Maraimalai Adigal and the Concept of Idolatry
In order to get a sense of Adigal’s notion of monotheism, let us look at his notion of ‘idol worship’, since idolatry is an integral component of what we commonly refer to as monotheistic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam). Around 1800, there began an increasing influx of British and American evangelicals into India including Tamil Nadu. These evangelicals saw the various traditions of Tamil Nadu as part of a coherent religious system called Hinduism, and attacked these traditions aggressively as superstitious, immoral and idolatrous.
In response to the Christian missionaries’ attack on their traditions, many of the English educated Tamil people began to form their own organizations such as the Veda Siddhanta Sabha and the Hindu tract society. The structure of these native organizations in many ways resembled the structure of the Evangelical organizations the Tamil intellectuals were opposing. For example, in the Sadur Veda Siddhanta Sabha, all of the basic features of a modern religious organization were present like printing press, newspaper, tracts, and organised campaigns to influence public opinion. Its members imitated Christian worship with scripture reading, preaching, and singing.
These organizations’ response to the missionary attack took various forms. Some of the criticisms of the missionaries towards the Hindu traditions were accepted as true, and a reform of these traditions were called for. These organizations began publishing pamphlets and magazines that counter attacked the Christian religion, and simultaneously defended their traditional practices against the attacks of the Christian missionaries by drawing parallels between Hinduism and Christianity. The Hindu idea of punyasthala for example, was reconciled with the Biblical idea of sacred places, like Jerusalem being the holy city. Similarly, the worship of the Ark of Covenant was equated with murthi puja. Thus, in the process of defending their traditions against the missionary attacks, the Tamil intellectuals were compelled to talk and write about their traditions using Christian theological terms and concepts, including idolatry and image worship.
A prominent example is an article in the English language magazine Siddhanta Deepika, (originally started by the Saiva Vellala intellectual Nallaswami Pillai) in which an anonymous writer mounts a defence of image worship in the Hindu traditions. The writer defines image worship as devoted attachment to the symbolic representation of God. The anonymous writer then employs two arguments in defense of idol worship among the Hindus. Firstly, he claims that no Hindu believes that the idol itself is God and there is in fact no worship of the idol itself but the idea that it represents. His second argument is that the Hindu believes that God pervades the idol or image he uses to worship God, and that he doesn’t worship the idol itself. These two arguments about idol worship have been used by many natives throughout the Indian subcontinent and for centuries. When the Lutheran missionary Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg first arrived on the Malabar coast and engaged with the natives in dialogue, they agreed with him that there was one supreme God, and the various heathen deities are but representations of himself. The argument that the Hindu worships God through the idol (and not the idol itself) because he pervades the idol was reproduced both by the famed nineteenth century Sri Lankan Tamil Saivite scholar Armuka Navalar, as well as Maraimalai Adigal. In his debate against the evangelical missionaries, Navalar defends idol worship by claiming that God is in the idol, and through the idol, bestows his grace upon us.
This lack of understanding of idolatry wasn’t just limited to the Tamil intellectuals but other Indian intellectuals as well, one of the most famous examples being Bengali reformer, Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Roy criticized Hindu idolatry as fatal and inhumane, introduced by the Brahmins to keep the masses from the true substance of morality. On the surface, Roy is simply reproducing the Christian missionary criticism of Hindu idolatry, however, a closer examination of his writings indicates that he did not understand the concept.
In his writings, Roy considered it acceptable for those who have limited understanding of the Supreme being, and that idolatry would gradually bring them closer to understanding God. Martin Fárek rightly concludes that ”Roy did not really understand the cluster of the western ideas that compose the background of the respective languages and their cultural horizons” (Fárek, 2021, p. 189). For Christians, worship is something directed towards the one true God.
Now we come to the concept of idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of anything other than god and using earthly objects to represent god. This Maraimalai adigal’s argument that god pervades the linga or the linga represents god is not a counter argument to Christian charge of idolatry. It betrays his lack of understanding of the concept of idolatry.
