The early Dravidian religion constituted a non-
Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
form of
Hinduism in that they were either historically or are at present
Āgamic. The Agamas are non-
Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
in origin,
[Mudumby Narasimhachary (ed.) (1976). "Āgamaprāmāṇya of Yāmunācārya". ''Gaekwad's Oriental Series'' 160. Oriental Institute, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda.] and have been dated either as post-Vedic texts,
[Tripath, S. M. (2001)]
''Psycho-Religious Studies Of Man, Mind And Nature''
Global Vision. . or as pre-Vedic compositions.
[Nagalingam, Pathmarajah (2009)]
Siddhanta Publications. The ''Agamas'' are a collection of
Tamil and
Sanskrit scriptures chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of ''
murti'', worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga.
[Grimes, John A. (1996)]
''A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: Sanskrit Terms Defined in English''
State University of New York Press. . . The worship of
tutelary deities
A tutelary () (also tutelar) is a deity or a spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety and ...
and sacred flora and fauna in Hinduism is also recognized as a survival of the pre-Vedic Dravidian religion.
Dravidian linguistic influence on early Vedic religion is evident; many of these features are already present in the oldest known
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
, the language of the ''
Rigveda'' (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. The linguistic evidence for Dravidian impact grows increasingly strong as one moves from the
Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classical post-Vedic literature. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans that went on to influence Indian civilisation.
Classification
Scholars do not share a uniform consensus on early Dravidian religion. Some scholars believed that the Dravidian religion was a belief system unique to the
Neolithic people of South Asia before the origin of Indo-Aryan languages. Pope believes that in the pre-historic period the Dravidian religion was a precursor to Shaivism and Shaktism. While John B. Magee was of the view that native Dravidian religion prior to 1500 BCE was unclear. Other scholars define it as a non-Vedic part of
Hinduism. Henry O. Thompson's definition of
Hinduism included Dravidian traditions as one of the important foundational element. Sjoberg claims that the Dravidian religion influenced
Hinduism more than its Indo-Aryan counterpart, Gustav Oppert suggests Dravidian religion was centered the worship of Goddess as mother, protector of villages and the seven sisters identified with Matrikas. Wilder Theodre Elmore comments that the Dravidian folks religions are not a simple form of animism, but exhibit complex
metaphysical concepts. The widespread worship of certain village deities of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu may be argued to reflect a survival of the pre-Brahmanic religious tradition.
The cult of the Female Principle was a major aspect of Dravidian religion, The concept of Shakti was an integral part of their religion ..The cult of the ''Sapta Matrika'', or Seven Divine Mothers, which is an integral part of the Shakta religion, may be of Dravidian inspiration.
Dravidian influence on early Vedic religion is evident, many of these features are already present in the oldest known
Indo-Aryan language
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...
, the language of the ''
Rigveda'' (c. 1500 BCE), which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. The linguistic evidence for Dravidian impact grows increasingly strong as we move from the Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classical post-Vedic literature. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans, which became more evident over time with sacred iconography, traditions, philosophy, flora and fauna that went on to influence
Hinduism,
Buddhism
Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and gra ...
,
Jainism,
Sramana and
Charvaka
Charvaka ( sa, चार्वाक; IAST: ''Cārvāka''), also known as ''Lokāyata'', is an ancient school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism, and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge, embra ...
.
Scholars regard the modern
Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of various Indian cultures and traditions. Among its roots are the
historical Vedic religion
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedicism, Vedism or ancient Hinduism and subsequently Brahmanism (also spelled as Brahminism)), constituted the religious ideas and practices among some Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest Indian Subco ...
of
Iron Age India, itself already the product of "a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan cultures and civilizations", but also the
Sramana or renouncer traditions of
northeast India, and mesolithic and neolithic cultures of India, such as the religions of the
Indus Valley civilisation,
Dravidian traditions, and the
local traditions and
tribal religions
In religious studies, an ethnic religion is a religion or belief associated with a particular ethnic group. Ethnic religions are often distinguished from universal religions, such as Christianity or Islam, in which gaining converts is a prima ...
.
