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BY: SUN STAFF
Oct 18, 2013 — CANADA (SUN) — The last in a three-part study of Vedic and Puranic influence on Tamil culture, by Michael Danino.
Historical Period
The historical period naturally takes us to the great Pallava, Chola and Pandya temples and to an overflowing of devotional literature by the Alwars, the Nayanmars and other seekers of the Divine who wandered over the length and breadth of the Tamil land, filling it with bhakti. But here let us just take a look at the rulers. An inscription records that a Pandya king led the elephant force in the Mahabharata War on behalf of the Pandavas, and that early Pandyas translated
the epic into Tamil.[50]
The first named Chera king, Udiyanjeral, is
said to have sumptuously fed the armies on both sides during the War at
Kurukshetra ; Chola and Pandya kings also voiced such claims-of course
they may be devoid of historical basis, but they show how those kings sought to
enhance their glory by connecting their lineage to heroes of the Mahabharata.
So too, Chola and Chera kings proudly claimed descent from Lord Rama or from
kings of the Lunar dynasty-in other words, an "Aryan" descent. As regards religious
practices, the greatest Chola king, Karikala, was a patron of both the Vedic
religion and Tamil literature, while the Pandya king Nedunjelyan performed many
Vedic sacrifices, and the dynasty of the Pallavas made their capital Kanchi into
a great centre of Sanskrit learning and culture. K. V. Raman summarizes
the "religious inheritance of the Pandyas" in these words : The Pandyan kings were great champions of the Vedic religion
from very early times.... According to the Sinnamanur plates, one of the early
Pandyan kings performed a thousand velvi or yagas Vedic sacrifices....
Though the majority of the Pandyan kings were Saivites, they extended equal
patronage to the other faiths ... and included invocatory verses to the Hindu
Trinity uniformly in all their copper-plate grants. The Pandyas patronised all
the six systems or schools of Hinduism.... Their religion was not one of narrow
sectarian nature but broad-based with Vedic roots. They were free from linguistic
or regional bias and took pride in saying that they considered Tamil and Sanskritic
studies as complementary and equally valuable.[51] This pluralism can
already be seen in the two epics Shilappadikaram and Manimekhalai,
which amply testify that what we call today Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism
coexisted harmoniously. "The sectarian spirit was totally absent,"[52] writes Ramachandra Dikshitar. "Either the
people did not look upon religious distinctions seriously, or there were no
fundamental differences between one sect and another."[53] That is also a reason why I have not stressed Buddhism and
Jainism here. Those two faiths were no
doubt significant in the early stages of Tamil society, but not as dominant as
certain scholars insist upon in an attempt to eclipse the Vedic and Puranic
elements. Buddhism and Jainism did contribute greatly in terms of religious
thought, art and science, but faded centuries later under the flood of Hindu
bhakti ; their insistence on world-shunning monasticism also did not agree
very well with the Tamil temperament, its cult of heroism and its zest for
life. In any case, this superficial glance at Sangam literature makes it clear at
the very least that, in the words of John R. Marr, "these poems show that the
synthesis between Tamil culture and what may loosely be termed Aryan culture
was already far advanced.[
54] Nilakanta Sastri goes a step further and opines, "There does not exist
a single line of Tamil literature written before the Tamils came into contact
with, and let us add accepted with genuine appreciation, the Indo-Aryan
culture of North Indian origin."[55] The Myth of Dravidian Culture
And yet, such statements do not go deep enough, as they
still imply a North-South contrast and an unknown Dravidian substratum over
which the layer of "Aryan" culture was deposited. This view is only milder than
that of the proponents of a "separate" and "secular" Dravidian culture, who
insist on a physical and cultural Aryan-Dravidian clash as a result of which
the pure "Dravidian" culture got swamped. As we have seen, archaeology,
literature and Tamil tradition all fail to come up with the slightest hint of such a conflict. Rather, as far as the
eye can see into the past there is every sign of a deep cultural interaction
between North and South, which blossomed not through any "imposition" but in a
natural and peaceful manner, as everywhere else in the subcontinent and beyond. As regards an imaginary Dravidian "secularism" (another quite inept word to
use in the Indian context), it has been posited by many scholars : Marr,[56] Zvelebil[57] and others characterize Sangam poetry
as "secular" and "pre-Aryan"[58] after severing its heroic or love themes from its strong
spiritual undercurrents, in a feat typical of Western scholarship whose scrutiny
always depends more on the magnifying glass than on the wide-angle lens. A far
more insightful view comes from the historian M. G. S. Narayanan, who finds
in Sangam literature "no trace of another, indigenous, culture other than what
may be designated as tribal and primitive."[
59] He concludes : The Aryan-Dravidian or Aryan-Tamil dichotomy envisaged by some
scholars may have to be given up since we are unable to come across anything
which could be designated as purely Aryan or purely Dravidian in the character
of South India of the Sangam Age. In view of this, the Sangam culture has to
be looked upon as expressing in a local idiom all the essential features of
classical "Hindu" culture.[
60] However, it is not as
if the Tamil land passively received this culture : in exchange it
generously gave elements from its own rich temperament and spirit. In fact, all
four Southern States massively added to every genre of Sanskrit literature, not
to speak of the signal contributions of a Shankara, a Ramanuja or a Madhwa.