Religious Mysticism?
Similarly, one can say that Maraimalai Adigal just seems to be describing ‘theophanies’, when he describes Saivite acharyas such as Thirujnānasambandar (one of the founding acharyas of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition) experiencing the aruluruvam of Siva. In Jean-Yves Lacoste’s Encyclopaedia of Christian Theology, theophany is described as God manifesting himself to certain human beings (usually prophets) at certain times to reveal his plan, doctrines, and commandments. Many such theophanies are described in the Bible and in the Jewish apocalyptic literature. However, there is a stark contrast between the experience of these Biblical figures and Adigal’s description of bhakti induced visions. The Christian and Jewish texts are clear that even when God manifests himself in these visions, his transcendence is maintained because he either manifests indirectly through an angel or an object such as the burning bush encountered by Moses. Even when the prophet Ezekiel receives a vision of God who warns him about the coming judgement on Israel, the prophet Ezekiel did not see the Divine Being Himself, but rather a likeness of him (Ezekiel 1:26-28). Few men can see God. For example, Job while in God’s presence, detested himself and repented in dust and ashes (Job 42:6). In Exodus 3:6 Moses hid his face when he came into the presence of God.
Let us compare these theophanies to the experiences of the Saiva Nāyanārs who experience the form of Siva, as outlined in the Tirumurais. When he was a child, Siva and Parvati appear before the Nāyanār Thirujnānasambandar in a temple, and Parvati breastfeeds him and that was supposed to be the moment that Thirujnānasambandar gains knowledge (called Sivajnānain Tamil). Similarly, in the text known as the Periya Puranam, which contains stories about the life and experiences of the nayanārs (Saivite teachers and devotees), one of the founding acharyas known as Appar is in the middle of a long journey towards a Siva temple in another town, when Siva himself appears to Appar (unbeknownst to him) in the form of a Brahmin and accompanies him on his journey, sharing his food with Appar. In the bhakti poetry of the Tirumurai, even more intimate experiences are described between Siva and his bhakta (devotee). In many of these poems the bhakta is portrayed as a woman who has developed an erotic, romantic longing towards Siva:
”Once she heard his name, then learned of his lovely form. Then she heard of his excellent town, and fell madly in love with him. That same day she left her mother and father and the proper ways of the world, lost herself, lost her good name. This woman has joined the feet of the Lord, her lover” (Peterson, 1991, p. 245).
The difference between the experiences of the Saivite acharyas (guru, teacher) and the theophanic experiences of the Christian prophets could not be starker. Most of the prophets cannot bear the sight of God, his divine majesty and glory being too much for their eyes. Even Moses is described as hiding his face in the presence of God. Job’s experience in the presence of God is especially striking; he detests himself, sinner that he is, and repents for it. Job is displaying abject humility in the presence of God, acknowledging his smallness in front of God.
By contrast, the Nāyanārs share very intimate human relationships with Siva that is relatable to most human beings. Siva himself assumes different roles when interacting with his bhaktas; that of the parent, the friend, the lover. Thus, although at a glance, Maraimalai Adigal’s description of the Nāyanārs’ experience of Siva or Katavul seems to be the same kind of phenomena as the Christian prophets theophanic experience of God or at least something similar to this experience, a closer examination strongly indicates that they are two different phenomena.
This leads to the question, what does Maraimalai Adigal mean by Katavul, the term he uses to translate God, and what does he mean by aruluruvum? What is uruvavazhipaadu? What is this Sivajnānathat Parvati feeds Thirujnānasambandar? Is it a kind of revelation similar to the Biblical revelation?
Does Saiva Siddhanta Have A Theology?
