Seven Occult Tamil Proverbs

P.R. Venkatarama Iyer · Living the Life Series · 9 pages

From The Theosophist, Vol. XII (2), November 1890, pages 76–80, by P.R. Venkatarama Iyer, described in the head-note as esoteric truths for the masses. Nine pages; the frontispiece is by S. Elayaraja. The running head is Wisdom crieth in the streets, which states the argument of the piece in four words.

The introduction makes a case for the language before it comes to the proverbs. Tamil is called one of the oldest languages of India if not of the world, its birth and infancy enveloped in mythology, with the oldest extant works belonging to a period of high refinement some two thousand years ago. The claim that matters for the compilation is that all the religious and philosophical poetry of Sanskrit has been fused into Tamil, and that the language contains a larger number of popular treatises on occultism and alchemy than even Sanskrit does — being, the author says, the only spoken language of India abounding in occult treatises. An account of why follows: the popular belief that eighteen brotherhoods of adepts were scattered through the mountains and forests of the Tamil country, presided over by eighteen Sadhus, with a grand secret brotherhood of all eighteen meeting in the hills of Agastya Kūtam in the Tinnevelly district. Since the arrival of the English, with their mountaineering and deforestation, these occultists are said to have retired further into the jungles, many leaving altogether for the Himalayan ranges. The seven proverbs are then given and expounded, on the argument that the esoteric teaching survives in the common speech of ordinary people long after it has left the schools.

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