Religion in ancient Tamilakam
Ancient Tamil grammatical works
Tholkappiyam, the ten anthologies
Pattuppāṭṭu
The Ten Idylls, known as Pattuppāṭṭu ( ta, பத்துப்பாட்டு) or Ten Lays, is an anthology of ten longer poems in the Sangam literature – the earliest known Tamil literature. They range between about 100 and 800 lin ...
, the eight anthologies
Eṭṭuttokai sheds light on early ancient Dravidian religion. ''
Seyyon'' (Also known as
Murugan) was glorified as "the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent", as "the favored god of the Tamils".
[Kanchan Sinha, Kartikeya in Indian art and literature, Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan (1979).] Shiva was seen as the
Supreme God
In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...
.
Early iconography of
Murugan and
Sivan and their association with native flora and fauna goes back to Indus Valley Civilisation. The
Sangam landscape
The Sangam landscape (Tamil: அகத்திணை "inner classification") is the name given to a poetic device that was characteristic of love poetry in classical Tamil Sangam literature. The core of the device was the categorisation of poe ...
was classified into five categories, ''thinais'', based on the mood, the season and the land.
Tolkappiyam, mentions that each of these ''thinai'' had an associated deity such
Murugan in ''Kurinji'' – the hills and mountains,
Thirumal
Perumal ( ta, பெருமாள் , translit=Perumāl) or Tirumal ( ta, திருமால், translit=Tirumāl) is a Hindu deity. Perumal is worshipped mainly among Tamil Hindus in South India, Sri Lanka, and the Tamil diaspora, who ...
in ''Mullai'' – the forests, and
Vendhan in ''Marutham'' – the plains and croplands,
Kadalon in the ''Neithal'' – the coasts and the seas, and
Kottravai in ''Pālai'' – the deserts. Other gods mentioned were Mayyon and Vāli, who were all assimilated into Hinduism over time.
Throughout
Tamilakam, a king was considered to be divine by nature and possessed religious significance. The king was "the representative of God on earth" and lived in a ''koyil'', which means "residence of a god". The modern Tamil word for temple is ( ta, கோயில்). Ritual worship was also given to kings. Modern words for god like ( ta, கோ "king"), ( "emperor") and ( "conqueror") now primarily refer to gods. These elements were incorporated later into
Hinduism like the legendary marriage of
Shiva to Queen
Meenātchi who ruled
Madurai, and
Indhiran, a god who was later merged into
Indra.
Tolkaappiyar refers to the
Three Crowned Kings as the "Three Glorified by Heaven", (). In the Dravidian-speaking South, the concept of divine kingship led to the assumption of major roles by state and temple.
The cult of the mother goddess is treated as an indication of a society which venerated femininity. This mother goddess was conceived as a virgin, one who has given birth to all and one and was typically associated with
Shaktism
Shaktism ( sa, शाक्त, , ) is one of several major Hindu denominations, wherein the metaphysical reality is considered metaphorically a woman and Shakti (Mahadevi) is regarded as the supreme godhead. It includes many goddesses, all ...
. Her worship was accepted in the northern parts of India with various names as Devi, Ksetradevata etc. More recent scholarship has been correcting the misrepresentation made by a section of Westerner and Indian Brahmanical scholars in the portrayal of the tradition of the goddess. Western scholars like Denobili portrayed Brahmin as "gentilism" and the goddess tradition as "idolatarous".
The temples of the Sangam days, mainly of Madurai, seem to have had priestesses to the deity, which also appear predominantly a goddess. In the Sangam literature, there is an elaborate description of the rites performed by the Kurava priestess in the shrine Palamutircholai. Among the early Dravidians the practice of erecting memorial stones, ''
Natukal'', had appeared, and it continued for quite a long time after the Sangam age, down to about the 16th century. It was customary for people who sought victory in war to worship these
hero stone
A hero stone (Vīragallu in Kannada, Naṭukal in Tamil) is a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero in battle. Erected between the second half of the first millennium BC and the 18th century AD, hero stones are found all over Indi ...
s to bless them with victory. Many Hindu sects such as
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti movement was a significant religious movement in medieval Hinduism that sought to bring religious reforms to all strata of society by adopting the method of devotion to achieve salvation. Originating in Tamilakam during 6th centu ...
and
Lingayatism originated in
Tamil Nadu and
Karnataka respectively. In addition to literary sources, folk festivals, village deities, shamanism, ritual theater and traditions, which are unique to the region, are also good indicators of what early Dravidian people believed/practiced.
