Sangam period Marriage சங்க காலத் திருமணம்

Nakeeran
10 January 2008

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தமிழினம் தொன்மை வாய்ந்த இனம். தமிழ்மொழி இன்று உயிர்த் துடிப்போடுள்ள உலக மொழிகளில், சீனம், கிரேக்கம், ஹீப்புரூ, இலத்தீன் போன்ற மிகப் பழமையான மொழிகளில் தமிழ்மொழியும் ஒன்று. தமிழ் மொழிக்கு இருக்கும் இலக்கிய வளம் ஏனைய மொழி இலக்கியங்களைவிட உயர்வானது. தமிழர் மொழியாலும், நாகரிகத்தினாலும் சிறந்தவர் என்பது மொழி ஆராய்ச்சியாலும், அகழ்வாராய்ச்சியாலும் நிறுவப்பட்ட உண்மைகளாகும்.

கல்வியில் சிறந்த தமிழ்நாடு -புகழ்க்
கம்பன் பிறந்த தமிழ்நாடு ...
வள்ளுவன் தன்னை உலகினிக்கே -தந்து
வான்புகழ் கொண்ட தமிழ்நாடு- நெஞ்சை
யள்ளும் சிலப்பதிகார மென்றோர்- மணி
யாரம் படைத்த தமிழ்நாடு

என்று மகாகவி பாரதியார் போற்றிப் பாடுவார்.

ஒவ்வொரு இனத்திற்கும் ஒவ்வொரு காலம் பொற்காலமாகத் திகழ்ந்திருக்கிறது. தமிழினத்தைப் பொறுத்தளவில் சங்ககாலமே தமிழரது பொற்காலமாகும். பாரதியார் வார்த்தையில் கூறவேண்டும் என்றால் உண்மை இது வெறும்புகழ்ச்சி இல்லை.

முடியுடை வேந்தர்கள் மூவரும் கொற்றம் வைத்து சீரோடும் சிறப்போடும் பேரோடும் புகழோடும் அறத்தோடும் மறத்தோடும் பாராண்ட காலம் அது.

சங்க இலக்கியங்களான எட்டுத் தொகை, பத்துப்பாட்டு, பதிணென்கீழ்க்கணக்கு நூல்கள் தமிழரின் ஒப்பற்ற நாகரிகச் சிறப்புக்கு சான்று பகர்கின்றன.

கள்ளையும் தீயையும் சேர்த்து- நல்ல காற்றையும் வானவெளியையும் சேர்த்துத் தௌளு தமிழ்ப் புலவோர் செய்த தீஞ்சுவைக் காவியங்களான அய்ம்பெரும் காப்பியங்கள் தமிழ் அன்னையின் புகழை திக்கெட்டும் மணம்வீசிப் பரப்பின.

காலில் சிலம்பு, இடையில் மேகலை, காதில் குண்டலம், கையில் வளை, மார்பில் சிந்தாமணி தமிழன்னையின் இயற்கை அழகுக்கு அழகு சேர்த்தன.

இடைக்காலத்தில் தமிழ்மரபுக்கு மாறான வாழ்க்கைமுறை தமிழரிடம் புகுந்தது. தமிழரின் பழக்க வழக்கங்கள் மாறின. மணமுறை மாறியது. பொருளற்ற சடங்குகள் பெருகின. இவற்றின் பயனாக இன்றுள்ள தமிழர் நாமமது தமிழராக இருக்கின்றாரே தவிர மெய்த் தமிழராக - சங்ககால தமிழர்தம் வழித்தோன்றலாக இல்லை.

நாம் தாய்மொழியைப் போற்றாது விட்டோம். தமிழ்க் கலையை வளர்க்காது விட்டோம். தமிழினத்தின் மரபைக் காவாது விட்டோம். வடமொழிக்கு அடிமையானோம்.

பாவேந்தர் பாரதிதாசனின் ஆசையை இன்று தமிழீழம்தான் செயல்படுத்தி நிறைவு செய்து வருகிறது. தமிழகம்பாரதி, பாரதிதாசன் காலத்திலேயே இன்றும் இருக்கிறது.

இன்றைய தமிழரின் மணமுறை பண்டைத் தமிழர் மரபுக்கு முற்றும் மாறானாதாக இருக்கிறது. இதனைத் தமிழ் இலக்கியச் சான்று கொண்டு காட்டலாம்.

அன்றைய தமிழருடைய திருமணம் எளிமையாக நிகழ்ந்தது. அதில் சடங்குகள் எதுவும் இல்லை. எரியோம்புதல் இல்லை. தீவலம் வருதல் இல்லை. அருந்ததி பார்த்தல் இல்லை. புரோகிதர் இல்லை.

அகநாநூறு எட்டுத்தொகை நூல்களில் ஒன்று. அதில் உள்ள 400 பாடல்கள் வௌவேறு காலத்தில் வௌவேறு புலவர்களால் பாடப்பட்டவை. இதில் காணப்படும் இரண்டு பாடல்கள் (பாடல் 86, 138) பழந்தமிழரின் திருமணமுறையை வர்ணிக்கின்றன.

அவற்றுள் பாடல் 86 நல்லாவூர் கிழார் என்ற செந்தமிழ்ப் புலவர் பாடிய பாடல். பொருள் தேடத் தலைவியைப் பிரிந்து சென்று திரும்பும் தலைவனை தலைவியின் தோழி வழிமறித்து “எனது தலைவி உன்னோடு மணமகன் தனக்கு முன்பு நிகழ்ந்த திருமணத்தைக் கூறுவதாகப் பாடப்பெற்றதாகும். இந்தப் பாடலில் கூறப் பெறும் திருமணமுறையைக் காண்போம்.

உழுந்துதலைப் பெய்த கொழுந்கனி மிதவை
பெருஞ்சோற் றமலை நிற்ப நிரைகால்
தண்பெரும் பந்தர்த் தருமணல் ஞெமரி
மனைவிளக் குறுத்து மாலை தொடரிக்
கனையிருள் அகன்று கவின் பெறு காலைக்
கோள்கால் நீங்கிய கொடுவெண் திங்கள்
கேடில் விழப்புகழ் நாடலை வந்தென
வுச்சிக் குடந்தர் புத்தகல் மண்டையர்
பொதுசெய் கம்பலை முதுசெம் பெண்டிர்
முன்னவும் பின்னவும் முறை முறை தரத்தரப்
புதல்வற் பயந்த திதலையவ் வயிற்று
வாலிழை மகளிர் நால்வர் கூடிக்
"கற்பினின் வாழாஅ நற்பல வுதவிப்
பெற்றோற் பெட்கும் பிணையை ஆகென
நீரொடு சொரிந்த ஈரிதழ் அலரி
பல்லிருங் கதுப்பின் நெல்லொடு தயங்க
வதுவை நன்மணம் கழிந்த பின்றைக்
கல்லென் சும்மையர் ஞெரேரெனப் புகுதந்து
"பேரில் கிழத்தி யாகென" தமர் தர
ஓரில் கூட்டிய வுடன்புணர் கங்குற்
கொடும்புறம் வளைஇக் கோடிக் கலிங்கத்
தொடுங்கினள் கிடந்த வோர்புறந் தமீஇ
முயங்கல் விருப்பொடு முகம்புதை திறப்ப
வஞ்சினள் உயிர்த்த காலை யாழநின்
நெஞ்சம் படர்ந்த தெஞ்சா துரையென
வின்னகை யிருக்கைப் பின்யான் வினவலிற்
செஞ்சூட் டொண்குழை வண்காது துயல்வர
அகமலி யுவகைய ளாகி முகனிகுத்
தொய்யென விறைஞ்சி யோளே மாவின்
மடங்கொண் மதைஇய நோக்கின்
ஒடுங்கீ தோதி மாஅ யோளே. (அகநானூறு பாடல் 86)

"எங்கள் திருமணநாளன்று உழுந்தம் பருப்புடன் கூட்டிச் சமைத்த, பக்குவமாகக் குழைந்த பொங்கலோடு, மலைபோல் குவிந்த பெருஞ் சோற்றினை உண்பவர்கள் கூட்டம் நிறைந்திருந்தது.

வரிசையாக கால்களை நட்டுக் குளிர்ந்த மணப் பந்தல் முழுதும் வெளியிலிருந்து கொண்டுவந்த வெண்மணல் பரப்பப் பட்டிருந்தது.

மனையில் விளக்கு ஏற்றி மலர் மாலைகளை பந்தல் முழுதும் நெருக்கமாகத் தொங்க விட்டு மிகஅழகாக அலங்கரித்துள்ளார்கள். திருமண வீட்டில் மனைவிளக்குகளை ஏற்றி வைத்து ஒளிபெறச் செய்துள்ளார்கள்.

