Why Tamil Chauvinism Cannot Counter Hindutva

What indeed was the religion of the Tamil land during Rajaraja’s days, which were in the 10th and 11th centuries of the Common Era? What was its religion in earlier times, say, in the early centuries of the Common Era? The answers to these questions are easily available to all those who care to read some basic history books, written by real scholars. But Tamil Nadu is a strange place. In the popular imagination, its history is conjured, right out of thin air, by scores of regional and linguistic chauvinists.  But in the jejune world of media, chauvinism is often mistaken for serious scholarship and most in the media unerringly choose those who often make spectacular statements about the antiquity and the uniqueness of Tamil. Since these statements give Tamil a high, unapproachable and hoary pedestal, they are seldom questioned.

Religion in the Sangam period

Without doubt, Tamil is an ancient language with an enviable wealth of literature. But it is by no means the most ancient, even though even our Prime Minister believes so. Nor is it unique. Despite grandiose claims about its uniqueness, it never remained isolated from the rest of India: its culture, its gods and, yes, Sanskrit. Even the earliest grammar book in Tamil, Tolkappiyam, speaks of its author as one who is fully proficient in Aindra Vyakarana, an ancient book of grammar in Sanskrit. Sangam literature has many references to Brahmins chanting the Vedas and to the important gods of the Hindu pantheon. For instance, Paripadal, a late Sangam work, is devoted to Vishnu and Murukan and it speaks about their exploits. The poem explicitly says that Vishnu is the secret inner core of the Vedas. It also narrates the beautiful and well-known story of the birth of Murukan, or Kumara, to Siva and Parvati. Since these references cannot be explained away, the chauvinists resort to two different arguments. They either say that these are all interpolations that sully the pristine, rational heritage of Tamil or aver that the gods mentioned were all original Tamils and it was the wily Brahmins who clothed them in Northern attire!

Historical Reality

It is not that real scholars are not aware of this dubious game. For instance, David Shulman says this in his book Tamil: A Biography: “The cultural role of Tamil is not, in any case, truly analogous to that of, say, Latin for the Roman Empire or of Sanskrit for what Sheldon Pollock has called the ‘Sanskrit Cosmopolis,’ that is, the vast swath of Asia within which Sanskrit grammar and the political ideology couched in Sanskrit had a pervasive and stable presence for well over a thousand years. Nor was Tamil ever the sole or, for that matter, even the clearly predominant language of the south Indian civilisation that I’m referring to. It shared pride of place with other languages such as Sanskrit, the various Prakrits, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam. I will thus refrain, in this book, from speaking about a ‘Tamil civilization,’ which seems to me a modern, nationalist construction bearing little relation to any historical reality.”

Was Tamil Nadu Hindu?

When Kamal Hassan was asked these questions, his reply was that there was no such word as  Hindu during Rajaraja’s times.  Hassan happens to be a personal friend of mine and I pointed out to him that even Nilakanta Sastri, the finest historian of Cholas, said  what thrived during the Chola period was medieval Hinduism.  He said, “The Temple and the Matha were the two great gifts of medieval Hinduism to Southern India. It was under the Cholas that these institutions entered on a process of great expansion and adaption, which attracted the imagination of the populace and the benefaction of the rich.” Hassan’s response was immediate:  My point was as simple as saying there was no place called Rajamundry in the 10th century. It was called Rajamahendravaram. Likewise,(the indisputable fact is) in those days Siva and Vishnu worshippers were called Saivaites and Vaishnavites, respectively. I had not denied the existence of Hinduism.” In other words, he conceded that though the religion that existed during those times was not specifically called Hinduism, its contours were clearly defined.

In short, the major religion of Tamils was what most of Indians of those times practiced. It was certainly not called Hinduism, but the Tamils worshipped gods who are presently found in almost every Hindu temples of India. They worshipped several other local gods too, as must have been the case in the rest of India. But the major deities were all pan-Indian.

Saiva–Vaishnava Rivalry

 Yes. The Saivites and the Vaishnavites had been fighting each other for centuries on theological issues. Sometimes, the fights were violent, though not as violent as the ones between the Catholics and Protestants in Europe. No act of any Saiva or a Vaishnava king was as violent as that of, say, Henry VIII of England who ordered the dissolution of all Catholic monasteries. What is more, no worshipper of Siva would deny the existence of Vishnu and the deities surrounding him. Similarly, no worshipper of Vishnu would deny the existence of Siva and the deities surrounding him. The dispute was about who the Supreme God is. It was sectarian rather than inter-religious.

Nammalwar, one of the greatest theologians of India, who is called the Kulapati (the head of the tribe) of Vaishnavas, says:

Each knows what they know,
each finds a different path
 Each has their god
 each reaches his feet
 Each of these gods lacks nothing,
 everyone is fated
 to find their way to the great lord
 who’s always there.

(translated by Archana Venkatesan)

Pallava Period

Any person who visits Mahabalipuram should not miss the Mahishasuramardini Mandapa,   a rock-cut cave temple on a hill, which houses a panel of an amazingly graceful Durga encountering the buffalo-headed demon, Mahisha. Just opposite the panel, on the southern side, Vishnu reclines on a bed of serpent, the formidable Adisesha.  The cave also has a somaskanda panel with the ensemble of Shiva, Parvati, Vishnu and Brahma. Experts opine that the sculptors were active here in the late 7th century/early 8th century CE. The cave is a standing example of how the ‘Hindu’ gods were viewed in a non-sectarian manner by both the kings who helped to build such temples and the devotees who visited the temples.

Chola Period

This practice continued when the Cholas gained ascendency. The Anbil copper plate inscriptions of Sundara Chola, the father of Rajaraja, invoke in Sanskrit: ‘May the lotus feet of the husband of Sri, Vishnu, give you great prosperity. May the shoulders of the one who has moon adorning his matted hair, Siva, bestow you with fabulous wealth.’ His son, Rajaraja, was called both Sivapadasekhara,(the one who carries Lord Siva’s feet on his head) and Cholanarayana ( Narayana among the Cholas). Nilakanta Sastri says:,“A progressive king like Rajaraja even made it a point to give clear expression to his general attitude to religion by including in the decoration of the Great Siva Temple of Tanjore themes from Vaishanavism and even Buddhism. His sister Kundavai built three temples one to Vishnu, another to Siva and the third to Jina, all in the same place, Rajarajapuram.” It was during the period of Cholas that both the works of Saiva saints (Tirumurai) and those of Vaishnava Alwars ( Divya Prabhandam) were compiled.

Tamil Nadu had never been an island. It generally practised what the rest of India did. The history presently being peddled by the Dravidian and other sundry ‘historians’ may appeal to all those who  rightly oppose  the Hindutva way of twisting history, but regional and linguistic chauvinism can never be an answer to Hindutva revisionism.

(This appeared in the print edition as "Chauvinism No Answer To Hindutva")

(Views expressed are personal)

P.A. Krishnan is an author in english and tamil