Let us begin with the three formative concepts around which the Saiva Siddhanta intellectual tradition is built: pati, pasu, and pāsam. Pati and pasu are commonly translated in English as God (Siva) and soul, respectively. ‘Pāsam’ is either translated as ‘world’ or ‘bonds/ties’. I wish to briefly examine each of these concepts and the role they play within the intellectual framework of SaivaSiddhanta. This will give us a better understanding of what these concepts mean,and how they compare to Christian concepts such as God and soul. I begin with how pati is explained in the text Sivajnāna Botham, considered one of the core foundational texts in the Tamil Saiva Siddhanta tradition. Sivajnāna Botham explains pati (God/Siva) is changeless without beginning or end. The cosmos, which is ever-changing and has a beginning and end, arises from him in its beginning and becomes one with him at its end. The cosmos is the dream and the pati is the dreamer, and there is no purpose to the dream.
The pati has neither likes nor dislikes. He is like the sun that shines without any desire or intention or volition on its part, yet in its presence, the lotus plant blooms. Similarly in God’s presence, the world undergoes changes, but God doesn’t have any desires or intentions.
Even from this brief description, one can see that the pati of Saiva Siddhanta is not the same being and not even the same kind of being as the Biblical God. Although the Sivajnāna Botham says that the world arose from pati, it is also clear that the pati is not the creator of the cosmos like the Biblical God. Instead, along with pati, there existed a primordial substance or entity called maya, out of which the rest of the cosmos is formed. The pati merely provides the conditions in which maya is set into motion and forms the universe just as the presence of gravity provides the conditions in which an object falls to the ground even though it doesn’t directly cause objects to fall. Finally, according to the Sivajnāna Botham, the pati does not have volition or intention, nor is the cosmos governed by his intention. This property is diametrically opposed to the nature of the Christian God, whose intention and purpose govern the cosmos according to the Bible and Christian theology.
From the pati, we move to pasu. Pasu refers to any living, sentient being. Another term for pasu in Sanskrit is jiva. It is also referred to as ānma in the Saivite texts. The pasu identifies itself with whatever it is united to (either the pati or the world) and becomes one and indistinguishable from it. When the pasu or ānma identifies with the body, it is considered in a state of bondage (pāsa). The Sivajnāna Siddhiyar describes pāsaas pervading through the numberless jivas as the dirt in copper, it blinds them from jnāna (knowledge). This brings us to two questions: What kind of knowledge does pāsablind the jivas to? What is the nature of the ignorance that blinds the jivas? Pāsa comes in three forms. The first is called ānava. Ānava can be translated as the shackle of ignorance which keeps the pasu from knowledge. The second shackle is called karma. The shackle of karma keeps the pasu bound to the consequences of his actions, while the third shackle, maya, keeps the pasu shackled or attached to the body and the senses – this state of attachment is also called banda in Sanskrit. Maya manifests itself in the form, of the body, the senses, sensory pleasures, and the Universe itself.
Since maya forms the universe, it is responsible for steering the pasus both towards jnāna and away from it. Without maya, it is not possible for the jiva to attain knowledge, since the jiva needs the body and senses through which it attains knowledge. At the same time maya also causes desire to arise within the jiva, and this desire for pleasure causes the jiva to identify with the body and the senses, and this is considered a form of error and ignorance (ānavam).
The Sivajnāna Botham explains that the pasu or sentient being is in a state of banda or bondage when it identifies itself with its body and thoughts. In this state the pasu is also said to be in a state of ignorance or ānavam. When the pasu identifies itself with pati, the pasu is said to have attained jnāna or knowledge. The Sivajnāna Botham claims that jnāna is attained once the ānma understands its oneness with Siva to the point where it becomes Siva. The eighteenth century Saivite acharya Thayumānavar describes the bhakta as a mirror or crystal removed of dust, becoming of the self-same nature of one to which it is joined. Thus, jnāna is when the ānma stops identifying its body and senses, and identifies instead with the pati. This description of moksha once again raises the question: Who or what is pati in Saiva Siddhanta? How does an individual identifying with pati result in him or her gaining release from ignorance?