புகழினையுடைய திங்களுடன் கூடிய உரோகிணி நன்னாள் குற்றமற்றதும் வாழ்விற்கு நல்லது பயக்கும் அடர்ந்த இருள் நீங்கி, விடியல் தொடங்கும் வனப்பு மிகு நேரத்தில் திருமண விழா தொடங்குகிறது.

தலையில் நன்நீர்க் குடத்தினைத் தாங்கியும், கையில் அகன்ற பாத்திரத்தை ஏந்திக் கொண்டும், திருமணத்தை செய்து வைக்கும், கலகலப்புடன் கூடிய முதிய மங்கல வாழ்வரசியர் நீர்க் குடங்களை முன்னேயும் பின்னேயும் முறைமுறையாகத் தந்திட மணமகளை நன் நீராட்டினர்.

நல்ல மக்களைப் பெற்று அடி வயிற்றில் வரி வரியாகத் தழும்புகள் கொண்ட மணிவயிறு வாய்ந்த மங்கல மகளிர் நால்வர் தூய ஆடைகளையும் அணிகளையும் அணிந்து கூடிநின்ற மணமகளிடம் 'உன்னை அடைந்த கணவனை விரும்பிக் கூடிக் "கற்பு நெறியின்றும் தவறாமல் நல்லறங்களைச் செய்து, கணவன் விரும்பத்தக்க மனைவியாhக அவனை வாழ்நாள் முழுதும் நன்கு பேணிக் காத்து வாழும் எண்ணத்தைக் கைக் கொண்டு வாழ்வாயாக!"

என்று நீருடன் குளிர்ந்த இதழ்கள் உள்ள பூக்களையும் புதிய நெல்லையும் தூவி வாழ்த்தியதால் மணமளின் அடர்த்தியான கரிய கூந்தலில் அவை தோற்றமளிக்க, திருமணம் இனிதே நிகழ்கிறது.

அதன்பின் ஆர்வத்துடனும், ஆரவாரத்துடனும் சூழ்ந்த உறவினர் 'இன்று முதல் நீயும் பெரிய மனைக் கிழத்தி ஆகிவிட்டாய்' என்று கேலி பேசி மணமகளுக்கு கோடியுடுத்தி மெல்லிய அலங்காரங்களைச் செய்து, வனப்புடன் கூடிய முதலிரவு அறைக்குள் உடன் கூடிய புணர்ச்சிக்குரிய அன்றிரவே அவளை அனுப்பி வைத்தனர். அவ்வறைக்குள் நுழையும் மணமகள் உடுத்திய புதிய புடவைக்குள் தன்னை ஒடுக்கிக் கொண்டு, தன் இனிய கணவன் இருக்கும் இடம் நோக்கிச் செல்கின்றாள்.

அப்போது அவள் புத்தாடையில் ஒடுங்கி முகம் புதைத்துக் கிடந்தாள். அவளைத் தழுவும் விருப்பத்தோடு முகத்தை மூடிய துணியைச் சற்றே விலக்க அவள் அதற்கு அஞ்சி பெருமூச்சு விட்டாள். நடுங்கி ஒடுங்கினாள். "ஏன் பயந்தனை, உன் மனதில் உள்ளதை உள்ளவாறு என்னிடம் கூறு'

என வினாவினேன்.

அப்போது மானைப்போல் மடமை கொண்டவளும், செருக்கினையுடைய நோக்கினையுடையவளும், குளிர்ந்த கூந்தலையுடையவளும், மாநிறத்தினை உடையவளுமாகிய மணமகள், அகம் மலர்ந்த மகிழ்ச்சியளாய் முகம் தாழ்த்தி என் காதலி மெலிந்த மடல் கொண்ட காதில் அணிந்திருந்த சிவந்த மணிகள் பதித்த அழகிய குழைகள் அசைய விரைந்து வந்து தனக்குரியவனை வணங்கினாள். ஆதலால் அவள் எக்காலத்தும் என்பால் அன்புடையவள். அதனை நீ அறியாய்" என்று தோழியிடம் கூறினான்.

(பதவுரை)

உழுந்து - பருப்பு

களிமிதவை - குழைதலையுடைய கும்மாயம்

கோள் - கெட்ட கிரகங்கள்

கால் - இடம், சகடம்

திங்களையுடைய நாள் - திருமண நாள்

பொதுசெய் கம்பலை - திருமணம். எல்லாரும் புகுதற்கு யோக்கிய மாதலால் முதுசெம் பெண்டிர் - அதனைச் செய்கிற ஆரவாத்தினையுடைய செவ்விப்

பெண்டிர்

முன்னவும் பின்னவும் - முற்படக் கொடுப்பனவும் பிற்படக் கொடுப்பனவும் முறை

முறையாகக் கொடுக்க

புதல்வர் பயந்த - பிள்ளைகளைப் பெற்ற மகளிர்

அலரி - பூ

வதுமை நன்மணம் - வதுவைத் திருமணம்

ஓரில் - சதுர்த்தி அறை

உடன்புணர்தல் - கூடப்புணர்கிற

நெஞ்சம் நினைந்தது எஞ்சாதுரை - மறையாதுரை

கொடும்புறம் - நாணத்தால் வளைந்த உடம்பு

சதுர்த்தியறை - நான்காம் நாட் பள்ளியறை

சங்ககாலத் தமிழரது திருமண நெறியை பாடலில் படம்பிடித்து வைத்த புலவர் நல்லாவூர் கிழார் அவர்களுக்கு நாம் நன்றி சொல்லக் கடமைப் பட்டுள்ளோம். அவரது சொல்லோவியத்தைப் படிக்கும்போது எமது முன்னோரது நாகரிகச் சிறப்பையும் பகுத்தறிவையும் எண்ணி மனம் பூரிப்படைகிறது.

புலவர் நல்லாவூர் கிழார் காதலால் பிணைக்கப்பட்ட தலைவன் - தலைவியது முதல் இரவை எப்படி மிக நாகரிகமாக, மிக நளினமாக தலைவன் கூற்றாகச் எடுத்துச் சொல்கிறார் என்பதும் எண்ணி மகிழத்தக்கது.

முன்னர் கூறியவாறு இந்த இரண்டு சங்க காலத் திருமணங்களிலும் இன்றைய

திருமணங்களில் உள்ள -

(1) பொருள் புரியாத வட மொழி மந்திரங்கள் இல்லை

(2) புரோகிதர் இல்லை.

(3) எரி ஓம்பல் இல்லை.

(4) தீவலம் இல்லை.

(5) அம்மி மிதித்தல் இல்லை.

(6) அருந்ததி காட்டல் இல்லை.

(7) கோத்திரம் கூறல் முதலியன இல்லை.

சங்ககாலத் திருமணங்களைப் பற்றிக் கூறுமிடத்துக் காலம் சென்ற வரலாற்றுப் பேராசிரியர் திரு. பி.டி. சீனிவாச அய்யங்கார் அவர்கள் "இப்பண்டைத் திருமண நிகழ்ச்சிகளில் எரிவளர்த்தல் இல்லை, தீவலம் இல்லை, இது முற்றும் தமிழர்க்கே உரிய திருமணம்" எனக் குறித்திருத்தல் மகிழத்தக்கது.

பழந்தமிழர் திருமண முறைப்பற்றி நமக்கு தாராளமான வரலாற்றுச் செய்திகள் இல்லை. அகநானூறு 86 ஆவது பாடலில் ஊரில் நடந்த திருமணம் பற்றிய செய்தி உள்ளது.

அதுபோல புறநானூற்றில் 77 ஆவது பாடல் மற்றும் 37 ஆம் பாடலிலும் அகநானூற்றின் 54-ஆவது பாடலிலும்மணவிழாவைபற்றி ஒரு சில கருத்துகள் கூறப்பட்டுள்ளன. தாலி கட்டுதல் போன்ற சடங்குகள் எல்லாம் பின்னால் வந்தவைகளாக இருக்கின்றன.

மணப்பந்தலிலே புது மணல் பரப்பப் பட்டிருந்தது, பந்தலில் மறை விளக்கு எரிந்து கொண்டிருந்தது, காலை நேரம் மாசற்று இருந்தது, ஒருபுறம் உணவு குவியல் கிடந்தது, முதுபெண்டிர் உச்சியில் நீர்குடம் ஏந்தி நின்றனர், அவர்கள் முன்னவும், பின்னையும் நீர்க் குடங்கள் முறை முறையாகப் பல பிள்ளைகளைப் பெற்ற மகளிர் நால்வர் கூடி கற்பு நெறி என்றும் தவறாமல் நல்லறங்களை செய்து கணவன் விரும்பத்தக்க மனைவியாக வாழ்வாயாக என வாழ்த்தி மணமகளை நீராட்டினர். அந்த நீரில் நெல்லும், மலரும் கலந்திருந்தன.

