Punnaagavanam

P. Desikan

Punnai, Punnaagam or Pungam, the Indian laurel tree, known in Sri Lanka as Indian doomba oil tree and in Southeast Asia and Oceania as bintangur, bitaog, tamanu, or kamani, has the binomial botanical name Calophyllum inophyllum. It is of course native to tropical Asia, especially all of South India and Sri Lanka. It has foundmentions in ancient Tamil literature and in sthalapuranas of quite a few Tamil temples. It is commonly known in the West as mast-wood, beach calophyllum or beauty-leaf. Its other regional names are Alexandrian laurel, ball-tree, beach touriga, Borneo-mahogany, laurel-wood, red poon, satin touriga, and tacamahac-tree.

Calophyllum inophyllum is a low-branching and slow-growing tree with a broad and irregular crown. It usually reaches 8 to 20 m (26 to 66 ft) in height.  The flower is 25 mm (about one inch) wide and occurs in inflorescences consisting of four to 15 flowers. Flowering can occur perennially, but usually two distinct flowering periods are observed, in late spring and in late autumn.

The fruit (the ballnut) is a round, green drupe measuring 2 to 4 cm (3/4th to 1 and 1/2 inch) in diameter and having a single large seed. When ripe, the fruit is wrinkled and its colour varies from yellow to brownish-red. The oil from the single seed in the fruit is the famous tamanu oil found since early times to have several medical uses in the East and used as raw material for making bio-diesel in recent times. The tree is known for its ability to grow to massive sizes in sandy or rocky beaches of island and coastal habitats, as well as its habit of sending out arching large trunks over the water where its seeds are dispersed via the currents.

As the name mast-wood indicates, the timber of the tree had found use in traditional shipbuilding of the larger Austronesian outrigger ships and was carried with them as they migrated to Oceania and Madagascar. Other species of the genus Calophyllum were also used similarly. It stands to reason, that vessels made of Punnai wood could have set sail from Indian shores not only during prehistoric tribal migrations but also with South Indian mariners in the first millenium of the common era.

The Sthalapuranam of the Sankaranarayana temple, which is also famous as the Gomati Ambal Temple and as Sankaran temple in the town called Sankaran Kovil in Southern Tamilnadu mentions that its sacred tree, the sthalavriksha is a punnai tree. And the kshetra, the temple complex and the town itself are described as Punnaagavanam पुन्नागवनं, the wood of punnai trees, whose Iswara is Sankara as well as Sankaranarayana, in the ashtaka stotra of Gomathi Ambal. Every one of the eight four-liner shlokas after the initial Sankaranarayana dhyana shlokam ends with the line

श्री पुन्नागवनेश्वरस्य महिषीं ध्यायेत्सदा गोमतीम् , let us always meditate upon Gomati, the divine consort of the Lord of Punnaagavanam. Shakti doing tapas (penance) to join Siva after any divine leela which needed either to leave the other temporarily is a feature for utsava in several South Indian temples. In this kshetra her penance long long ago was to have her Lord manifest himself to his devotees as Sankara-Narayana so that they can give up their feeling that the two forms of Paramatma were different. This penance and the joyous events marking her success in it are annually celebrated in the Tamil month of Aadi and called Aadi Tavasu. Lalitha Srinivasan, my cousin at Chennai fondly recalls the ten day Puja at her father’s residence year after year for Aadi Thavasu giving guest devotees the feel of visiting the Gomati Ambal shrine at Sankaran Kovil. Her brothers continued the annual tradition, but they too are sadly no more.

Sri Sankaranarayana’s and Sri Gomati Ambal’s temple at Sankaran Kovil has a pond (pushkarini) with the name Naagasunai, (The Serpent tank). And the name of the sthalavriksha is punnaaga, indicating an unintended naaga association! Also there is a large anthill near the temple which, traditionally is a residence for snakes from which, the mud is respectfully gathered without disturbing the putru (anthill) much to be given as putru mann prasad, capable of relieving sufferings of the devotees through external application on the body. It is also kept in domestic sanctums and worshipped.

Music enthusiasts in South India would be aware that songs referring to Naaga lore, whether devotional or recreational, including songs used by snake charmers in films are generally set in punnaagavaraali raga. The usage pleasantly skips the fact that the name of the raga in Sanskrit means only the swarm of black bees around a punnai tree in bloom! One of the revered karnatakasangita trinity of composers, Sri Muthuswami Dikshitar has sung eleven kirtanas known as Navaavarana kirtanas on Mother Kamalamba, the Yogic consort of Swami Thyagaraja at Tiruvarur. They are eleven in number because there are Dhyana and Mangala kirtanas in the beginning and at the end of the nine kirtanas which form the aavaranam. In the sixth aavarana kirtana, he calls Amba रमणीय-पुन्नाग-वराळि-विजित-वेणी, whose charming braided hair wins over black bees swarming punnaaga flowers. The kirtana, of course is set in पुन्नाग-वराळि-raga. Of course there is a punnaaga tree in the temple. For completing the punnaaga idiom, this temple also has an anthill in place.

Kamalaamba or Gomati Ambal, Mother Shakti loves the punnaaga tree. Its blossoms love bees. Its root attracts ants to build anthills for snakes to reside in.

Going back to Sankarankoil, it is almost equidistant from the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea or the Indian Ocean at Cape Kumari. The Punnaaga wood where the Pandyan King found the sacred icons for whom he built the temple well over a thousand years ago, could easily have been responsible to propagate Punnai by marine routes far and wide.