Adigal emphasizes the goal of Saiva Siddhanta as human beings abandoning their sittru-arivu (small/narrow arivu) and attaining paer-arivu. Arivu gets translated into multiple meanings in the Tamil language from knowledge to consciousness. In the essay collection Arivuraikothu (collection of insights), it is clear that Adigal uses the word arivu to mean consciousness. For example, he states that a baby’s arivu is like a mirror clouded by dirt where no images appear. But then as it grows older, it is able to focus on and cognize those that it sees around it, like its mother and fathers. Maraimalai Adigal refers to Siva as paer-arivu. Paer means supreme in Tamil. Therefore, paer-arivu means supreme consciousness or supreme knowledge in Tamil. We can see here that when Adigal talks about the human being getting rid of his ‘sittru-arivu’ and attaining knowledge he is describing the process of attaining moksha that is outlined in the Sivajnāna Botham. Sittru-arivu is the ānavam or ignorance one has to get rid of in order to reach God or Siva, who is also known as pasu in the Sivajnāna Botham. Thus, the knowledge spoken about by both Maraimalai Adigal and expounded in the Saiva Siddhanta texts is experiential in nature, with the Saiva sages and texts asking questions about the nature of the self and consciousness.
It is important to note that both arivu and paer-arivu also mean Atman in Tamil. While it is beyond the scope of the dissertation to delve in depth into the nature of Atman, I’ll briefly summarize S.N. Balagangadhara’s hypothesis about Atman in his unpublished manuscript titled On the Indian Notion of Enlightenment: Reflections Based On Experience (2014). Balagangadhara characterizes Atman as self-consciousness or self-awareness. A sense of ‘I’ is an emergent property of any sufficiently complex system, sentient creatures such as human beings an example of one such system. Since this emergent property is neither matter nor energy and because it is ”logically impossible to distinguish ‘one’ sense of ‘I’ from ‘another’” there is only one self-awareness. Humans have access to this self-awareness through consciousness (the ability to focus on objects). According to the Indian traditions however, there is a confusion that results when human beings access this self-awareness through our consciousness. Balagangadhara explains this confusion in the following manner:
”Every human adult has a history or a biography, which consists of things done, felt and thought in the course of its existence and as they are remembered. What one has undergone and what one remembers of it are woven on a structure that human emotions provide” (p. 5).
Balagangadhara describes this structure as I-hood. According to the various Indian traditions,we as human beings identify this structure of I-hood, unique to each human being, with the sense of ‘I’ or self-consciousness. This is a delusion, and this delusion is identified as the cause of human misery. Against the backdrop of Balagangadhara’s essay, it is easier to understand Adigal’s statement that the goal of Saiva Siddhanta is ”abandoning our sittru-arivu (narrow consciousness) and attaining Siva-arivu (self-awareness)”. This means abandoning our delusion of I-hood and obtaining access to this sense of ‘I’. This delusion is what Saiva Siddhanta refers to as ānavam, and what Adigal refers to as darkness or evil in his English introduction to Sivajnāna Botham, as I mentioned in the beginning of this section. Coming out of this delusion is what is called Enlightenment by the various Indian traditions. The various traditions offer different routes toward Enlightenment, Saiva Siddhanta being one such tradition.
It is important to note that this sense of ‘I’ is not limited to human beings. Since the complex system that is a human being is a sub-system within the larger system that is the universe, it logically follows that the universe must also have access to this self-awareness or self-consciousness. Finally, given that this self-consciousness is a property of the universe’s subsystems (sentient creatures), we can say this self-consciousness is everywhere, and at the same time since it is not composed of matter or energy, we can also say it is nowhere. It is this universal self-consciousness that is referred to by Saiva Siddhanta as pati or Siva. At this point I will address Adigal’s concept of uruvavazhipadu, translated as idol worship in English.