இங்ஙனம் பெண்ணை நீராட்டும் சடங்கு நடைபெற்றது. இது நடைபெற்ற பிறகு மணமகளை அவளின் உறவினர் சிலர் விரைந்துவந்து பெரிய இல்லக்கிழத்தியாய் திகழ்வாயாக! என்று வாழ்த்தி என் கையில் ஒப்படைத்து அவளும், நானும் ஒருங்கு கலந்திருந்த இராப்பொழுது என்று அந்தப் பாடலிலே இருக்கின்றது.

ஆகவே குத்து விளக்கு வைப்பது, மணமக்கள் நெருப்பைச் சுற்றி வருவது, அம்மி மிதிப்பது, 'அருந்ததி ' என்ற இல்லாத நட்சத்திரத்தைப் பகலிலே காண முயற்சிப்பது, இதுபோன்ற கற்பனைகள் எல்லாம் பழைய திருமண முறையில் இருக்கவில்லை. அது மட்டுமல்ல திருமணத்தைப் பெண்களே செய்து வைத்தார்கள்.

குறுந்தொகை நிகழ்வு இருக்கிறதா? இங்கே கவிஞர் அவர்கள் அருமையாக சுட்டிக் காட்டினார்கள் 'ஞாயும், யாயும் யாராகியரோ' என்று.

அப்படி இருவர் உள்ளங்கள் இணைந்த ஒரு மணவிழாவாகத்தான் முதலில் நடந்து கொண்டிருந்தன. ஆனால், இன்றைக்கு தமிழர்களின் வாழ்வில், குறுந்தொகை நிகழ்வு இருக்கின்றதா? இதுபற்றிதான் இன்றைக்கு நாம் சிந்திக்கக் கடமைப்பட்டிருக்கின்றோம்.

எனவே, மனப்பொருத்தம் என்கிற அடிப்படையிலே 'ஞாயும், யாயும் யாராகியரோ' என்ற முறையிலே ஒன்று சேர்ந்திருக்கின்றார்கள் என்று கவிஞர் அவர்கள் தெளிவாக எடுத்துச் சொன்னார்கள்.

தமிழ் நாட்டில், ஏன் பல இடங்களிலே திருமணம் எப்படி நடைபெறுகின்றது? குறுந்தொகைக்குப் பதவுரை பொழிப்புரை சொல்லிக் கொடுக்கிறவர் வீட்டில் கூட, இதைச் செரிமானம் செய்து கொள்கிறார்களா என்றால் இல்லை! தந்தை - மகனை கண்டிப்பார் 'அய்யோ இப்படி வேறு சாதியில் பெண்ணைப் பார்த்துவிட்டாயே உனக்காக பெரிய இடத்தில் அல்லவா பெண் பார்த்து வைத்திருந்தேன். பெருந்தொகை வரும் என்று கணக்குப்போட்டு வைத்திருந்தேன் வருந்தொகையும் போய்விட்டதே' என்று குறுந்தொகைப் பாடலை சொல்லிக் கொடுப்பவர் கேட்பார்.

நுழையக் கூடாத ஒரு தத்துவம் தமிழர் வாழ்விலே வரதட்சணை என்ற பெயராலே நுழைந்திருக்கின்றது. வரதட்சணை என்ற சொல்லே தமிழ்ச்சொல் அல்ல. வரனும் தமிழ் சொல் அல்ல, தட்சணையும் தமிழ் சொல் அல்ல, தமிழனுக்கு வரதட்சணை வாங்கி பழக்கமே கிடையாது.

மணமக்களுடைய அழைப்பிதழைப் பாருங்கள் மன்றல் அழைப்பு மடல் என்று தூய தமிழிலே, நல்ல தமிழிலே அழைப்பிதழ் அச்சடித்திருக்கின்றார்கள். இந்த உணர்வு வருகின்ற தலைமுறையினருக்கும் இருக்கவேண்டும் என்று சுட்டிக்காட்டியிருக் கின்றார்கள் எனக்கு முன்னாலே வாழ்த்துரை கூறிய அறிஞர் பெருமக்கள்.

பழைய திருமணத்திலே யாரோ ஒருவரிடம் கொடுத்து 'முகூர்த்த ஓலை' என்று எழுதச் சொல்வார்கள். இதில் முகூர்த்தம் என்பது தமிழ்ச்சொல் அல்ல. விவாஹ சுப முகூர்த்தம் என்று போட்டு கன்னிகாதானம் செய்விக்கப் பெரியோர்களால் நிச்சயித்தபடி என்று போட்டு, தாராமுகூர்த்தம் செய்விக்க என்று திருமண ஓலையில் போடுகின்றார்கள். இதிலே ஏதாவது ஒரு சொல் தமிழ்ச் சொல் உண்டா? இதற்குப் பொருள் தெரிந்து கொண்டு யாராவது எழுதியிருக்கின்றார்களா? இதை மட்டும் இந்த நேரத்திலே நான் சுட்டிக்காட்ட விழைகின்றேன்.

'கன்னிகா தானம்' என்று சொல்லுகின்றார்கள். கன்னி என்றால் பெண் தானம் என்றால் தர்மம். பெண்ணை வளர்த்துத் தருமமாகக் கொடுத்துவிடுகிறேன் என்று சொல்வதிருக்கிறதே அது தமிழர் பண்பாடு அல்ல, ஏன் மனித பண்பாடே அல்ல, காரணம் பெண்களை ஒரு பொருள் போலக் கருதிய அடிமை மனப்பான்மை இது. எப்படியோ, ஆரியப் பண்பாட்டின் மூலமாக உள்ளே நுழைந்ததன் மூலமாகத்தான் இப்படி ஏற்பட்டது.

பேனா என்னிடத்திலே இருக்கிறது, இதை ஒருவருக்குத் தானமாகக் கொடுத்தால், வாங்கியவர் இதை இன்னொருவருக்கு விற்கலாம் - கொடுக்கலாம் அல்லது உடைத்தும் போடலாம், நொறுக்கலாம் ஏன் என்று கேட்கக்கூடிய உரிமை எனக்குக் கிடையாது. இது பொருளுக்குப் பொருந்தும். ஆனால், பெண் ணுக்குப் பொருந்துமா? என்று கேட்டவர்தான் தலைவர் தந்தை பெரியார் அவர்கள். அதனுடைய விளைவு தான் மாறுபட்ட சுயமரியாதை சீர்த்திருத்த வாழ்க்கை இணை ஒப்பந்தம் ஆணுக்கு என்னென்ன உரிமைகள் உண்டோ அவ்வளவு உரிமைகளும் பெண்ணுக்கும் உண்டு.

இதை பார்த்துத்தான் நாங்கள் மிகுந்த மகிழ்ச்சியோடு இருக்கின்றோம்.

பாரதக் கதை தெரியாதவர்கள் இருக்க முடியாது. பாரதக் கதையில் தருமன் சூதாடினான் பஞ்ச பாண்டவர்கள் அய்ந்து பேரில் யோக்கிய மானவர் யார் என்று சொல்லும்பொழுது தர்மராசா என்றுதான் சொல்லுவார்கள்.

தருமன்தான் தன் மனைவி திரௌபதையை வைத்துச் சூதாடினான். அதுவும் தருமனுக்கு அய்ந்திலே ஒரு பங்குதான் சொந்தம். தருமன் சூதாட்டத்திலே தோற்கிறான். பெண்ணை ஒரு பொருளாக வைத்துத் தருமன் சூதாடினான்.

இந்தக் கருத்து நமது இனத்திற்கோ, பண்பாட்டிற்கோ, மனித சமுதாயத்திற்கோ ஒத்ததல்ல. இதில் தாரா முகூர்த்தம் என்று சொல்வது இன்னும் மோசமானது.

