Dravidian folk religion

Dravidian folk religion refers to the indigenous traditions and cultural practices of the Dravidian languages speaking people in the India and Indian Subcontinent. These traditions likely included ancestor worship, nature veneration, and village deities, some of which still persists. These practices were either historically or are at present Āgamic. The origin and chronology of Agamas is unclear. Some are Vedic and others non-Vedic.

The Agama traditions include Yoga and self-realization concepts, some include Kundalini Yoga, asceticism, and philosophies ranging from Dvaita (duality) to Advaita (non-duality). Some suggest that these are late post-Vedic texts, others as compositions dating back to over 1100 BCE. Epigraphical and archaeological evidence suggests that Agama texts were in existence only by about middle of the 1st millennium CE.

Scholars note that some passages in the Hindu Agama texts appear to repudiate the authority of the Vedas, while other passages assert that their precepts reveal the true spirit of the Vedas. The Agamas are a collection of Tamil and Sanskritscriptures 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.