The most popular deity is
Murugan, he is known as the patron god of the Tamils and is also called ''Tamil Kadavul'' (Tamil God). In Tamil tradition, Murugan is the youngest son and
Pillaiyar the eldest son of
Shiva. This differs from the North Indian tradition, which represents Murugan as the elder son. The goddess
Parvati is often depicted as having a green complexion in Tamil Hindu tradition, implying her association with nature. The worship of
Amman, also called
Mariamman, who is thought to have been derived from an ancient
mother goddess
A mother goddess is a goddess who represents a personified deification of motherhood, fertility goddess, fertility, creation, destruction, or the earth goddess who embodies the bounty of the earth or nature. When equated with the earth or t ...
, is also very common.
Kan̲n̲agi, the heroine of the
Cilappatikār̲am, is worshipped as
Pattin̲i by many Tamils, particularly in Sri Lanka. There are also many followers of
Ayyavazhi
Ayyavazhi ( ta, அய்யாவழி, ml, അയ്യാവഴി ''Ayyāvaḻi'' , ) is a Henotheism, henotheistic belief that originated in South India.Tha. Krishna Nathan, ''Ayyaa vaikuNdarin vaazvum sinthanaiyum'', p. 62: "" (The day a ...
in Tamil Nadu, mainly in the southern districts. In addition, there are many temples and devotees of
Vishnu,
Shiva,
Ganapati
Ganesha ( sa, गणेश, ), also known as Ganapati, Vinayaka, and Pillaiyar, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon and is the Supreme God in Ganapatya sect. His image is found throughout India. Hindu de ...
, and the other Hindu deities. Some other deities that later emerged independently in Tamil tradition include:
Angala Devi,
Madurai Veeran,
Karuppu Sami,
Muniandi
Muniandi, also referred to as Munisvaran, is a Tamil rural guardian deity of plantations and estates. He is primarily worshipped by South of Tamilnadu by Tamil society. He is regarded as a powerful god who protects from diseases and crop fail ...
,
Sudalai Madan
Sudalai Madan (IAST: ) is a rural Dravidian folk tradition deity worshipped predominantly in South India, particularly in the districts of Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi, Kanyakumari, and Thiruvananthapuram. He is considered by adherents ...
,
Isakki
Isakki (Tamil: இசக்கி, Sanskrit: इसक्कि), also called Isakki Amman, is a folk Hindu goddess. The term Isakki derived from the Sanskrit yakshi, through the Prakrit ''yakki''. Her veneration remains popular among certain H ...
,
Devi Kanya Kumari
Devi Kanya Kumari (Tamil: தேவி கன்னியா குமரி, Sanskrit: देवी कन्या कुमारि) (IAST:dēvi kanyā kumāri) is a manifestation of the Hindu goddess Mahadevi in the form of an adolescent ...
, and
Periyachi
Periyachi (Tamil: பெரியாச்சி, IAST: ) is a ferocious aspect of Parvati in Hinduism. She is also known as Periyachi Amman (''Amman'' meaning "mother") and sometimes called as Periyachi Kali Amman as she is associated with th ...
.
In rural
Tamil Nadu, many local deities, called ''
aiyyan̲ārs'', are believed to be the spirits of local heroes who protect the village from harm. Their worship often centres around ''nadukkal'', stones erected in memory of heroes who died in battle. This form of worship is mentioned frequently in classical literature and appears to be the surviving remnants of an ancient Tamil tradition. The early Dravidian religion constituted a non-
Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
form of
Hinduism in that they were either historically or are at present
Āgamic. The Agamas are non-
vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
in origin
and have been dated either as post-Vedic texts
or as pre-Vedic compositions.
A large portion of these deities continue to be worshipped as the
Village deities of Tamil Nadu and
Sri Lanka, and their subsequent influence in
South-east Asia, examples of which include the Mariamman temples in
Singapore and
Vietnam. Worship of anthills, snakes and other forms of guardian deities and heroes are still worshiped in the
Konkan coast
The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterla ...