பெற்றோர், மணப் பெண்ணை மடியிலே உட்கார வைத்து கையிலே எள்ளும், தண்ணீரையும் விட்டுத் தாரை வார்த்துக் கொடுத்துவிட்டோம் என்று சொன்னால், அந்தப் பொருள் கைநழுவிப் போய் விட்டது என்று பொருள். ஆகவே தாரா முகூர்த்தம் அதுவும் தமிழ்ச் சொல் அல்ல, தமிழ்ப் பண்பாட்டிற்குரியது அல்ல ஏன் பண்பாட்டிற்கே உரியது அல்ல.

reference:http://www.tamilnation.org/culture/marriage/sangam_marriage.htm

Ancient Tamil Marriage Ceremony தமிழ் திருமணம்

P.T.Srinivasa Aiyangar
in History of Tamils from the Earliest Times to 600 A.D.
Madras, 1929

"The ancient ceremony of marriage which obtained among the Tamils before it was altered by the Aryans is described in two odes of the anthology called the Agam. (aka n^AnURu) Thus it is said:

“There was a huge heap of rice cooked with pulse (even after many guests had been fed). On the floor of a pandal built on long rows of wooden columns was spread freshly brought sand. House lamps were lighted. The bride and the bridegroom were adorned with flower-garlands. In the beautiful morning of the day of the bent, bright moon, when the stars shed no evil influence, some women carrying pots on the head, others bearing new, broad bowls, handed them one after another while fair elderly dames were making much noise. Mothers of sons, with bellies marked with beauty-spots, wearing beautiful ornaments, poured water on the bride, so that her black hair shone bright with cool petals of flowers and rice-grains (which had been mixed with the water), and at the same time they blessed her, saying ‘do not swerve from the path of chastity, be serviceable in various ways to your husband who loves you and live with him as his wife’. On the night after the marriage ceremony was over, the neighbouring ladies assembled, (dressed the bride in new clothes) and sent her to the arms of her lover, to which she went with trepidation.”(1)

It will be noticed that in this ancient Tamil rite of marriage there is absolutely nothing Aryan, no lighting of fire, no circumambulation of fire, and no priest to receive daksina.

Another ode in the same anthology refers also to the wedding-rite.

“White rice, well cooked and with plenty of ghi, was served to the elders with stintless generosity. The omens shown by the birds were propitious. The broad sky shone bright. The moon was in faultless conjunction with the Rohini asterism. The marriage-house was decked. They worshipped God. The big drums resounded with wedding tunes. Excited women were peeping winklessly with their flower-like eyes at the bride who had been bathed (and decorated). The image (to be worshipped) of big flower-petals, clear like a gem that has been well washed, was placed on the soft vãgai flower with the double leaf whose back-side is bright, and the arugai grass which grows in low land when the roaring clouds pour the first rain and which is eaten by calves. It was decked with cool, sweet flower buds and white thread, clothed with holy cloth, so as to look grand. The bride (was seated) under a pandal, on the floor of which sand was strewn, looking as if rain-drops had fallen. She was perspiring with her load of ornaments. (They fanned her) to dry the wet. Then her relatives gave her away”. (2)

---

1. Agam 86, 1-22
2. Agam 136, 2-8

reference: http://www.tamilnation.org/culture/marriage/ancientmarriage.htm

Tamil's? நாம் யார்?

tamilnation.org

It’s always interesting to know who we are.

I and many believe that first human settlements with culture and values stared from our very own Tamil Nation as we learnt them from literature and genetic science even proved it.Tamilnation.org has a lots and lots about Tamil’s.

tamilnation.org is concerned to tell a story. ..It is a story of a trans state nation of peopleof more than 80 million Tamils living today in many lands and across distant seas... .. about their shared heritage... their rich language & literature... ... their vibrant culture.....their valour and ideals ...It is a story about those who contributed to the Tamil renaissance of the 19th & 20th centuries.... But it is not a story simply about the past. It is a story about the present and of a trans state nation of people who seek to rid themselves of the divisions amongst them - be it rooted in casteor race or religion or gender...It is also a story about the future and the determined aspiration of a nation of people who seek to live in equality and in freedom with the other nations of the world ... It is a story of theheroic struggle of the people of Tamil Eelam for freedom from alien Sinhala rule...It is a story about the growing togetherness of a trans state nation of people in an unfolding digital age - a digital age which has rendered State boundaries increasingly porous and where deep rooted kinship ties are finding fresh avenues for expression...It is a story about a trans state nation of people who seek to meaningfully contribute to an emerging one world, unfolding from matter to life to mind ...

Dravidians & Indus Valley Civilisation ?

3,500 Year Old Indus Script Found in Tamil Nadu Hindu 1 May 2006 Neolithic polished stone celt (hand-held axe) with the Indus valley script found at Sembian-Kandiyur village, near Mayiladuthurai in Tamil Nadu A Neolithic stone celt with the Indus Valley script has been discovered by a school teacher, V. Shanmuganathan, in a village called Sembian-Kandiyur near Mayiladuthurai in Nagapattinam district, Tamil Nadu. The celt, a polished hand-held stone axe, has four Indus Valley signs on it. The artefact with the script can be as old as 1500 B.C., that is, 3,500 years old. The four signs were identified by epigraphists of the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology, according to its Special Commissioner, T. S. Sridhar. Iravatham Mahadevan, one of the world's foremost experts on the Indus script, called the find "the greatest archaeological discovery of a century in Tamil Nadu." The discovery proved that the Indus script had reached Tamil Nadu. He estimated the date of the artefact with the script to be around 1500 B.C. "I have cautiously and conservatively put it between 2000 B.C. and 1500 B.C.," Mr. Mahadevan said. It was in the classical Indus script. He ruled out the possibility of the celt coming from North India because "the material of this stone is clearly of peninsular origin." Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, where hundreds of seals with the Indus script were discovered, are in present-day Pakistan. Neolithic means New Stone Age and it is datable in India between 2000 B.C. and 1000 B.C. According to Mr. Mahadevan, the first sign on the celt depicted a skeletal body with ribs. The figure is seated on his haunches, body bent and contracted, with lower limbs folded and knees drawn up. The second sign showed a jar. Hundreds of this pair have been found on seals and sealings at Harappa. Mr Mahadevan read the first sign as "muruku" and the second sign as "an." In other words, it is "Murukan." The earliest references in Old Tamil poetry portrayed him as a "wrathful killer," indicating his prowess as a war god and hunter. The third sign looked like a trident and the fourth like a crescent with a loop in the middle. Mr. Mahadevan commented that the latest discovery was very strong evidence that the Neolithic people of Tamil Nadu and the Indus Valley people "shared the same language, which can only be Dravidian and not Indo-Aryan." He added that before this discovery, the southernmost occurrence of the Indus script was at Daimabad, Maharashtra on the Pravara River in the Godavari Valley Significance of Mayiladuthurai find (Courtesy Hindu ) Links between Harappa and Neolithic Tamil Nadu The discovery of a Neolithic stone celt, a hand-held axe, with the Indus script on it at Sembian-Kandiyur in Tamil Nadu is, according to Iravatham Mahadevan, "a major discovery because for the first time a text in the Indus script has been found in the State on a datable artefact, which is a polished neolithic celt." He added: "This confirms that the Neolithic people of Tamil Nadu shared the same language family of the Harappan group, which can only be Dravidian. The discovery provides the first evidence that the Neolithic people of the Tamil country spoke a Dravidian language." Mr. Mahadevan, an eminent expert on the subject, estimated the date of the artefact with the Indus script between 2000 B.C. and 1500 B.C. It was in February 2006, when V. Shanmuganathan, a school teacher living in Sembian-Kandiyur, near Mayiladuthurai in Nagapattinam district, dug a pit in the backyard of his house to plant banana and coconut saplings, that he encountered two stone celts. The teacher, who is interested in archaeology, rang up his friend G. Muthusamy, Curator of the Danish Fort Museum at Tranquebar, which belongs to the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology. Mr. Muthusamy, who also belongs to the same village, took charge of the two celts from his friend and handed them over to T.S. Sridhar, Special Commissioner, State Department of Archaeology. When Mr. Sridhar examined one of the two stones, he found some engravings on it. So he asked the epigraphists of his Department to study the particular celt. To their absolute delight, they found fours signs on it - and all four of them corresponded with the characters in the Indus script. When the celt with the Indus script was shown to Mr. Mahadevan, he confirmed that they were in the Indus script. The celt with the script measures 6.5 cm by 2.5 cm by 3.6 cm by 4 cm. It weighs 125 grams. The other celt has no engravings on it. Mr. Mahadevan, one of the world's foremost scholars on the Indus and the Tamil-Brahmi scripts, is the author of the seminal work, The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables. It was published by the Archaeological Survey of India, New Delhi in 1977. First Indus sign The first Indus sign on the celt showed a skeletal body with ribs, seated on his haunches, body bent, lower limbs folded and knees drawn up. The second sign shows a jar with a handle. The first sign stood for "muruku" and the second for "an." Together, they read as "Murukan." They formed a very frequent combination on the Indus seals and sealings, especially from Harappa. The first "muruku" sign corresponded with the sign number 48, the second with the number 342, the third, which looks like a trident, corresponded with the sign number 367, and the fourth with 301. These numbers are found in the sign list published by Mr. Mahadevan. He said: "`Muruku' and 'an' are shown hundreds of times in the Indus script found at Harappa. This is the importance of the find at Sembiyan-Kandiyur. Not only do the Neolithic people of Tamil Nadu and the Harappans share the same script but the same language." In Tamil Nadu, the muruku symbol was first identified from a pottery graffiti at Sanur, near Tindivanam. B.B. Lal, former Director-General of ASI, correctly identified this symbol with sign 47 of the Indus script. In recent years, the muruku symbol turned up among the pottery graffiti found at Mangudi, near Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, and at Muciri, Kerala. But this was the first time that a complete, classical Indus script had been found on a polished Neolithic stone celt, Mr. Mahadevan pointed out. He emphasised that the importance of the discovery was independent of the tentative decipherment of the two signs proposed by him.

