The Thanumalayan temple at Suchindram in Kanniyakumari district, the Nellaiappar temple in Tirunelveli and the Polinthunindrapiran temple in Alwarthirunagari have stone pillars that can produce music. But the artisans of ancient Tamil Nadu went a step further and produced a nagaswaram made of stone. There are two such nagaswarams — one in the Adi Kumbeshwarar temple in Kumbakonam and another in the Alwarthirunagari temples.
“We do not have details about when the instruments were made,” said historian Kudavasal Balasubramanian. The instrument is similar to the timiri, or the shorter version of the nagaswaram, that was used before Thiruvavaduthurai T.N. Rajarathinam Pillai designed the paari version of the nagaswaram. “The uzhau — the middle pipe of the instrument — is made of stone. The front portion, known as the anusu or the volume enhancer, and the end portion where the reed is fit while playing are made of brass,” said Swaminthan, the nagaswaram player at the Kumbeshwaran temple. He also plays the stone nagaswaram.
But unlike other nagaswarams, the stone nagaswaram only has six holes. “When we handle this instrument, we consciously choose particular scales and ragas conducive to its structure and body,” Mr. Swaminathan said. “For instance, we take time in the lower octaves and often choose ragas with the prati madhymam, or the sharper variant of the note ‘ma’, like in Kalyani, Shanmugapriya and Panthuvaralai,” he added. Though it is a rare instrument, there is no particular occasion during which the instrument is played. “During the Kumbhamela, I played it when the yagna was performed. The last time I played the instrument was in 2017 during Saraswathi puja,” said Mr. Swaminathan.
Before him, nagaswaram players Kujithapatham and Pakkiriya Pillai had played the instrument.
“The actor Prabhu had once visited the temple and wanted to listen to the instrument as his father Sivaji Ganesan, a connoisseur of music, had told him about the instrument. I played it for him then,” said Mr. Swaminathan.
In Alwarthirunagari, the instrument was played during the raapathu and the pakalpathu utsavams.