre, but has accessibility with many places from Tamil Nadu...
, the birth place of V. O. Chidambaram Pillai - Ayyanar temple, Vangarpatti, 5 km from Ettayapuram
- Sinthalakkarai Shri Vetkaliamman temple - 5 km from Ettayapuram.
See also
- Ettaiyapuram estateEttaiyapuram estateEttaiyapuram estate was a zamindari estate situated in the Ottapidaram taluk of the erstwhile Tinnevely district.- Geography :Ettaiyapuram was located in the north-eastern corner of Tinnevely district. The estate covered an area of and 374 villages and in 1901, had a population of 154,000...
Educational Institutions in Ettayapuram:
- Raja's Higher Secondary School
- Government Girl's Higher Secondary School
- C.K.T Matriculation Higher secondary School, 5 km from Ettayapuram
- Bharathiyar memorial Government polytechnic for women