GU Pope lived in Sairapuram for eight years and did missionary work
GU Pope lived in Sairapuram for eight years and did missionary work
The air was hot in the morning. A group of students were sweating on a huge football field at Pope’s College in Thoothukudi’s Savairapuram. When missionary and Tamil scholar George Ugallo Pope arrived here 180 years ago, the area was nothing but an acre of sand dunes; For a European, it would have been a burning furnace. Inspired by zeal, Pope, who later translated thirukkural, Thiruvachagam, naldiyari, Purananuru (selected verses) and manimekalai (incomplete) in English, lived here for eight years and did missionary work.
“In the summer, he beat the heat by placing a table and a chair in a large well [a bath tub], Of. Meenakshisundaram writes, ‘He used to read and write while sitting in the water.’ Contribution of European Scholars in Tamil,
Two huge wells built by the Pope are still there in the madrasa started by him at Savairapuram. But they lie. The bungalow where he lived also has a bathtub used by him.
Sauerpuram was built on 150 acres of land purchased by Samuel Sawyer, a merchant of the Portuguese East India Company.
“Sawyer transferred the area to the Society for the Propagation of Christian Enlightenment to build settlements for the persecuted after their conversion to Christianity. The land was distributed to them in 1814,” A Wellington Francis Prabager, Tamil department, said Professor of Pope College.
It was the Pope who built Sawyerpuram and another missionary, Robert Caldwell, referred to him as its founder in his writings. The Pope, a newlywed, arrived here in 1842, when he was 22 years old. His wife, Jane Marie Anderson, was 18 years old. Before his arrival, he had learned Tamil literary works from Suryanarayana Sastri, Ariyangavu Pillai and Ramanuja Kavirayar in Madras (Chennai).
“In fact, his Tamil and Sanskrit lessons had begun in England as well. He spent eight hours a day studying on the ship. By the time he reached Chennai, he had prepared a Christian message book in Tamil,” said Mr. Prabagar, who has written a biography of the Pope along with S. Jacob Rajan and Rev. R. Samuel Jayaseelan.
“You must learn not only to think in Tamil, but also to learn to feel in Tamil, if you want to become sensible and useful among the Tamil people,” he later wrote in his preface to the Tamil translation. Thiruvachagam,
His love for Tamil is explained in a letter to JM Nallasamy Pillai, who is . is the editor of Siddhant DeepikaIn which he said that after his death there should be an inscription ‘A Tamil student’ on his forehead.
The Pope decided to establish a madrasa at Savarapuram as there were only two of them in Tamil Nadu. Construction began in 1844 and was completed in 1846.
“The Pope became the first principal of the madrasa. It was the madrasa that attracted the attention of the world and the University of Oxford provided financial support to open the library,” said Mr. Prabagar and others in the book. Some of the buildings that were part of the madrasa are still there. Pope Memorial Higher Secondary School is in Soyapuram.
The Pope was a strict disciplinarian and the madrassa’s motto was, ‘Read well, eat well, kill well and pray well’. He had a book in one hand and a cane in the other. He is said to have announced a reward to those who helped find the students who fled the madrasa. Chains were also put up to prevent the students from escaping. His discipline troubled many people, including the missionaries.
“Dr. Pope was literally kicked out of Tinvalley [Tirunelveli] In the midst of his normal career due to complaints from the missionaries of the time, but until Mr Sharrock came on the scene, he did not have the same energy and efficiency as a successor,” Caldwell wrote.
The Pope’s wife died in 1845 during the delivery of their second son, and this took a toll on his physical and mental health. There was also a suggestion that he may be sent to England to recover his health and mind. He left Sawaipuram in 1849.
He came to India again in 1850, but was sent to Thanjavur and not Sawaipuram. In Thanjavur, he furthered his Tamil knowledge with the help of Vedanayagam Sastri. From there he went to Udhagamandalam and later to Bangalore where he became the principal of Bishop Cotton School.
After 42 years in India, he returned to England in 1882 and taught Tamil and Telugu at Oxford University. he delved deeply thirukural, manimekalaiAnd Thiruvachagam and translated them into English.
“I date it to my eightyth birthday. From the context, I find that my first Tamil text was in 1837. This ends, as it seems to me, a long life of devotion to Tamil studies. This deepening It is not without feeling that I thus close the literary works of my life,” he wrote in his preface to translation in 1900. Thiruvachagam,
James Reynold Daniel, former principal of Scott Christian College, Nagercoil, said that in his last days, the Pope was a mature Saivite doctrine, his faith rooted in Christianity as usual.
Writing of his last sermon in 1907, he said, “At the heart of this my last sermon is truth that corresponds to all that is best in it. Thiruvachagam And Shiva-Nyanami [Siva-gnana bodham]He died in 1908.