Towards a scientific study of the Indus Script Iravatham Mahadevan 4 February 2007, Hindu (This article by one of the world's leading scholars on the Indus Valley Script is based on his address at the inaugural function of the Indus Research Centre at the Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai, on January 25, 2007. Rani Siromoney has gifted her late husband Gift Siromoney's research material on the Indus Script to the centre; and the author said he was "only following her noble example" in gifting his own research materials on the subject to the IRC.) Future research should deal both with structural analysis of the Indus texts aided by the computer and also with archaeological and linguistic evidence to find answers to the riddle of the Indus Script. I HAVE been a researcher in this field for the last four decades. After completing the first phase of my studies of the Tamil-Brahmi script in 1968, I turned my attention towards the Indus Script, having been attracted by the pioneering work of the Russian scholars led by Yuri V. Knorozov and the Finnish scholars led by Asko Parpola. What I found especially appealing in their brilliant work is that, unlike all previous attempts to decipher the Indus Script, the computer was employed to carry out sophisticated cryptanalytical procedures on a scientific basis. I felt that similar work should be undertaken in India also. In 1970, I was awarded a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship for this project. In 1970-71, a photographic card catalogue of the Harappan inscribed objects was assembled. The Indus texts and their background data were coded in a numerical format suitable for computer analysis. An experimental concordance was prepared in collaboration with K. Visvanathan with the help of an IBM 1620 computer at the Fundamental Engineering Research Establishment in the College of Engineering, Guindy, Chennai. Publication of this paper brought me an offer of collaboration from leading computer scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai. Mythili Rangarao designed the computer programmes. Professor R. Narasimhan, the doyen of computer scientists in India, guided our work at TIFR. Interdisciplinary collaboration This interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in the publication in 1977 of my book, The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables, published by the Archaeological Survey of India. As the title indicates, the book provides the basic source material in an organised manner for further research, but does not put forward any particular theory of linguistic decipherment. In retrospect, this has turned out to be a very salutary precaution, as the Concordance is now used world over by all researchers, whatever be their own views on the language of the Indus Script. In 1977, a computerised Input Data File was compiled at TIFR; it was updated in 1980. This is the master file from which the pictorial version of the Indus Texts and the Concordance (published in my 1977 book) were created through brilliant and innovative computer programmes at TIFR. To appreciate this achievement, one must remember that the computers of the early 1970s were much less powerful than computers of today. We had to use punched cards to put in the data and also to obtain the output. There were no monitors for visual check. The pictorial version of the Indus texts has been widely acclaimed as aesthetically appealing and close to the originals, providing research scholars without access to the originals with reliable texts to pursue their own lines of research. Professor Gift Siromoney and his colleague, Professor Abdul Huq, carried out further work on the Indus Script with the help of the computer in the 1980s at the Madras Christian College. Their collaboration resulted in the publication of a series of brilliant research papers (and a doctoral thesis by Abdul Huq), which explored the structural properties of the Indus texts like frequent combinations of signs, segmentation of texts into words, and phrases, etc. What is especially noteworthy about their work is its scientific character without any pre-supposition on the linguistic affinities of the Harappan people and the Indus Script. Use of computers The potentialities of the computerised Input Data File have not been exhausted by my 1977 book or even by the further researches by Professor Siromoney and his colleagues. For one thing, much of the data compiled in the file, including details on the locus and stratigraphy of inscribed objects, are yet to be published and remain open to further research. For another, new data are becoming available both from the earlier sites like Mohenjodaro and Harappa and from newer sites like Dholavira. Stratigraphic data from sites like Lothal and Kalibangan are still unpublished. The format of the Input Data File now stored at the Indus Research Centre (IRC) will permit all such additions, enlarging the corpus of texts and their background data for further research. I have faith that the availability of this material in an accessible computerised form will attract younger scholars from university departments of mathematics, statistics, and linguistics. They can join together in inter-disciplinary research teams to explore further the structure of the Indus Script and ultimately its linguistic character. Fortunately, the Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) is well equipped with the latest computer facilities and well staffed with experts to lend strong support to the research activities of the IRC. The IRC proposes to conduct regular workshops and colloquia on different aspects of the Indus Civilisation, including especially the Indus Script. The centre will also arrange occasional seminars inviting scholars in India and visiting scholars from abroad to present their research findings. In due course, I hope it will publish regular bulletins on the work done at the centre or by contributing scholars elsewhere. May I take this opportunity to appeal to scholars and research institutions engaged in similar work to let us have copies of their books, monographs, research papers, and other publications to enable the IRC to build up an exhaustive library on all aspects of the Harappan civilisation and the Indus Script? No ideological bias I should like to lay particular emphasis on the fact that the IRC is a forum for scientific investigations without any ideological bias. This does not of course mean that the centre will not undertake research into the linguistic aspects of the Indus Script. After all, linguistic decipherment of the Indus Script is the ultimate objective of research. What we mean when we say there should be no ideological bias is that we should not start with preconceived notions or presuppositions and tailor our research to fit into ideology-driven linguistic models. Let me illustrate this statement with a couple of examples: Analysis of the Indus texts has now conclusively established that the writing of the Indus Script was from right to left (with some minor exceptions). Yet we find some scholars claiming that the Indus Script should be read from left to right because that is how Sanskrit (or Tamil) scripts are written. It is clear that all attempts to read the Indus texts generally from the left are ab initio invalid. Computer analysis has shown that the Indus texts possess only suffixes, not prefixes or infixes. This indicates that the Harappan language was of the suffixing type (like Dravidian), not of the prefixing type (like Indo-Aryan). Archaelogical context It is also necessary for well-rounded research to look beyond the inscriptions and take the archaeological context into account. Let me again illustrate this with some well-known examples: The Indus civilisation was urban in character. The Vedic civilisation was rural and pastoral. There is hardly any description of city life in the Rig Veda. The Indus seals depict many animals but not the horse. The chariot with spoked wheels is also not depicted in the Indus art. On the contrary, these are among the main features of the society depicted in the Rig Veda. The Harappan religion, as far as we can make out from pictorial representations, included the worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother goddesses, the pipal tree, serpents, and probably also phallic worship. Such modes of worship seem alien to the religion of the Rig Veda. These examples (among many others) make it very improbable that the Harappan city dwellers were the same as the people of the Vedic culture. Substantial evidence Ruling out the Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not of course automatically make it Dravidian. However there is substantial evidence favouring that supposition. I mention the most important aspects of the evidence without going into details: The survival of Dravidian languages like Brahui in North India. The presence of Dravidian loan words in the Rig Veda. The substratum influence of Dravidian languages on the Prakrit dialects of North India. The evidence indicates that Dravidian languages were once spoken widely in North India and one or more of Dravidian dialects could well be the language of the Indus texts. Let me state with all the emphasis I can command that `Aryan' and `Dravidian' are names of languages and not of races. Speakers of one language can, and frequently did, switch over from one language to another. We should not allow research into the Indus civilisation and language to be vitiated by false notions of racial or ethnic identities. Speakers of the Aryan languages indistinguishably merged with speakers of Dravidian and Munda languages millennia ago — creating a composite Indian society, culture, and religious traditions containing elements inherited from every source. It is thus more than likely that Indus artistic and religious motifs and craft traditions have survived and can be traced in the Sanskrit literature from the days of the Rig Veda, and also in the old Tamil traditions recorded in the Sangam poetry. This is the basic assumption that underlies my own work on the interpretation of the Indus Script through bilingual parallels drawn from Sanskrit and Old Tamil works. Quite recently, Steve Farmer and Michael Witzel proposed that the Indus Script was not a writing system at all but merely a collection of picture signs conveying messages visually but not linguistically. It is difficult to take this new theory seriously because concordances of the Indus texts compiled by different authors (G. R. Hunter, Parpola, and Mahadevan) are in essential agreement and bring out obvious linguistic features like the existence of regular sign combinations suggesting words and phrases and grammatical elements like suffixes. Scholars like Knorozov and Gift Siromoney working independently have also confirmed these linguistic features. The theory that the Indus Script is no writing at all appears to me to be defeatist, born out of frustration reflecting the lack of success of the decipherment efforts. Solving the riddle Lastly, let me also refer to the view that the Indus Script can never be deciphered owing to the limited material, their repetitive nature, and the absence of bilingual records. I am optimistic that sooner or later the riddle of the Indus Script will be solved. My optimism is based on the following considerations. Additional material with Indus inscriptions are being continually unearthed from the older sites as well as from newly discovered sites. It is quite likely that we may reach a critical mass of inscriptions necessary for a successful decipherment. The criticism that there has been little or no progress towards decipherment is also not based on facts. While it is true that linguistic decipherment has not yet been achieved, much preliminary work like determination of the direction of writing, segmentation of texts into words and phrases, and isolation of grammatical features like suffixes has been completed. In these matters a large measure of agreement has emerged from independent work by different scholars; this gives us the hope that we are progressing in the right direction towards decipherment of the Indus Script. I hope that future research in the IRC would deal both with structural analysis of the Indus texts aided by the computer and also with the archaeological and linguistic evidence such as the ones I have mentioned above to find acceptable answers to the riddle of the Indus Script. reference: http://www.tamilnation.org/heritage/indusscript.htm

