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Subject: [agathiyar] Dravidian Hermeneutics 5
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3.2 The Structural and The Sequential Organization of Text


When we examine the thirty two utties that are listed, it is clear that they
can be grouped into
three distinct classes. The first four appear to concern themselves with the
global overall
organizational structure of a text. Of the remaining, some belong to the
learning strategies that
are employed in the course of reading a text while some are obviously
instructional, what one
does in the course of instructing others on the text. The first four utties
seem to have a peculiar
importance and appear to distinguish the essence of Dravidian Hermeneutics
from the
European. The first is (1)_" nutaliyatu aRita"l and elsewhere it is also
termed "nutalip pukutal" and
so forth. Now the primordial meaning of " nutal" to which nuti is also
related is that of projecting
something as in front, as in the future and so forth. The introductory part
of a text projects
something as that with which the text is concerned, the text is about. It
orientates the reader
towards the subject matter of the text that is unfolded in the remaining
part of the main body of
the text through a brief pre-delineation of the essence. It is a kind of
indicating, a telling
without detailing what the text is about either directly or indirectly. It
is projective for it moves
the Being the reader into a future mode of Being, something the reader is
not-as-yet but which
he will be by the end of the text. For examples in Marapiyal itself the
phrase " mARRa arun
ciRappin" discloses such a projection; it tells the reader what the text is
about, here namely the
historically of understanding that is difficult to eliminate. This phrase
occurs in the first sutra
itself and closely resembles the title of the book itself. In fact all
titles are of this sort - they
indicate what the content of the book is without detailing it thereby
orienting the understanding
of the readers towards a certain direction of movement, towards a certain
kind of learning.
What is projected is achieved by the end of the text, when the text closes,
the closure issues
forth only because the projective made of Being at the beginnings of the
text is somehow
made to be present at that point. Thus " nutaliyatu" is that projected mode
of Being towards
which the text takes any reader who ventures to read it earnestly. We shall
call this the
'END-IN-SIGHT' on account of its projective nature and also because it
provides the
GROUND for the conclusion or closure of the text. It is an END because it
serves to terminate
the writing activity; it is IN-SIGHT because it is never forgotten; it is
always there not only
sustaining the activity but also providing the direction for its progressive
movement. Thus it is
required of any reader that in reading a text he first must understand the
project of the text, the
END-IN-SIGHT the text throws as a possibility that lies there now as the
possibility of the
reader, which he could realize, be that possibility only if he would
persist in reading the text.
The text promises a mode of Being that the reader is not-as-yet, that is
still above what he is at
the moment but which he could raise himself up to if he would only
persist in reading the text.
In articulating the END-IN-SIGHT in a title-like brevity, the reader is
promised a kind of
learning , a kind of mental journey that would lift him up from where is
into a mode of Being
that is characterized by less ignorance, greater illumination. What is
promised is a kind of
vinai nikkam, the removal of certain restrictive and binding, finitude
constituting constrains,
chains within understanding. The word "vinai" is related to vil or vilanku,
fetters that are used to bind the hands and feet of someone so that his
freedom of movement is
curtailed. The vinai is also noted as " tol vinai" - the ancient,
primordial fetters. Understanding is
thrown into finitude primordially - it emerges as there in the world as
finite, as fettered, as
chained, as deeply constrained. A text that is meritorious and is
challenging in someway
promises the removal of this finalizing constrains afflicting understanding
deep within. It
definiteness the individual who bothers to read it at all by flooding into
his understanding an
illumination that dispels a darkness, an ignorance that is part of what
constitutes his finitude.

Next in order comes (2) "atikAra muRaimai", the noting of the sequential
progression of the text.
The word atikari is to increase, progress and go beyond. However atikAri
means an overseer, a
supervisor, a leader of a sort while atikAram means power, authority and the
like. Thus the most
relevant sense of atikAram here is thematic unity, an overall organizational
structure, a unitary
division of a text such as that of a chapter and so forth. We see this sense
in the structure of
Tolkappiyam itself-eZuttatikAram, collatikAram and poruLatikAram. Now
muRaimai means
ordinality, progressive order, sequentially and so forth. Thus the phrase
atikAra muRaimai
describes a sequential, progressive organization of a text where the text
itself clusters into
unifying thematic unities. These thematic units are sequentially ordered,
organized such that
there is a progressive order with a connectively linking up the thematic
units. The initial leads
up to the next and thus progressing sequentially reaches the final chapter
that closes the book
as whole.

Now it must be realized that there is an intimate linkage between the
initial nutaliyatu Rrital,
noting the projected END-IN-SIGHT and the global, sequential organization. The
END-IN-SIGHT lies in the future, ahead there in front, it hovers pulling the
reader unto itself.
The reader having grasped the END-IN-SIGHT, sees that as what one is
not-as-yet but which
one could be. The sequential organizations of the text into a progressive
sequence of thematic
unities is that which takes him step-by-step towards that projected mode of
Being that the text
promises at the beginning itself. The progressive sequential of organization
of the contents of
a text is consistent with the projected nature of the 'benefits' of the text.

The next two hermeneutics categories viz. (3)" tokuttuk kURal"and (4)
"vakuttu mey niRuttal" are
quite different from the above. Tokuppu is bringing together, collecting the
scattered notions
into a unity and it presupposes the existence of different parts. Similarly
vakuttal means
dividing, analysing into distinct parts, differentiating classifying and so
forth and as such it
presupposes a unity, a tokuppu. The tokuttal and vakuttal are mutually
related and presuppose
each other. There cannot be a collecting together into a whole unless there
are already parts;
and there cannot be differentiating or analyzing into distinct parts unless
a wholeness of a sort
pre-exists. Thus what we have here is the same as the 'whole-part' structure
that has been also a
central feature in Western Hermeneutics from the times of Renaissance, from
the time of
Protestant Hermeneutics. Here we must point out the important difference
between the first pair
and the second pair of categories, an importance that does not seem to be
appreciated even
presently in the West. The Global intentional and progressive-historical
movement of
understanding that the atikAra muRaimai of a text throws a reader into, is
distinctly temporal while
the whole-part relationship of the latter pair which is also a mode of
understanding is
atemporal or nontemporal. In noting the general intent of a text, what the
text has in store for the reader that is
indicated right at the beginning in the introductory part itself, the
understanding of the reader is
stretched out into the future; the reader continues reading the text in a
state of not-as-yet with
respect to the END-IN-SIGHT that the introduction projects. This
orientation as-not-yet but now
this, now this and so forth is what has been called by Tolkappiyar,
KuRippuk kAlam,
time-consciousness structured by intentionally that we shall call
temporality. While in the first two
Hermenuetic categories the capacity to impose temporal structure upon the
understanding of
the reader is noted, in the 'whole-part' relationship the understanding
appears to be freed
from temporality. The parts can be understood only against a grasp of the
whole, while the
whole can be understood only in terms of the parts. They develop together
moving cyclically till
a stable state is attained. Since the whole is had in mind while noting the
parts, and the parts in
mind while noting the whole, what we have here is movement of understanding
in a Gestaltic
manner-backgrounding one while foregrounding the other and vice versa. Such
a movement is
atemporal for the reader is not put is a state where he sees himself as
not-as-yet in relation to
the 'nutaliyatu' - the projected mode of Being, the END-IN-SIGHT. The
former is progressive,
historical while the latter is structural, cyclical, but both interacting in
complex ways to
generate an agreeable understanding of the text.

(to be continued)


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