Adigal conceives of Katavulas having many attributes and infinite forms. This is understandable since Katavul is everywhere, countless forms and qualities can be attributed to him. In the Saiva Siddhanta tradition, Katavul is conceived of as having the name Siva, and having a particular form and a specific set of qualities. Of all the qualities of Siva, Maraimalai Adigal places most importance on aruland inbam. In Tamil, arul refers to the bestowing of a gift by a devata. In the case of Saiva Siddhanta, Adigal writes that the gift bestowed by Sivais the gift of happiness (inbam), which he himself Is an embodiment of. Arul is seen that which bestows the final goal of the bhakti traditions, inbam.
The following excerpt from the essay ThiruUruvaVazhipaadu (Image Worship) captures Adigal’s view of what Saiva Siddhanta is:
”What is religion (matham)? Experiencing the form of happiness (Siva), and the mind becomes aware of this happiness. And having experienced this happiness the Jeevan and God (Katavul) become one” (Maraimalaiyam 27, pp. 166-67).
Based on Maraimalai Adigal’s writings about Saiva Siddhanta as well as Tamil Saivite texts, Saiva Siddhanta may best be described as a set of traditions that allow one to attain an experiential state called inbam through the cultivation of certain emotions. Attaining this experiential state gives one self-knowledge or experiential knowledge and this is what the Saivite and other Indian traditions refer to as jnāna. This is the Sivajnāna that Parvati was feeding Thirujnānasambandar.
Conclusion: Saiva Siddhanta Tradition as an Imparter of Experiential Knowledge
It is now time to revisit the questions raised at the beginning of this section. Was Maraimalai Adigal able to access the Christian theological framework and understand the concepts that emerged from this framework? I outlined three possibilities that arise from these questions. The first being that Adigal was able to fully understand the Christian theological framework and concepts. The second being that Adigal was like many of today’s English-speakers in the Western world: he did not know Christian theology and did not know the primary meanings of these terms or explain how these concepts are interlinked with each other within the Christian theological framework. However, he had an intuitive sense of the Christian theological concepts and of their interlinkages, much like native English-speakers in the West. The third possibility I mentioned was that he did not have access to the Christian theological framework or its concepts. After analyzing his writings, I have to conclude that Maraimalai Adigal had difficulty accessing the Christian theological framework and the Tamil terminology (which are part of the Saiva Siddhanta intellectual and textual traditions) that he uses to translate Christian theological concepts do not capture them.
However, this is not just a problem unique to Maraimalai Adigal, his psychology and cognitive capacity. Writings by the other intellectual contemporaries of Maraimalai Adigal such as Nallaswami Pillai and RajaRam Mohan Roy show that they too encounter similar problems grasping Christian theological concepts and often reproduce the same or similar erroneous ideas when it comes to idol worship. Understandably, the cultural environment of these intellectuals lack the theological framework required to make sense of the Christian concepts.
After raising questions at the beginning about Adigal’s understanding of Christianity, I then proceed to his writings about God and idolatry, two of the central concepts of Christian theology. One of the common responses of these Indian intellectuals to the Christian missionaries’ attacks on their traditions as idolatry is to claim that since God pervades all objects and living organisms in the world, there is nothing wrong with worshipping God as an image or statue. Terms such as ‘God’ and ‘idolatry’ have very specific meanings within the different Christian theologies (Anglican, Reformed, Catholic etc). Despite the internal variation within Christian theologies, there is a shared cognitive structure between them that places limits on the interpretation of theological concepts like God and idolatry, and allows for intelligible intra Christian debates and discussions. The Indian intellectuals lack such a framework, and this is evidenced in their conceptions of God and idolatry, which is radically different from the conceptions of their Christian counterparts.
