Hinduism in South India

Hinduism in South India refers to the Hindu culture of the people of South India. Hinduism in South India is characterized by Dravidian customs and traditions, hence it is also called Dravidian Hinduism. The Dravidians made great contributions to the development of Hinduism. South India was the birthplace of many Hindu saints and reformers. The Brahmins (Hindu priests class) of ancient Dakshinapatha (Tamilakam, Telangana, Karnataka including Maharashtra and Gujarat) were classified as Pancha-Dravida (The Five Dravidians).

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K

• The importance of Pandya coins of Vedic sacrifice series lies in the fact that these coins corroborate what we know from Sangam literature about the performance of Vedic sacrifices by a Pandya king of this age.
  • R. Krishnamurthy, Sangam Age Tamil Coins, p. 26.
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

M

• Another very important feature revealed in Sangam literature is the conception of the unity of the land-mass stretching from the Himalayas in the north to Kanyakumari in the south. In at least two sources, Tamil kings were praised as having had supremacy amidst all the chieftains who reigned in the land between ‘the Himalayan abode of Gods’ in the north and Kumari in the south and the lands which have the sea as the frontier. The northern limit of this cultural unity is often referred to as the Himalayas. Ganges in floods, as well as ships travelling on the Ganges, is among the scenes depicted in Sangam literature.
  • Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

• Pilgrims from all over India coming to have holy baths at Kanyakumari as well as Rameswaram (Koti) have been mentioned in Sangam literature. Speaking of Himalayas and Kanyakumari in association, is another hallmark of many Sangam poems.
  • Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

• Apart from such spiritual-cultural unity of India depicted in Sangam poems, there is at least one poem that refers to the political unity of India. This poem, from Puranannuru, speaks of a time when the whole of India ‘from Kanyakumari to Himalayas’ was ruled as one nation, unifying the diverse geographical zones of ‘plateaus, mountains, forests and human habitations’ by kings of the solar dynasty, and identifies Tamil kings as descendants of the solar dynasty.
  • Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

N

• The fact that the literature of the Sangam age refers more to Vedic sacrifices than to temples is a pointer to the popularity of the Vedic cults among the Sangam Tamils.
  • R. Nagaswamy, Art and Culture of Tamil Nadu, p. 7.
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

• 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.
  • M. G. S. Narayanan, “The Vedic-Puranic-Shastraic Element in Tamil Sangam Society and Culture,” in Essays in Indian Art, Religion and Society,
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

R

• 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.
  • K. V. Raman, “Religious Inheritance of the Pandyas,” in Sree Meenakshi Koil Souvenir (Madurai, n.d.), p. 168ff
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

S

• 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.
  • K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, “Sanskrit Elements in Early Tamil Literature,” p. 45
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

• A knowledge of Sanskrit literature from the Vedic period to the Classical period is essential to understand and appreciate a large number of passages scattered among the poems of Tamil literature.
  • P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri, An Enquiry into the Relationship of Sanskrit and Tamil (Trivandrum : University of Travancore, 1946), chapter 3.
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.

V

• The South had been the repository of Vedic learning.
  • Swami Vivekananda, “Reply to the Madras Address,” The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda (Advaita Ashrama, 1948), p. 278.
  • quoted in VEDIC ROOTS OF EARLY TAMIL CULTURE Michel Danino Written in 2001 and published in Saundaryashri: Studies of Indian History, Archaeology, Literature and Philosophy (Festschrift to Professor Anantha Adiga Sundara), P. Chenna Reddy, (ed.), Sharada Publishing House, New Delhi, 2009, pp. 19–30.