,
Maharashtra proper and a few other parts of India including
North India which traces its origins to ancient Dravidian religion which has been influencing formation of mainstream Hinduism for thousands of years.
A
hero stone
A hero stone (Vīragallu in Kannada, Naṭukal in Tamil) is a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero in battle. Erected between the second half of the first millennium BC and the 18th century AD, hero stones are found all over Indi ...
, known as "Natukal" by
Tamils, "Gandragallu" by
Telugu
Telugu may refer to:
* Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India
*Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India
* Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language
** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode
...
and "Virgal" by
Kannadigas
The Kannada people or Kannadigaru IAST">nowiki/>IAST:_Kannadadavaru_or_Kannadigas_(English_term).html" ;"title="IAST.html" ;"title="nowiki/>IAST">nowiki/>IAST: Kannadadavaru or Kannadigas (English term)">IAST.html" ;"title="nowiki/>IAST">nowik ...
, is a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero in battle. Erected between the 3rd century BCE and the 18th century CE, hero stones are found all over India, most of them in southern India. They often carry inscriptions displaying a variety of adornments, including
bas relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
panels, frieze, and figures on carved stone. Usually they are in the form of a stone monument and may have an inscription at the bottom with a narrative of the battle. According to the historian
Upinder Singh
Upinder Singh is an Indian historian who is Professor of History and Dean of Faculty at Ashoka University. She is the former head of the History Department at the University of Delhi. She is also the recipient of the inaugural Infosys Prize i ...
, the largest concentration of such memorial stones are found in
Karnataka. About two thousand six hundred and fifty hero stones, the earliest dated to the 5th century have been discovered in Karnataka.
[Chapter "Memorializing death in stone", Singh (2009), p. 48] The custom of erecting memorial stones dates back to the Iron Age (1000–600 BCE), though a vast majority were erected between the 5th and 13th centuries CE.
Veriyattam
Veriyattam refers to
spirit possession
Spirit possession is an unusual or altered state of consciousness and associated behaviors purportedly caused by the control of a human body by spirits, ghosts, demons, or gods. The concept of spirit possession exists in many cultures and rel ...
of women, who took part in priestly functions. Under the influence of the god, women sang and danced, but also read the dim past, predicted the future, diagnosed diseases. Twenty two poets of the Sangam age in as many as 40 poems portray Veriyatal. Velan is a reporter and prophet endowed with supernatural powers. Veriyatal had been performed by men as well as women.
Nadukkal
Among the early Tamils, the practice of erecting
hero stone
A hero stone (Vīragallu in Kannada, Naṭukal in Tamil) is a memorial commemorating the honorable death of a hero in battle. Erected between the second half of the first millennium BC and the 18th century AD, hero stones are found all over Indi ...
s (''nadukkal'') had appeared, and it continued for quite a long time after the Sangam age, down to about 11th century. It was customary for people who sought victory in war to worship these hero stones to bless them with victory.
Theyyam
Theyyam
Theyyam (/ t̪eːjjəm/; romanised: ''teyyam'') are Hindu ritualistic dance forms practiced in northern Kerala and some parts of Karnataka. Theyyam is also known as Kaḷiyāṭṭaṁ or Tiṟa. Theyyam consists of traditions, rituals and c ...
is a ritual shaman dance popular in
Kerala and parts of
Karnataka. Theyyam migrates into the artist who has assumed the spirit and it is a belief that the god or goddess comes in the midst of fathering through the medium of possessed dancer. The dancer throws rice on the audience and distributes turmeric powder as symbols of blessing. Theyyam incorporates dance, mime and music and enshrines the rudiments of ancient tribal cultures which attached great importance to the worship of heroes and the spirits of ancestors, is a socio-religious ceremony. There are over 400 Theyyams performed, the most spectacular ones are those of Raktha Chamundi, Kari Chamundi, Muchilottu Bhagavathi, Wayanadu Kulaven, Gulikan and Pottan. These are performed in front of shrines, sans stage or curtains.
The early character of Tamil religion was celebrative. It embodied an aura of sacral immanence, sensing the sacred in the vegetation, fertility, and color of the land. The summum bonum of the religious experience was expressed in terms of possession by the god, or ecstasy. Into this milieu there immigrated a sobering influence—a growing number of Jain and Buddhist communities and an increasing influx of northerners.