Story-telling

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Welltellstories

Story-telling is one of the oldest professions in the world, but Penguin has brought it bang up to date with this interactive website.

Here they offer six stories that unfold over six weeks in various unusual formats.

For example Slice takes the form of two blogs, from the perspective of both a young girl and her parents. The 21 Steps follows the journey of the author on Google Maps.

I am not going to spoil the plot for you by talking about the stories, just pop along and immerse yourself in the authors' worlds for a few minutes and you will soon understand a lot more about it.

There is information about the stories, the authors and the classic fairy tales their works pay homage to in the panel across the bottom.

Paper stuff for kids and grown-ups

Paper Toys

If you are totally buzzed by all the technology-driven toys on the market today, or maybe just a bit too cheap to keep feeding them with batteries, why not go back to basics with some toys made out of paper?

You will not find any Nintendo Wii's around here, just a great collection of printables you can stick together to make your own toys. It is a brilliant way to keep your kids occupied without plugging them in to any tech.

As a parent you will have to stay around for this play as there are scissors and glue involved - we learnt our lesson at Click when we left Spencer unsupervised while making a dinosaur. Some of the models are very complicated too, so it is definitely suitable for all ages to enjoy.

The toys are all listed on the opening page, just click a link and then choose a link to which version you want to print underneath the following image. Some are coloured for you, others not. You decide, just remember to colour in the templates before you cut them out and stick them together.

A couple of the toys do not have links to a clean printable version below. This is a bit confusing, but if you right click the image and choose to save it, you will find you can open that up and print it from your desktop too.

GET SAFE ONLINE

Get Safe Online

There is always something new and interesting to do on the internet, but some people worry about safety, and quite rightly too. The world wide web gives those with malicious intent a territory without boundaries to work in. But it is incredibly easy to close the door on them if you follow a few basic safety rules.

Getsafeonline.org tackles this thorny issue in a really palatable style without mess, fuss, or drama. It gives you straight-forward advice and tips about keeping your PC out of the hands of thieves and fraudsters.

A good place to start is the top ten safety tips link on the front page of the website which takes you to a 10-minute guide for beginners. I really like that they have separated the guide into PC, MAC and Linux, as the three operating systems are quite different and deserve to be handled in different ways.

There is advice for home and business users here, plus a handy test to see how safety savvy you are. Look under the highlights section for topic-specific articles, such as online dating and social networking sites like Facebook and Bebo.

Chrome

Google Chrome

I have been using Google's Chrome web browser, and I am so far really impressed.

The Google design team's influence can be seen in the browser's simple, efficient and super-fast features.

Plus it has some nice little features to save you from clicking your mouse too often.

Downloading and installing is fast, as the software recognises which browser you use and does the importing of bookmarks and settings for you.

The browser window itself is crisp and clear. Check out the getting started page for a full run down of the features.

Searching has been highly streamlined and typing anything in the address bar offers up webpages and search terms to apply to your default browser.

It even highlights pages you have visited previously that contain those words.

Something else I like is the frequently visited pages feature, which appears whenever you open a new tab.

It shows all the pages you visit a lot laid out in thumbnail format so it is super easy to find your way to your favourites.

New Home on Internet(A Desktop on your Browser)

Jooce

According to online application Jooce, 500 million people access the internet from cybercafes each day. And if you happen to be one of those people, or you just want a consistent experience when browsing the web from multiple locations, consider this place.

The idea of this site is to bring the functionality of your personal computer at home to any computer you might happen to sit down at - even if you do not actually have a machine at home.

You will be able to access files, e-mail, instant messaging, storage and lots of other applications.

The first step is to register and reserve your own private space on their servers.

Next up, enter your instant messenger account details and click the green arrow to confirm.

Be warned, when you want to talk to a contact, Jooce will send them a message inviting them to sign-up every time you text them through their ordinary instant messenger client.

Next, click the forward arrow to run through all the options and set up your desktop how you want. There is a useful tips run-through when you first start up, teaching you everything you can do with this application.

As well as being able to use this virtual desktop in exactly the same way as a normal desktop - storing files, making folders and chatting to your friends - there is also a public desktop (known as a Joocetop) accessible through the green desktop icon at the bottom.

Here you can allow friends to access and share files you have placed on it.

It works in exactly the same way as the regular desktop, but through your Jooce instant messenger client, contacts can open up your Joocetop, and vice versa - making sharing files and information a breeze.

As well as being a really useful tool, I love the way the interface looks and works. Though if you are stuck using an older machine on a low bandwidth connection, you might find all the animations make it slow to load.

Educational High School Mathematics Website

http://www.math10.com

Math10.com is an online mathematics education portal. The site itself provides many math lessons, formulas, theory and even a forum for people to ask questions. The website focuses on high school mathematics, targeting at internet users ranging from 12 to 20 years old.

Look And Feel The website as a whole looks very technical. I am more of a graphic design person and is very tempted to ask the author to work more on the colors and inject more graphics. However, having said that, I also realised that the website's focus should be on the content. It is possible to get dedicated visitors if the content is unique and interesting. I feel that the author has done a good job in providing interesting content for high school maths students. Navigation and Design Like I mentioned before, the aesthetics of the website is probably irrelevant here and I do not want to dwell into it. The menu list is long and could be confusing. This could pose a problem if the author wants to add more topics in the near future. To solve the problem, I would suggest to use javascript or collapsible menus. Other than reading the title header, there is no way I know which topic I am in after clicking on the links in the menu. It might therefore be a good idea to highlight the topic after the user click on it.  The menu and some web pages have links to the forum but clicking on the links will take the users directly to the forum. I strongly feel that the use of pop up windows will justify here because I want the users to visit the forum but I do not want them to leave my main site. I would also prefer the forum to be fully English. There is only one forum and the language should be internationally friendly, ie English.  Content Web pages that contain mathematical theory probably need no changes over a long period of time. So, the greatest challenge for math10 is probably to sustain its visitors by providing updated maths questions and tutorials. Instead of having the questions together with the theory page, It might be a good idea to have another section to focus on questions for certain topics. For example, under "quadratic equation", the author might provide a link to more quadratic questions in another section of the website.  After browsing through the web pages, I spotted serious language problems in the whole website. The homepage itself already contains errors. It could be typos and I might be wrong about the author's language ability. An example is the introduction text: " In the furture for every theme there will be many interesting tasks with decidions. " I would love to see more text, descriptions and examples under each chapters. The introduction of each chapter is too brief for me. The short test is a good way to gauge the student's understanding of the different topics and I would recommend the author to add more self evaluation tests. Conclusion Overall, I would love to see more topics, questions, tests, and a more organised menu. The website does not look appealing, so the author must work very hard on the content.  Driving traffic to the website is probably the biggest challenge. The author needs to find ways to get traffic for math10.com by liasing with educational institutes or other educational websites. About the Author Free Website Reviews, Web Design Ideas is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.

