Folklore of Friendship —Fiona Evangeline

Ritual reveals multiple layers of what’s accidentally perceived as a homogenous settlement

Map of temples in Mylapore. Image © Fiona Evangeline, 2023.

In Mylapore, an ancient Indigenous settlement in Chennai on the southeast coast of India, a 200-year-old ritual took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.[1] Without written record, the ritual involved two orthodox religious groups–the Muslims and the Brahmins. The Muslims in the precinct performed their ambulation[2] in Mylapore, in the Kapaleeshwarar temple tank. The Brahmins removed the lilies to honor the mourning ritual of the Shia Muslims.

Mylapor is graphically documented in the Catalan map of 1375 and records of the site can also be traced back to the 6th century in Greek, Nestorian and Persian literature.  It is a heterogeneous neighbourhood comprising communities of different cultures and religious backgrounds. According to several sources, Madras (renamed Chennai in 1996) got its name from ‘Madre De Deus’ meaning mother of god and dedicated to St. Thomas. Santhome is an Anglo-Indian settlement adjacent to Myalopore and often referred to as ‘Mylapore-Santhome’. Archaeological evidence of an ancient Jain temple has been found on the shores of the marina, and the region is home to a Tamil-speaking Jain community. Among  different groups, the Brahmins and the Muslims are the most prominent. Therefore functioned as heterogeneous spaces with multiple interdependency.

The Brahmins are an orthodox Hindu community who live and work around the temple. They reside in agraharam houses owned by the temple. The Brahmins in Mylapore were the indigenous elites and promoted their lifestyle through education, art and customs. The Muslims settled in this region and made it their home as early as the 13th century AD; Marco Polo on his visit to Mylapore records that several Muslims in the region stayed there and considered St. Thomas as one of their saints. According to the records of a chronicler, Duarte Barbosa, the Muslims also looked after the tomb of St. Thomas in the 16th century.[3]

In the early 20th century, certain parts of India faced religious intolerance, leading to a partition in 1947  that resulted in the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh. The partition left the people with memories of bloodshed and homelessness. The Mylapore region, at this time, was ruled by the secular Muslim King Wallajah. Wallajah was a Nawab of the Carnatic who understood the heterogeneity of space.  He believed that secularism was the soul of a country where all religious groups enjoyed equal rights.

The famous Kapaleeshwarar temple was built in the 17th century with no record of a temple tank. However,  archaeologist and historian N.S. Ramaswamy notes that the temple tank was built on land that the Nawab of Carnatic gifted to the Hindu worshipers. An article by Rakesh Mani in the wall street journal confirms that the temple found a willing patron in the Nawab of Carnatic ‘Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah’.[4]

On gifting the land for building the temple tank, he requested the worshipers to allow the Shia Muslims to perform ambulation on the tenth day of Muharram to soothe their wounds after self-flagellating in the  procession.

Thereafter, as a sign of their brotherhood, the Muslims brought the panja[5] (camphor) and performed their  ritualistic ambulation in the temple tank every year on the 10th day of Muharram. The temple worshippers  would remove the lilies from the water to extend their sensitivity to mourn the martyrdom of Ḥusayn Ibn Ali. This display of unity and brotherhood remains forgotten since drought dried the temple tank in the 1980s. However, according to journalist K.N Raghavendra Rao, in the early years of drought, people brought water and sat on the steps to pray as it coincided with the ringing of the temple bells. He also notes the emotions of a temple worshiper expressing his love and acceptance towards the ceremony:

“In a touching little ceremony that blends both religions, Dharmarajan's wife performs the arati of  the panja, and later the couple smear the burnt camphor on their foreheads. A cynical young man,  watching, says: "This is madness." "Yes," retorts Dharmarajan, "but it is a beautiful madness...I am  a Hindu but living amongst Muslims these last 30 years, the fasting and prayers at Moharrum  somehow made a deep impression on me. I, too, started fasting and praying. For the past 10 years,  I have been bringing Panja to Mylapore. And why not? I believe in God and God manifests himself  in so many ways.”[6]

The temple is a site of identity, and spaces with a strong sense of identity act also as sites of exclusion.  However, in this case, the temple tank becomes the site of ritualistic interdependency. It’s likely that the water from the tank was consumed by both communities in the region. The ritualistic display of affection was able to alter the perception of the space as a site of inclusion.

Nevertheless, there are several sites of inclusion and religious tolerance throughout the fabric of old Madras.  In fact, the first mosque of Madras was built by a Hindu merchant who was acquainted with the Sultans that resided on Moore Street in the 1670s. Devadi Street in Mylapore is often mistaken as the courtesan quarters owing to a misinterpretation of the name whereas it derives its name from Mahfuz Khan Devadi, a noble of the then Nawab of Carnatic. Devadi Street is now a small thoroughfare that links two parallel roads in Mylapore  well within the vicinity of the Kapaleeshwarar temple.

Today Mylapore is constantly represented for its Kapaleeshwarar temple and temple tank in heritage forums. And yet, another tank adjacent to it, called Chitrakulam, remains as a site of exclusion due to the lack of any such engagements.

The neighbourhood is constantly represented as a homogeneous Hindu settlement, posing a social tolerance threat—increasing the need to identify sites of interdependencies in order to simulate the forgotten past. Mylapor has been projected with authenticity and perceived largely as a homogeneous culture, gaining UNESCO heritage status in the past decade. This has left ‘other’ cultures out of the narrative. Discussion revisiting an updated city master plan exclude cultures unrelated to the temple. Several measures are now being taken to redevelop the urban fabric, which can lead to the spatial erasure of such places. There is a pressing need to remember the brotherhood our ancestors shared. The ‘lieu de memoire’ allows future generations to view the place in its true essence.

[1] Chennai was formerly known as Madras before the name changed in 1996.

[2] Ambulation is ceremonial bathing that the worshipers engage in before entering the mosque. The Shia muslims also do this to soothe their wounds after flagellating themselves.

[3] “Muslims Chennai’s early settlers”, The New Indian Express, 20 August, 2009.

[4] WSJ article by Rakesh Mani

[5] Panja (or camphor) is an important element used in the funeral rituals.

[6] K.N Raghavendra Rao, 1983.

Fiona Evangeline is a Chennai-based architect and researcher, who holds a post-graduate degree in Architectural History and Theory from CEPT University. She has worked as a Teaching Associate and Visiting Faculty at BMS College of Architecture. She is also a core member of research-led architectural practice called Prayogshala and a founding partner at Citistrata Research Foundation.

This essay is part of the Rituals Series seeking to understand what is urgent about a place that could be addressed by a ritual.

Guest Editor: Shoonya Kumar