The layout of villages can be assumed to be standard across most villages. An Amman (mother goddess) is at the centre of the villages while a male
guardian deity () has a shrine at the village borders. Nowadays, Amman can be either worshipped alone or as a part of the Vedic pantheon.
Folk dance rituals
* There are multiple
folk dance rituals in Karnataka used for the worship of ''gramadevata''. One of these from Tulu areas is
Yakshagana, literally meansing the song (''gana'') of the ''yaksha'', (''
nature spirits
Animism (from Latin: ' meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, hum ...
'').
Yakshagana is the scholastic name (used for the last 200 years) for art forms formerly known as ''kēḷike, āṭa,
bayalāṭa,'' and ''daśāvatāra'' ( kn, ದಶಾವತಾರ). From the Old Mysore region comes
Somana Kunitha.
*
Koothu
Koothu or Therukoothu (jwalith) ( ta, கூத்து), is an ancient art, where artists play songs with dance and music in storytelling the epics, performed in Tamil; it is a folk art originated from the early Tamil country. More precise ...
( ta, கூத்து), and alternatively spelt as ''kuttu'', means dance or performance in
Tamil, it is a folk art originated from the early
Tamil country.
Discourse
During the era of the
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was himsel ...
, several Christian authors in the field of ethnology often drew a comparison between the Dravidian folk religion and the various
Indo-Aryan Brahmanical
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedicism, Vedism or ancient Hinduism and subsequently Brahmanism (also spelled as Brahminism)), constituted the religious ideas and practices among some Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest Indian Subco ...
traditions. A later record of the colonial administration, titled ''Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency'', described the south Indian faith along the binary lines of deities and demons, essentially categorising the worship of the Dravidian population to "demons", or to "deities who rule
such demons to induce their interposition". The text considered the village goddess who guarded the village from disease and calamity in the category of superior demons, who, it stated, had attained the status of deities. Little distinction existed, according to the text, between the deities and the demons. The goddesses were placed within the paradigm of demonolatry, and the scholar identified blood sacrifice as a significant trait of the Dravidian religion. The reverend Samuel Mateer set apart the idolatry of Brahman-centered Hinduism from the worship of "evil and malignant spirits" that was performed by the indigenous natives of Southern India. The scholar Whitehead concluded that the "village deity" was little more than a petty spirit that tyrannised and protected a local hamlet, inspiring fear due to an ability to inflict diseases and injury to the villagers, not evoking any admiration or morality.
See also
*
Buta Kola
Būta Kōlā,/buːt̪ʌ/ is the local pronunciation while the standardised Kannada pronunciation is /bʱuːt̪ʌ koːlɑː/ also referred to as daiva kōlā or nēmā, is a ritual dance performance prevalent among the Hindus of Tulu Nadu and ...
*
Dravidian languages
*
Folk religion
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized rel ...
*
Gramadevata
*
History of Hinduism
The history of Hinduism covers a wide variety of related religious traditions native to the Indian subcontinent. It overlaps or coincides with the development of religion in the Indian subcontinent since the Iron Age, with some of its tradition ...
*
Indian religions
Indian religions, sometimes also termed Dharmic religions or Indic religions, are the religions that originated in the Indian subcontinent. These religions, which include Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism,Adams, C. J."Classification o ...
*
Religion in ancient Tamil country
The Sangam period in Tamilakam (c. 600 BCE–300 CE) was characterized by the coexistence of many religions: Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Ajivika and later adopted Buddhism and Jainism alongside the folk religion of the Tamil people. The monarchs o ...
*
Shinto
*
Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit has a number of linguistic features which are alien to most other Indo-European languages. Prominent examples include: phonologically, the introduction of retroflexes, which alternate with dentals, and morphologically, the format ...
*
Theyyam
Theyyam (/ t̪eːjjəm/; romanised: ''teyyam'') are Hindu ritualistic dance forms practiced in northern Kerala and some parts of Karnataka. Theyyam is also known as Kaḷiyāṭṭaṁ or Tiṟa. Theyyam consists of traditions, rituals and c ...
Notes
References
{{Religion topics, ancient
Hinduism
Dravidian studies
Indian religions
Asian ethnic religion