Talk:Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan

Photograph of what?
What photograph needs to be in this article? There is already a separate article for Thunjan Parambu.

Statue controversy
Statue controversy needs better sources. The first source cannot be taken as a neutral and reliable source. The second one is a reliable one from The Hindu, but it doesn’t talk anything about the Statue controversy. So as it stands now, this section amounts to synthesis and hence I am removing it. No prejudice over putting it back if backed up by reliable sources. Salih ( talk ) 05:59, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

need cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards
This article is full of factual, conceptual and grammatical errors (usage, spelling, punctuation etc.) It need cleanup and re-writing to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.

(O&#39;Broadcaster (talk) 14:37, 19 March 2012 (UTC))

Spurious spirit
The spirit of the article is not encyclopedic. Even though a lot of purported information is given, the total focus is to promote a nonsensical idea that Malayalam was a language that was contemporary to Sanskrit and that it was its sister language. This type of highly questionable contentions are coming out of shallow academicians with aims to garner the positions of cultural leaders, on a non-existent platform. Actually there was another language in North Malabar areas, north of Korahpuzha, which is now almost dead from onslaught of Malayalam. Travancore State Manual, Native life in Travancore, and even the English-Malayalam dictionary of Tobias Zacharias (1907) do not grant Malayalam a longer antiquity than a few hundred years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.201.255.202 (talk) 08:05, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Are these lines believable?
QUOTE: He translated the two Hindu epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, to Malayalam for the common man with the mingling of the Sanskrit and Dravidian languages.

Ezhuthachan used Malayalam language to challenge the prevailing social conditions. He is known for using his literary works as a powerful tool against the rule of privileged END OF QUOTE

The Common man in Malabar, and Travancore regions were mostly the lower castes and the slaves populations. It is doubtful if they knew any reading. And if at all they knew reading, access to any reading stuff will be totally nil.

As to him using Malayalam to challenge the prevailing social condition, the idea would have to be imbibed with a pinch of salt. Maybe this nonsense idea might be useful for some sterile academic exam.

Malayalam is an extremely feudal language. There are no locations in Malayalam where common man can improve from the strangling hold of the higher positioned person via Malayalam.

Beyond that Travancore has an antiquity of Tamil as per the contention of Travancore State Manual. Not Malayalam. Malabar had a language which is not Malayalam, even though the script might be that used in Malayalam.

Legends or Myths..?
The section titled as 'Legends' contain mostly 'Myths' without any historical evidence and some are highly contradictory.

1. Legends consider Ezhuthachan as a "gandharva" (divine being) who in his previous birth was a witness to the Great War in the Mahabharata.

This is absolutely a myth. How one can relate this to history..?. A legend should have a minimum historical fact in it. One can not have memory from previous birth, There is no evidence to prove one can have more than one birth. In the case of this point please go through William logan's Malabar manual and see what he says about Malayalis nature of creating superstitions.

"as usual among Malayalis when a man has risen a bit above his fellows in good or bad qualities, something of superstitious awe attaches to the place of his dwelling" (Page no. 93)

2. As a young boy Ezhuthachan corrected the Brahmins at Trikkandiyoor Temple

If as a young boy ezhuthachan was aware of vedas and he had a level of knowledge in correcting Brahmins in reciting vedas. Then why should he visit other parts of India to learn Sanskrit..?

According to the caste rules that prevailed in Kerala(In other parts of India too) people of shudra grade were not allowed to hear recitation of vedas. So it is illogical to think brahmins recited vedas in a place were shudra devotees could hear and even correct them in their recitation.(Please go through Shankara smruthi. Book of caste rules which were followed in Kerala.)

3. Saraswati, the Godess of Learning and Arts, is believed to have helped him to complete the Devi Mahatmya

This may be considered as myth. Or one should explain how god could come to earth and help someone in writing and what is the purpose of universities in the world. By the way there are studies in Malayalam by scholars in Malayalam language about Ezhuthachan's works and conclusions as authentic works of Thunchath ezhuthachan are Adhyathma ramayanam and Mahabharatham translations only. Else everything attributed on him. Please refer Ulloor S. Parameswara Iyer, Dr. K. N. Ezhuthachan's studies.

4. Ezhuthachan is credited with endowing a monkey with the gift of speech. Pure superstition.

5. It is also said that Ezhuthachan had a young daughter, who copied his works for the first time.

Disputed point(Menon, Chelnat Achyuta (1940). Ezuttaccan and His Age. Madras: University of Madras. p. 47)

"This family according to tradition is that of Ezuttaccan's wife. Whether Ezuttaccan had a wife or not is still a disputed point."

6. Even the king of Calicut saught his help to perfom the Sakteya Puja.

Menon, Chelnat Achyuta (1940). Ezuttaccan and His Age. Madras: University of Madras. p. 46

"It would appear that he(Thunchath Ezhuthachan) predicted that the Zamorin's family would lose their ruling rights in the third generation after that. ACCORDING TO SOME IT IS SURYANARAYAN WHO PREDICTED THE DOWNFALL OF ZAMORINS."

Suryanarayanan was a disciple of Thunchath ezhuthachan. All disciples of Thunchath ezhuthachan had the title as Ezhuthachan so now it is hard to distinguish which are the legends connected to Thunchath ezhuthachan and which are about his disciples.

six out of nine points in this section are hard to accept as legends. Please consider either removing these points, adding more citations or renaming this section as 'Myths' or at least to 'Legends/Myths'

AjayPayattuparambil (talk) 10:43, 5 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Does not support removal of reliable sourced content, but I agree with your proposal to change the title of the section. I think it should be renamed to "Myths and Legends" -BhaskaraPattelar (talk) 11:57, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion AjayPayattuparambil (talk) 14:26, 5 July 2020 (UTC)


 * The popular stories (however unrealistic they may seem to some) related to this great poet are added purposefully. Does not support removal of reliable sourced content, but I agree with your proposal to change the title.

VisWNThn (talk) 06:32, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply AjayPayattuparambil (talk) 06:58, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Malabar": From Malayalam literature: കേരള ചരിത്രം, എ. ശ്രീധരമേനോൻ From Old Malayalam: Aiyer, K. V. Subrahmanya (ed.), South Indian Inscriptions. VIII, no. 162, Madras: Govt of India, Central Publication Branch, Calcutta, 1932. p. 69. From Malayalam script: എ. ശ്രീധരമേനോൻ, കേരളചരിത്രം From History of Kerala:  From Malayalam:  From Kingdom of Tanur: A. Shreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History From Malabar District:  From Kerala: </li> <li>From Middle Malayalam: </li> <li>From South Malabar: </li> <li>From Palakkad: A Survey of Kerala History, A. Shreedhara Menon</li> <li>From Malappuram district: </li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 16:15, 8 June 2021 (UTC)