Search For Offices In London With Google Maps

2007-06-06

http://www.londonofficespace.com | Rating : 6.70

London Office Space is a website that offers a map-driven system to find serviced offices available to rent. By letting them do the work for you, finding an ideal London location can be as easy as signing a short-term lease and moving in.

Design & Layout The main page of the website is unique but is organised well. It consists of a main banner and paragraph and underneath are two columns, the left column with a list of location names to click on and the right column containing a clickable map. At the bottom of the page are text links to "London Life", "Privacy Policy" etc. The maps on the website are triumphant feats of illustration (even if they are from Google) and are very helpful to the viewer and as an added bonus, they resize when the browser window does too. A minimap also helps to pinpoint the region. There is a key to go with the map showing offices, railways and so on, but since the key contains ticked circles instead of representative symbols I found it confusing. Colours for the website are orange, grey, blue, black and green and are consistent with the logo. London Office Space’s logo is modern, simple and stylish, the only issue being the words "Office Space" which do not sit aesthetically under the word "London". Possibly flattening a font like Arial Black as a tagline would work better. I thought the colours represented the type of business well and looked professional. The layout of the pages is neatly organised and pages are consistent with the two column design with contact details up the top. I liked the large phone number in orange at the top as it’s so obvious no customers can fail to use it if needed. The colours in the top and bottom of the main page wrappers are an interesting idea too – thin multicoloured bars adding to the colour scheme. Images within the individual locations are sharp, bright and don’t look too doctored (which is normally the case with real estate). These pictures look realistic but well-taken. Each serviced office has a description, rating and buttons to schedule viewing, request price or add to shortlist. Navigation & Coding It is easy to navigate London Office Space, especially as there are two ways to navigate on many pages (text links and clickable map). Since the contact details are at the top and an arrowed destination list is shown, viewers can not get lost and should not have trouble finding what they are looking for. This is an example of a straight forward website. If you live in central london, have a look at Central London Officesand if you live in outer london, have a look at Offices in Outer London. You can see that searching for offices is very easy by clicking on the balloons in the map. Coding is php using javascript and CSS as well. Loading times are a bit slow (even on an ADSL connection) – I believe this may be due to the map loading times. That are pros and cons of using Google Maps and loading time is one of the cons. Summary This website needs faster loading times, otherwise traffic might go elsewhere and regular customers might get frustrated. Maybe with caching or the advance of internet connection, loading time can be improved? Other than that, the site adequately meets customer needs and provides a huge range of offices to choose from in UK. With the same technology, it is likely that the company can extend their services to include other countries as well. Londonofficespace.com is an example of a site that incorporates the latest open source technology into their services and is a role model for many other directory sites. The design in particular is efficient, simple and easy to navigate. Well done! Logo & Thin Colour Bar Each office has ratings etc Key with ticked items

Australian Oxfam Website - Colourful and friendly

http://www.oxfam.org.au

Oxfam.Org.AU the Australian website of Oxfam International is a well designed and up to date information portal combining the many services and activities across Asia and Indigenous Australia, to overcome poverty and injustice. OXFAM stands for OXford Committee for FAMine Relief founded in England in 1942.

Design The site displays a simplistic design using soft greens with 2 or three shades variations. The design and logo are reproduced from the parent organization Oxfam.org, since it is the Australian branch. The logo is white on green, very symbolic, could resemble two hands holding food or something similar. Since this is an aid organization I did not expect grand design, and truely the minimalistic approach works well and reflects the core values of the organization - to help, and not to waste resources. The bright colours and full smiles of the children in the main photograph reflect the objective of Oxfam, to touch people in need, and warm their souls, to light up their world. There are more images of Oxfam volunteers on site at one of the many aid projects in Asia. The horizontal top navigation bar is followed by the feature article with the focal image and then a four column design to list current projects and future events such as the Sydney TrailWalker. Follow the link and you come to a separate fresh and attractive promotional website for the walk. It's good to find high quality deep links backed by a wealth of information on your site.  Follow another link and you get to the non-feature simple information pages containing topbar, 2 columns, left navigation, right the body with a head image then the text. The opener image helps well to break up the text flood that follows. However the following text is again broken up well with frequent subheaders in shiny light green font. Design is nice, easy on the eyes, I would only change a few minor points: The font seems to crumble a bit on my screen, even though I use a high end 1024 screen, it may be the result of a too ambitious css stylesheet scheme. It is just not very sharp. Cramping the site into 780 px wide container may work for smaller screen resolutions, but with more flat screens around that use 1280 and higher, the site will look very narrow on those screens.  I would either bring the fixed size up to 980 px or have it flexible adjusting up to 1100 px even. Content The site holds a vast amount of information (in access of 500 pages, that's were my sitemap crawler stopped). The pages are well catalogued, structured and navigatable. For example the first button 'Programs' leads to various maps and submaps, then the body of each progam in detail. As maintained through the whole site, head images help to break up lots of text and paragraphs. Other main content is 'Campaigns', 'Donate' and 'Get Active', just the sort of pages I am looking for when visiting a charity website. Follow the 'Donate Now' link and reach an online payment gateway that accepts credit card payments. That's convenient. My advise would be to make the 'Donate Now' button more prominent on the home page. Loading times are good since the content is optimised graphics, CSS colour, text and some images. Navigation 4 tiered, well designed navigation structure makes it easy to find anything you need, from topbar horizontal navigation bar, (1) to left hand sub navigation menu (2),  then sub-sub navigation in the head image (3) to links spread over the body text and subimages (4). The News page is my only point of concern - it is overwhelming and confusing.  Use of that larger shiny green subheader font would help the structure there. Other Features There are lots of 'Calls to Action', such as 'Make a Donation', 'Buy Fairtrade Coffee', 'Sponsor a Team'. Calls to action are one of the most thought after ingredient in online marketing.  Any website optimsation strategy needs to direct traffic onto pages that are not just plain text and information, but contain calls to do something, either buy a product, book a consultation or like here, 'Sponsor a Team'.  The copy writing team at Oxfam appears to be well aware of this. Offer information and aim at getting a result. Conclusion Overall we are looking at one of the better charity websites I have seen. We learn about the many facetes of charity business, have many online opportunities to get involved, and the visual experience invites you to extent your stay for more than just page one or two. If you are looking at getting involved fighting injustice and poverty, this may become your favourite portal. It certainly has for me.

Parents - Send your kids to pbskids!

http://www.pbskids.org

PBS Kids has a huge selection of interactive kid's games, showcasing TV characters that kids love. The website is designed in flash and is one of the best children website out there.

This is the second review for pbskids.org. The first review is here. Introduction There's so much to look at and play with on this site, kids will be kept busy for hours! With exciting graphics and interesting things to do, the kids don't have to know the TV characters to enjoy themselves. A lot of work has gone into this website and it shows. Design and Layout The pages in PBS Kids seem to be simple and well laid out, with minimal (but important) information to focus on. These aspects are especially suitable for children's websites, where the kids need to have clear choices about where to go in the site. The main activities mostly happen in the centre of the screen (where they should be) and the buttons, pictures and text are clickable and reactive. There is sound, so make sure you turn your speakers on to hear! I was impressed with the interesting way the designers managed to use bright colours throughout the site, while keeping the central, interactive parts the main attraction - this is the hallmark of an experienced web designer or team of designers - design is all about communicating the message and these people have done it well. Backgrounds are exciting but well thought out and general site info that wouldn't be interesting to kids is contained in subtle, out-of-the-way places, as it should be. Graphics are cute and attractive as well as loading quickly, and anyone who has worked on this site would be proud to put it on their resume. I'd suggest that the age group targeted would be 4-11 year olds. I encountered a Flash message on navigating from the main page to some of the character pages and although it was necessary, it was a bit boring compared to the rest of the site. Since it was left aligned and in a standard web font it didn't really fit with what else was on there - maybe dressing this up while keeping it fast loading would help with consistency? Navigation & Coding The website is made of html pages with CSS coding (mandatory on a huge site like this), with javascript functions for the interactivity and in some cases, flash objects. Flash movies with sound and fast loading rollover gifs (javascript) make up the bulk of the games and interactive parts. Navigation is quite simple due to the minimalist approach where pictures say more than words. I don't think many kids would have trouble navigating on this website as the choices are pretty obvious. All navigation appears to work and goes to the right page. PBS Kids is a great example of how a huge children's website should be built. Items of interest I really enjoyed the lack of obvious advertising in this website, as the only advertising at all seemed to be in the fact of playing with the TV cartoon characters. As a parent who often has to stop the kids from wanting to buy everything, websites like PBS Kids mean that the most amount of work required from a parent at a later stage would possibly be to tune in to the TV shows. At the same time, I guess PBS Kids has a website in the first place to attract people to their shows! The games within the website are excellent and will hold kid's attention. An example of the games contained include lots of printables, lots of scenarios with interactive play such as online cooking (you click on ingredients and the character cooks a meal), click and drag items, online books and much more. Lots of fun and some new stuff here as well. Conclusion PBS Kids is a great website for kids - I highly recommend a visit there as it is educational and interesting. The huge variety of things to do will keep kids busy for hours and the website is reasonably fast loading, so the kids can have some fun at their pace online. To the designers of this website - pull out the champagne and give yourselves a pat on the back - you have earned it! Central focus area on page The boring Flash message Online cooking game

Harry Potter Web Magic

http://harrypotter.warnerbros.com

The latest Harry Potter movie, The Order of the Phoenix, has it’s own website, which is an interesting online experience promoting the movie. This is one of the most well-designed Harry Porter website so far.