When it comes to Siva, the Saiva Siddhanta texts describes Siva or Pati as not having any volition or intention and Siva merely provides the conditions out of which the Universe emerges. This property is diametrically opposed to the nature of the Biblical God whose will governs the cosmos. This raises important questions. If the concepts expounded in the Saiva Siddhanta texts are not variants of Christian theological concepts, then what are they? What kind of a phenomenon is the Saiva Siddhanta tradition? The concepts central to the Saiva Siddhanta tradition other than the Pati are Pasu and Pāsa. The Saiva Siddhanta texts describes the Pasu as any sentient being in a state of ignorance and bondage when it identifies its sense of ‘I’ or self with its body, thoughts and other worldly objects. This ignorance is also seen as a form of bondage (pāsa), because it creates attachment to worldly things and events, which in turn leads to unhappiness.
This notion of ignorance and attachment is not limited to Saiva Siddhanta but found in most of the Indian traditions. The Saiva Siddhanta tradition considers that jnāna or knowledge is attained when the Pasu stops identifying itself with its body and senses, and identifies instead with the Pati. My brief summary of these concepts (pati, pasu, pāsa) shows that the jnāna or knowledge spoken about by both Maraimalai Adigal and expounded in the Saiva Siddhanta texts is experiential in nature, specifically dealing with the experience of the self or sense of ‘I’ insentient beings, wherein this tradition helps the practitioners overcome their attachment and identification with worldly things and events (which it characterizes as a form of ignorance) and attain self knowledge.
Like the other bhakti traditions, Saiva Siddhanta places importance on the concept of attachment as a human emotion. Saiva Siddhanta helps to loosen the hold of emotional attachment on the bhakta through practices that redirect emotional attachment from worldly objects towards the deity Siva. Given this understanding of Saiva Siddhanta, one has to question whether the Tamil terminology utilized by Maraimalai Adigal and forming the conceptual nomenclature of the Tamil Saivite texts are theological concepts at all. Instead, the Saiva Siddhanta tradition appears to consist of a set of heuristics and tools that help the bhakta break the hold of attachment and ignorance and attain jnāna or self knowledge.
When it comes to Adigal’s writings on Saiva Siddhanta, not surprisingly, there is more incoherence and clarity in the English writings of Maraimalai Adigal compared to his Tamil writings, given that it is replete with English theological terminology. It is in Maraimalai Adigal’s Tamil writings that one gets clearer insights into what Saiva Siddhanta is to Adigal,what makes the people of Tamil Nadu into a nation, and more importantly, what role does Saiva Siddhanta play in making the Tamil speakers into one nation?
Bibliography:
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 17. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 18. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 21. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 27. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 29. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 30. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 31. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 32. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
ADIGAL, Maraimalai. Maraimalaiyam – 33. 2nd edition. Chennai: Tamilmann Pathipagam,
2015.
AMSLER, Mark. Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in Late Antiquity and the Early
Middle Ages. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Publishing Co, 1989.
ANDERSON, Benedict R. O’G. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread
of nationalism. Revised edition. vyd. London New York: Verso, 2016.
APP, Urs. The Birth of Orientalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.
AROORAN, Nambi. The Tamil Renaissance and Dravidian Nationalism, 1905-1944, With
Special Reference to the Works of Maraimalai Atikal. London: University of London,
1976.
AUGUSTINE, Saint Bishop of Hippo and DODS, Marcus. The City Of God. Vol. 2. Edinburgh:
- & T. Clark, 1871.
BAKER, C. J. and WASHBROOK, D. A. South India: Political Institutions and Political
Change 1880–1940. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1975.
BAKER, Christopher John. The Politics of South India, 1920-1937. Cambridge, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1976.
179
BALAGANGADHARA, S. N., ROOVER, Jakob de and RAO, Sarika. Cultures differ
differently: Selected essays of S.N. Balagangadhara. Abingdon, Oxfordshire : Routledge, 2022.
BALAGANGADHARA, S. N. Indian Culture and Its Social Security System [Draft Paper].
2010.
BALAGANGADHARA, S. N. On the Indian Notion of Enlightenment [manuscript].
Universiteit Gent, 2014.
BALAGANGADHARA, S. N. Reconceptualizing India studies. New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2012.
