When Ambayiram, a member of the Erode Municipal Corporation, began building a house in 1968, little did he realise that this would result in the birth of a museum. When the soil was being dug up, workers found a Murugan icon dating to the ninth century. The icon was taken to Pulavar Dr. S. Raju, a Tamil teacher in the C.S.I. Mission school, in Erode. (Raju later became a renowned epigraphist in the State Archaeology department).
Meenakshisundaranar
The school management did not want to keep the icon in the school premises, and Raju was in a fix. Luckily, S. Meenakshisundaranar, founder of a school called Kalaimagal Kalvi Nilayam, suggested that the icon be housed in his school. Soon after, a stone with an inscription dated 948 C.E was discovered near a lake, and another with an inscription dating to the 13th century was discovered in a sewer near a lawyer’s house, and these too were taken to Kalaimagal school.
In 1972, a burial urn was unearthed in Kalaimagal school, and this spurred efforts to build up a collection of heritage objects for the school. Meenakshisundaranar threw himself wholeheartedly into the project, along with Raju. Sadly, Meenakshisundaranar passed away in 1973, after which the collection effort continued under Ms. M. Muthiah, principal of the school. She toured Thanjavur, Puducherry, Dharmapuri and Coimbatore, soliciting pieces for the school collection.
Raju’s friends Poluvampatti Ramasami, Bagur Kuppusami, Kadathur Venkataraman, Achirupakkam Thamaraikannan and Poonkundran of Coimbatore gladly parted with their collections. A museum called Kalaimagal Kalaikoodam was established in 1978. Chief Minister MGR visited the museum the next year.
Numismatic section
In 1981, the Kalaimagal Meenakshisundaranar Archaeological research centre (KAMALARC) was inaugurated by MGR. The Ministry of Culture, Government of India, contributed ₹98,000 to the museum. When the World Tamil Conference took place in Madurai, many of the school museum’s pieces were taken to Madurai for display.
Upon the death of Ms. Muthiah, the mantle passed to Ms. S. Mangalavathy. To coincide with the centenary of Meenakshisundaranar, a separate coin section was inaugurated in 1998. Dr. R. Krishnamurthy, editor, Dinamalar , known for his research on coins and vattezhuthu, instituted an annual award for the student who wrote the best essay on archaeology and history.
Semi-precious stones
When one learns that students of the school did field work in Kodumanal, under the guidance of Dr. Raju, one becomes envious of them. They returned with colourful beads made of stone, iron implements and potsherds, which were housed in the museum. “Padittrupathu, a Sangam era work, talks of a place called Kodumanam. Kodumanal is the Kodumanam of the Sangam period,” says Raju.
Epigraphist S. Raju
“The place abounds in semi precious stones. Padittrupathu says that when farmers ploughed their land, when the rains caused soil erosion and when people dug up edible roots, such stones were obtained. The people of Kodumanal made beads using these stones.”
Sangam literature talks of burial practices among the Tamils. “Manimekalai mentions ‘thaazhiyil kavippor,’ which is a reference to burial urns,” says Raju. The urn discovered in Kalaimagal school contained two skeletons, which were identified as belonging to a man and a woman.
There is a verse in Purananuru , where a woman requests a potter to make a burial urn big enough to hold her husband and herself, for she has never been separated from him. She says she has been following him faithfully, like a lizard holding on to the spoke in the wheel of a cart (verse 256 Purananuru). The burial urn unearthed in Kalaimagal Kalvi Nilayam shows that husband and wife being interred in the same urn was not just poetic hyperbole, but a common practice.
Ayyanar sculpture
The museum has stone sculptures, bronzes, wooden sculptures, copper plates, stone slabs with inscriptions and palm leaf manuscripts. The sculptures include a 12th century Jyestha Devi, a 10th century sculpture of Ayyanar with his spouses Purna and Pushkala, and a 12th century Ayyanar. The latter has a figure of a hunter, with his dog.
Sculpture of Ayyanar with devotees and hunter and dog
Sculpture of Ayyanar with Purna and Pushkala
A stone slab with a Kulottunga I period inscription (11th century) is one of the exhibits in the museum. It says a place called Vikramapalavapuram, near Bhavani, was conferred the honorific of Veerapattinam. Important trading centres, which were guarded by armed forces, were called Veerapattinam.
Students from other schools visit the museum to get a guided tour of history, as do scholars of repute. When I visited, I found students viewing the displays and taking down notes. Later in class, they asked their teacher questions based on their notes. What a wonderful way to learn history!
