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).

Quotes

• Some megalithic burials have yielded iron or bronze objects such as mother goddess, horned masks, the trishul etc. As the archaeologist I. K. Sarma observes, such objects are intimately connected with the worship of brahmanical Gods of the historical period, such as øiva, Kàrtikeya and later Ambà. The diadems of Adichanallur burials are like the mouth-pieces used by the devotees of Murugan.
  • I. K. Sarma, Religion in Art and Historical Archaeology of South India (Madras : University of Madras, 1987), p. 33.
  • 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 archaeologist K. V. Raman also notes : Some form of Mother-Goddess worship was prevalent in the Megalithic period [...] as suggested by the discovery of a small copper image of a Goddess in the urn-burials of Adichchanallur. More recently, in Megalithic burials the headstone, shaped like the seated Mother, has been located at two places in Tamil Nadu.
  • K. V. Raman, Sakti Cult in Tamil Nadu—a Historical Perspective (paper presented at a seminar on Sakti Cult, 9th session of the Indian Art History Congress at Hyderabad, in November 2000 ; in press).
  • 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.

• Megalithic practices evocative of later Hinduism are thus summarized by the British archaeologists Bridget and Raymond Allchin : The orientation of port-holes and entrances on the cist graves is frequently towards the south. [...] This demands comparison with later Indian tradition where south is the quarter of Yama. Among the grave goods, iron is almost universal, and the occasional iron spears and tridents (trisulas) suggest an association with the god øiva. The discovery in one grave of a trident with a wrought-iron buffalo fixed to the shaft is likewise suggestive, for the buffalo is also associated with Yama, and the buffalo demon was slain by the goddess Durgà, consort of øiva, with a trident. [...] The picture which we obtain from this evidence, slight as it is, is suggestive of some form of worship of Siva.
  • Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan, p.339-340.
  • 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.

• Among the earliest evidences, a stratigraphic dig by I. K. Sarma within the garbagriha of the Parasuramesvara temple at Gudimallam, brought to light the foundation of a remarkable Shivalingam of the Mauryan period (possibly third century BC) : it was fixed within two circular pãthas at the centre of a square vàstu-mandala. “The deity on the frontal face of the tall linga reveals himself as a proto-puranic Agni-Rudra” standing on a kneeling devayàna. If this early date, which Sarma established on stratigraphic grounds and from pottery sherds, is correct, this fearsome image could well be the earliest such representation in the South.
  • I. K. Sarma, Religion in Art and Historical Archaeology of South India, p. 35.
  • 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.

• Quite a few coins clearly show a yagnakunda. That is mostly the case with the Pandyas’ coins, some of which also portray a yubastambha to which a horse is tied as part of the ashvamedha sacrifice. As the numismatist R. Krishnamurthy puts it, “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.

• As the archaeologist and epigraphist R. Nagaswamy remarks, “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.

• As a matter of fact, P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri showed with a wealth of examples how “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.

• 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.55
  • 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.

• 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.”
  • John Ralston Marr, The Eight Anthologies – A Study in Early Tamil Literature (Madras : Institute of Asian Studies, 1985), p. vii.
  • 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.

• 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.”
  • K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, “Sanskrit Elements in Early Tamil Literature,” p. 45 (emphasis mine).
  • 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.

• 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.