Talk:Tamil bell

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References[edit]

The following link wwas added as a reference but it has been removed.

http://www.zealand.org.nz/history.htm

Click on Radical --> Tamils

The inscription, 23 characters, running around the rim of the bell has been identified as Tamil, the oldest language spoken in India, and more specifically, as old Tamil. Translated literally, it says "Mukiayaten Vakucu owning ship owning bell" and translated freely it says "Mukiayaten's ship's bell".

There are various interpretations that can be read from the actual manner of the script. The Archaelogical Survey of India, for example, place the bell in the late Tamil period, which could be anywhere from 200 AD to the present.

Another variation of the name is the Mohaideen, a Moslem association, from about 1500 to 1600 AD.

"Mukiayaten" does impy an Islamic influence, dating the bell around 1500 AD, and the last character suggests that it came from the Cholas as a subculture within the Tamils, which burgeoned in the 850's AD. Sorry i forgot to sign my comments the last time around. -Ravichandar84 05:04, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The link was removed, and it should stay removed, because that site is obviously not of a standard that can be used to verify information. You should also be aware that by 1836, Māori themselves were travelling aboard ships around the world, including to India, and that by then ships had been continuously visiting New Zealand for over 60 years for trade and other purposes. There are many ways that a bell from India or Sri Lanka could have got here. The Bell itself is well known in New Zealand, but I cannot find any references to it in New Zealand as the 'Chola Bell' - I have always heard of it as the Tamil Bell and that is the form of the name that appears in NZ sources as far as I can tell Kahuroa 05:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Te Ara and Te Papa are reliable and authoritative sites. It was because you quoted these two sites in the first place that I suggested that an article on this bell would be viable; clearly the bell exists. The other site you wish to reference is extremely unreliable; it gives the same credibility to this bell as to theories of Celtic visits to New Zealand. Essentially, quoting that site undermines the article.-gadfium 06:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ravichandar84, please stop recerting to a version based on an unreliable source. This is unacceptable - Te Ara and Te Papa are the reliable sources Kahuroa 08:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry. I agree. I failed to see the points you have made on the discussion page -Ravichandar84 09:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A better source here Taprobanus 03:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"but the bell 'is not in itself proof of early Tamil contact with New Zealand'.[2]" This Comment Doesn't seem right to me.Surely if the bell is here, was being used by maori & it has been proven that the bell is Tamil from the inscription , that must be proof of contact? What else could it be? TheRoadie 4/6/2011

It's not proof, because the bell might have been transported to NZ by a non-Tamil ship long after its manufacture.-gadfium 21:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, and just as likely, an abandoned Tamil ship or wreckage drifted on the tides to the shores of NZ where it beached, perhaps hundreds of years ago. At some subsequent time, local Māori discovered the debris and salvaged what they could, and the bell was among the items. In other words, the bell was never brought here, it arrived fortuitously. Akld guy (talk) 10:30, 14 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Dravidian civilizations[edit]

Wiki Raja 10:54, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Chola invasion of Srivijaya[edit]

I dont understand how a Pandian bell raises such controversy.. What is the big problem here? Here is another wiki article that covers Chola interactions with places across the Indian Ocean. [[1]] It could have been a shipwreck, for certain, but that still doesnt call for Europeans' involvement in what is purely a pre-European-meddling era. 24.228.182.172 (talk)

Inscription[edit]

The inscription on the bell was given by the article (before today) as "The bell belongs to Sikaiyya Tanasva's ship" sourced to an Indian Government book from 1982 (pp 45-46 in the book, pp 70-71 in the PDF). The article explains that a translation of ""Mohoyideen Buks" was mistaken, giving a source of a 2012 Waikato Times article. @Pandiya123: is removing the "Sikaiyya Tanasva" translation, using a 1975 Journal of the Polynesian Society reference, although they also supplied further references on my talk page [2] with links to Te Papa and Te Ara. I am unsure which sources should prevail; perhaps we should present both sets and let the reader decide.-gadfium 06:14, 22 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dear gadfium,

Once again someone called "47.185.159.99" has reverted the page to uphold the Sikaiyya Tanasva reading. At this point, I suspect some foul-play, as the Mohoyideen Buks name is a Muslim name, which might not sit well with some people in India. This however, fits very well with the maritime history of Tamil Muslim groups like the Marakkars.

Besides that, anyone with a good enough grasp of the Tamil script can clearly tell that the words Sikaiyya Tanasva occurs nowhere in the inscription. As for the book "A Maritime History Of India", it mentions the Sikaiyya Tanasva reading without explaining how the inscription can be read that way. It doesn't point to sources that explain this bizarre reading either.

On the other hand, the Polynesian Society source clearly breaks down the inscription to explain the Mohoyideen Buks reading (see Fig 1 in the paper below):

https://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document//Volume_84_1975/Volume_84%2C_No._4/The_story_of_the_Tamil_bell%2C_by_Brett_Hilder%2C_p_476-484/p1

Another recent paper from 2020 upholds this reading as well:

https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811212512_0036

At this point I will be reverting "47.185.159.99"'s edits to the page. If you do want the readers to decide between the two readings, feel free to make edits to allow that. But do note that there might be people with vested interests brigading the page.

Regards,

Pandiya123 Pandiya123 (talk) 06:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Discovered"[edit]

Is it really appropriate to say that it was discovered in 1836, since there were clearly already people using it? Might as well say it was discovered in 2024 by me, since I didn't know about it until today. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 02:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]