Design & Layout When first arriving at the website, your browser will probably ask for an add-on, but I suspect this is only necessary for those of you who need to view in a language other than English, because the Flash introduction worked OK without the add-on for me. The design of the introduction was very good, a basic middle Flash container with Warner Bros. website links up the top, an opportunity to skip the movie within the container, links to different language versions (these were greyed out due to the add-on I suspect), some red “alert” text and other bits such as a privacy policy etc. I liked the design of the Flash container with the magical looking border corners, but upon further inspection, I noticed that the 4 border corners were different in size and design to each other but this took a while to notice as the whole effect was pretty good – and design-wise the border corners couldn’t have been better. Pressing the Sound On/Off button worked on the main part of the website where there was background sound but not on the intro which was interesting but quite loud.   With lots of black, wood colouring, and olde fashioned textures, the site reminded me of the old Lord of the Rings site. The main website page had a two column layout, with Harry Potter website links on the left, the main viewing screen on the right and all the links needed for Warner Bros. website on the top and bottom. The left menu had some interesting CSS for the hover functions and also some nice looking hover down menus. Olde weathered wood textures abounded and with a default creepy image of Voldemort in all his horrible glory, the home page had an excellent appearance.   Clicking on the Marauder’s Map (top right) leads to some addictive and well presented games. I had some trouble opening the Pensieve link though, I believe the add-on might have been needed for this one. Some of the items require you to sign up to the website – these involve “joining Hogwarts” or downloading webmaster materials and so on. The content and depth of the site was quite good – lots of things to look at, lots of latest updates and info and lots of things for people of all ages to enjoy.   One slight error was found on the home page left menu where the “Marauder’s  Map” link was missing an apostrophe and had a default font box instead. I suspect this is due to my browser not having the right webfont. And the blue text in the same menu needed to be just a hint darker so it could be read easier.    The navigation worked fine, all the links appeared linked. Some items didn’t load because I didn’t have the add-on, but you could download it rather easily (I just wanted to see what the add-on would be needed for). The Flash movies played fine and it looked like the site had been built by people who really knew their stuff.   Coding is a mix of html, ASPX, Flash, javascript and CSS. And I must say that while the code is a bit bulky, the loading time is quite reasonable when you consider how long the Flash intro is and the elaborate set up of all the different codes in unison. Loading time is medium to fast but varies depending on which part of the site you are loading.   It was interesting to see the amount of keywords and the long description inserted into the source code, a bit of an eye opener for someone like me who does a list of 30 keywords and a couple of sentences for the metatags normally. You can certainly see why they’d get so many visitors and you could also see that they wanted to promote the website intensely.   Conclusion   The Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix website is a website worth visiting for Harry Potter fans – I am thinking about going back and having some fun on it after completing this review! Outstanding looking design, swish graphics and very minor errors make for an interesting viewer experience and promotes the movie effortlessly. I do think that most people visiting the site would have either seen the movie or read the book but since Harry Potter is so popular there is sure to be no shortage of viewers. The Marauder's Map Issues on the left menu The Daily Prophet nes & updates Triwizard Challenge page One of the games

A Web Library Worth Visiting

http://www.webdesign.org

When entering the Web Design Library (the Designer's One-Stop Resource) you will find yourself entering a slick and highly organised website that is worthy of bookmarking. If you like visiting SiteCritic.net, then you will also like visiting this website as it contains a wealth of informative information and tutorials that are helpful to the online design community.

Navigation: Menus are well laid out and a lot of information is compacted so it is easy to read. On the left menu bar is categories for tutorials and articles, and the right menu bar contains interesting site stats, site of the day etc. Clicking on the Editor’s Pick in the centre panel takes you to informative tutorials and articles that are worth a peek. The right menu changes the order of the content depending on which page you visit, which is a handy idea. However, the "back" button doesn’t work in the tutorials/articles and you will need to scroll to the top to choose where to go after reading the page. Colours: The colour scheme using a turquoise gradient is very easy on the eyes and encourages a feeling of calm while complimentary highlighted text attracts the eye. Tutorials and articles benefit from beautiful and well-sized graphics that demonstrate the content well. Small details, such as the blue borders in the left menu items and the thoughtful use of icons improve the look of the site, as does having a simple, well-spaced logo. The overall effect is very pleasant, attractive and highly recommended as part of a successful website experience. Layout: The three-column layout, while a common one, is usually hard to make attractive as the volume of information and advertising normally bombards the viewer, while the layout does not lend itself to unique appearances. However, I feel that the Web Design Library has successfully used a rare colour theme to make the layout more attractive. The organisation of the information improves readability dramatically compared to other three-column websites I have seen. Advertising is kept to a minimum and favours websites connected to the Web Design Library in appearance and subject. Such pleasing advertising displayed in subtle ways is an open invitation for the audience and should do well in attracting repeat viewers. Usability: A triumph in CSS implementation, the Web Design Library’s website pages are quick to load, while the theme continues throughout the site. As mentioned above, my first impulse after reading a tutorial was to click the "back" button which didn’t work, so I had to scroll up the top to get back to the previous page. This is my only gripe with the website, as all other elements seem to function well. Conclusion: If anything, the Web Design Library inspires envy in web design and is proving to be a highly successful website. The domain name www.webdesign.org is well suited and worth a visit. Check it out! "Example of tutorial" "Small details" "Subtle advertising"

How to Get a Good Deal on a Hard Drive

Computer equipment is one of the hardest things to buy if you are not at least somewhat competent in the market. Many people are willing to take advantage of someone who does not have a clue what he or she need. Take the MarketPro Shows for example. Many different vendors frequent the shows in order to sell their wares, and on one occasion, this writer thought the Motherboard had gone on my computer, but I was also interested in upgrading my hard drive as well. One vendor quoted a price of approximately 350 to replace the Mother Board and include a hard drive of 2 Gb It seemed like a good deal at the time until shopping in various computer stores showed that a whole system with an 80 Gb hard drive could be purchased for not much more than that. Interesting thought, isnt it.

Why is a person going to pay 350 to get 2 Gb of hard drive memory when for approximately 599, one can get a tower with an 80 Gb hard drive, 512K of RAM, a keyboard, and sometimes even a printer depending on the sale that is being offered at the time. How do you know where you’re getting a good deal on a hard drive? One of the things that you don’t want to do is take the first deal that interests you because you think it sounds “good.” Unless you are a computer whiz who knows the prices and specifications of every product in the local area, you need to check around. Find out exactly what it is that you want and get some prices. While you are doing this, do not let anyone think that you are interested in buying at that time because they will attempt to convince you that if you don’t buy your hard drive that day, you will pay much more money for it and not get the same quality. You want to do all of your research before you make your final decision and know that in the end you have made the most informed decision of all. When it is suggested that you check around, that doesn’t mean just the stores in your area because often times, an Internet search will yield you a much better price, but this means you will have to know exactly what it is that you want right down to the size of the hard drive and speed of the processor. Even EBay is a good source of value-priced hard drives, but you must be able to read into the seller’s profile, meaning that you do not attempt to place a bid if the seller has a private profile. Again, you must read the description in detail because if you are looking for a new hard drive, you must look at the complete description. Even if your hard drive has taken a nosedive, give yourself an opportunity to look for a good deal instead of simply taking the first one that sounds like a good deal because you’re desperate. This has not yet been mentioned, but one of the most important things about a hard drive is know the potential that it can crash and being sure to have all of your important information backed up so that it’s just a matter of reloading it when you replace the hard drive. Lastly, be sure to keep your virus protection up to date because one of the biggest causes of hard drive crashes is a virus.