Cultural kinship does not mean that there is nothing distinctive about South
Indian tradition ; the Tamil land can justly be proud of its ancient
language, culture and genius, which have a strong stamp and character of their
own, as anyone who browses through Sangam texts can immediately see : for
all the mentions of gods, more often than not they just provide a
backdrop ; what occupies the mind of the poets is the human side, its
heroism or delicate emotions, its bouncy vitality, refined sensualism or its
sweet love of Nature. "Vivid pictures of full-blooded life exhibiting itself in
all its varied moods," as Raghunathan puts it. "One cannot but be impressed by
the extraordinary vitality, variety and richness of the poetic achievement of
the old Tamil."[61] Ganapathy Subbiah adds, "The aesthetic quality
of many of the poems is breathtakingly refined."[62] It is true also that the Tamil language
developed its own literature along certain independent lines ; conventions
of poetry, for instance, are strikingly original and more often than not
different from those of Sanskrit literature. More importantly, many
scholars suggest that "the bhakti movement began in the Tamil country and
later spread to North India."[63] Subbiah, in a profound study, not only
challenges the misconceived "secular" portrayal of the Sangam texts, but also
the attribution of the Tamil bhakti to a northern origin ; rather, he
suggests, it was distinctly a creation of Tamil culture, and Sangam literature
"a reflection of the religious culture of the Tamils."[64] As regards the
fundamental contributions of the South to temple architecture, music, dance and
to the spread of Hindu culture to other South Asian countries, they are too
well known to be repeated here. Besides, the region played a crucial role in
preserving many important Sanskrit texts (a few Vedic recensions, Bhasa's
dramas, the Arthashastra for instance) better than the North was able to
do, and even today some of India's best Vedic scholars are found in Tamil Nadu
and Kerala.[*] As Swami Vivekananda put it, "The South had been the repository
of Vedic learning."[65] In other words, what
is loosely called Hinduism would not be what it is without the South. To use
the proverbial but apt image, the outflow from the Tamil land was a major
tributary to the great river of Indian culture. Conclusion
It should now be crystal clear that anyone claiming
a "separate," "pre-Aryan" or "secular" Dravidian culture has
no evidence to show for it, except his own ignorance of archaeology,
numismatics and ancient Tamil literature. Not only was there
never such a culture, there is in fact no meaning in the word
"Dravidian" except either in the old geographical sense or
in the modern linguistic sense ; racial and cultural meanings
are as unscientific as they are irrational, although some
scholars in India remain obstinately rooted in a colonial
mindset. The simple reality is
that every region of India has developed according to its own genius, creating
in its own bent, but while remaining faithful to the central Indian spirit. The
Tamil land was certainly one of the most creative, and we must hope to see more
of its generosity once warped notions about its ancient culture are out of the
way. References
* I
am grateful to Dr. K. V. Raman (also to Drs. Iravatham Mahadevan,
K. V. Ramesh and S. Kalyanaraman) for kindly suggesting some
of the sources I have used, and for providing me with important
clues ; of course I am solely responsible for my treatment
of them and the conclusions I suggest. May I add that this
admittedly incomplete overview is aimed mostly at the educated
non-specialist Indian public, and that I am myself a student
of India, not a scholar. 
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