BALAGANGADHARA, S. N. The Heathen in his Blindness: Asia, the West, and the Dynamic
of Religion. Leiden, New York: E.J. Brill, 1994.
BENES, Tuska. In Babel’s Shadow: Language, Philology, and the Nation in Nineteenth-
Century Germany. Detroit, Mich: Wayne State University Press, 2008.
BERGUNDER, Michael, FRESE, Heiko and SCHRÖDER, Ulrike (ed.). Ritual, Caste, and
Religion in Colonial South India. Halle: Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen;
Harrassowitz in Kommission, 2010.
DE ROOVER, Jakob and BALAGANGADHARA, S.N. John Locke, Christian Liberty, and the
Predicament of Liberal Toleration. Political Theory. 2008, Volume 36, Issue 4, pp. 523–549.
DE ROOVER, Jakob, CLAERHOUT, Sarah and BALAGANGADHARA, S. N. Liberal
political theory and the cultural migration of ideas: the case of secularism in India. Political
Theory. 2011, Volume 39, Issue 5, pp. 571-599.
DHAVAMONY, Mariasusai. Love of God According to Saiva Siddhanta: A Study in the
Mysticism and Theology of Saivism. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
DI BERARDINO, Angelo. Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity. Illinois: InterVarsity Press,
2014
ECO, Umberto. The Search for the Perfect Language. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass., USA:
Blackwell, 1995.
FÁREK, Martin. India in The Eyes of Europeans: Conceptualization of Religion in Theology
and Oriental Studies. Prague, Czech Republic : Karolinum Press, 2021.
FÁREK, Martin and al. (ed.). Western Foundations of the Caste System. Cham: Springer
International Publishing, 2017.
GELDERS, Raf. Ascetics and Crafty Priests: Orientalism and the European Representations
of India. Belgium: Ghent, 2010.
KEPPENS, Marianne, ROOVER, Jakob De and KEPPENS, Marianne. Orientalism and the puzzle of the Aryan invasion theory. Pragmata: Journal of Human Sciences. 2014,
Volume 2, Issue 2, pp. 51-76
POPE, G.U. The Sacred Kural. London: W.H. Allen & Co., 1886.
POPE, G.U. The Tiruvacagam or Sacred Utterances of the Tamil Poet, Saint, and Sage
Manikka-vacagar. London: Clarendon Press, 1900
STEVENSON, John. Observations on the Grammatical Structure of the Vernacular Languages
of India. Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. 1849, Volume. 3, Issue. 1,
- 71–76.
STEVENSON, John. The ante-Brahmanical religion of the Hindus. The Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. 1846, Volume 8, pp. 330-339.
TRAUTMANN, Thomas R. Aryans and British India. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1997.
VAITHEES, V. Ravi. Religion, Caste, and Nation in South India: Maraimalai Adigal, the Neo-
Saivite Movement, and Tamil Nationalism, 1876-1950. 1st edition. New Delhi, India:
Oxford University Press, 2015.
VAITHEESPARA, Ravi. Maraimalai Atigal and the genealogy of the Tamilian creed.
Economic & Political Weekly. 2009, Volume. XLIV, Issue. 14, pp. 45-51 .
WILSON, Horace Hayman. Mackenzie Collection: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental
Manuscripts, And Other Articles Illustrative of the Literature, History, Statistics and
Antiquities of the South of India. 2nd edition. Madras: Higginbotham and Co., 1882.
WILSON, Horace Hayman. Two Lectures on the Religious Practices and Opinions of the
Hindus delivered before the University of Oxford, on the 27th and 28th of February,
- 1840. London: Oxford, 1840.
ZVELEBIL, Kamil. Tamil Literature. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974.
ZVELEBIL, Kamil. The Smile of Murugan: On Tamil Literature of South India. Leiden: Brill,
1973.
Feature Image Credit: linkedin.com
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article belong to the author. Indic Today is neither responsible nor liable for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in the article.