Bhakti movement opposing heterodox religions

[Guest guest]

I came across the interesting article.

 

http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15042001/Art06.htm

 

 

It's interesting to note that Tamil veLLALars and brahmins

joined together forces to eliminate the heterodox religions

that prayed to some humans and practicing forms of atheism.

 

Being heavily theistic, Tamil lands gave birth to the bhakti

mass movement that spread across all over India (Cf. padmapurANam

says bhakti was born in the Dravida country).

 

Viirashaivism had skirmishes with Jainism in Karnataka

a while later.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

 

 

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[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, "N. Ganesan" <naga_ganesan@h...> wrote:

 

> Being heavily theistic, Tamil lands gave birth to the bhakti

> mass movement that spread across all over India (Cf. padmapurANam

> says bhakti was born in the Dravida country).

 

We can safely discard that evidence (even assuming there is something

more substantial than your vague claim to back it). The aSTAdhyAyI

of Panini (of much earlier date?) speaks of bhakti also (IV.3-95),

as does the Black YV.

 

Regards,

 

Shrisha Rao

 

> N. Ganesan

[Guest guest]

N. Ganesan wrote:

 

> I came across the interesting article.

>

> http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15042001/Art06.htm

 

The article, while it brings out a perspective, is hardly

fair.

 

One has to keep in mind that as long as Buddhism flourished

in India, it leaders were mostly Brahmin, right from

the agra-shravakas of Gautama Buddha to supporters of the

last instructor of Nalanda.

 

There are accounts of occasional repression of Buddhism

in India, but they were of much less consequence to

Buddhism compared with Turkish conquest.

 

Buddhism has been in decline long before Sankaracharya

(approx 788-820). By the time of Hsüan-tsang c.

605-664 A.D., Buddhism had declined considerably. Buddhism

in some areas flourished in some pockets long after

Sankaracharya, Nalanda flourishd until Bakhtiar Khilji's

destruction (1196-1206). Thus Sankaracharya's role in

disappearance of Buddhism must have been minor.

 

A supposed king Sudhanva of Ujjain is said to have supported

destruction of Buddhist institutions on Sankara's behalf.

However very close to Ujjain, the Buddhist community of

Vidisha continued to flourish, and the complex at Sanchi

(just outside Vidisha) was active until about 12th century.

 

Buddhism was a victim of its own succcess. The viharas

had become too rich and institutional.

 

There is a theory that sectarian militancy in India arose

in the coastal region as a result of external influence.

Generally kings in India supported all various sects (and some

stated that in inscriptions). Many frequently mentioned

examples of a king favoring or opposing a sect are suspected

to be exagerations.

 

Yashwant

[Guest guest]

Mr. T. L. Knudson wrote:

 

>Dear Dr. Ganesan,

 

>Would you happen to have the reference to the statement in the Padma Purana

>that bhakti was born in the Dravida country? I would appreciate it very

>much.

 

First and foremost, my heartfelt thanks, and best

wishes on your choice to study Tamil. With a deep

study of Tamil, Sanskrit and Linguistics, you can

solve at least some puzzles in the Indian history.

 

Read Alvars well, we'll help you along the way.

The emotinal bhakti of Alvars is translated into

Bhagavatham. Some Indologists have told me that

Bhagavatham is a tamil book written in sanskrit.

Of course, this means "emotional bhakti", the

hallmark of today's Hinduism - the bhakti movement

was started by Tamil saint-singers in the 6th century

onwards, and it is this "bhakti movement" that

scholars attribute to origins in the Tamil South.

For the Tamil connections of Bhagavatham, you

must have read this already:

J.A.B. van Buitenan, On the archaism of the Bhagavata

purANa. in M. B. Singer (ed.), Krishna: myths,

rites, and attitudes. UHawaiiP, 1966, p. 23-40.

Of course, F. Hardy, viraha-bhakti to

see Tamil Alvars in Bhagavatham. Have you

read A. K. Ramanujan, Hymns for the drowning,

(a translation of some Nammalvar poems);

Also read AKR's Speaking of Siva (Penguin)

- a translation of kannada vacanas, and

his essay on the bhakti mass movement;

Vidya Dehejia's translation AaNTaaL;

P. S. Sundaram's translations of few Alvar poems

(Penguin) come to mind.

 

G. L. Hart, The poems of ancient Tamil, Their

milieu and their Skt. counterparts, Oxford

India Paperbacks, p. 279 talks of

Kalidasa's interaction with Tamil poetics,

and bhAgavatham written in the Tamils.

Those are two are the greatest that Sanskrit

ever produced.

 

A. T. Embree, Encyclopaedia of Asian history, 1988

"BHAKTI: The Sanskrit noun bhakti is derived from

the verb bhaj, meaning broadly "to share, to possess",

and occupies a semantic field that embraces the

notions of "belonging", "being loyal," even

"liking". References to bhakti by the

grammarian Panini reveal this range of meanings

in the fourth century BCE and suggest that

even in that early period the word's most

important usage was in the domain of religion:

Panini speaks of bhakti to Vasudeva (ie., Krishna).

Bhakti which comes to mean "devotion" or "love"

in later literature, is one of the central concepts

of Hinduism. It describes that side of Indian

religion in which the personal engagement of a

devotee with a personally conceived divinity

is understood to be the core of the religious life.

 

Unlike other concepts through which Hindus

understand their religion, bhakti is recognozed

as having an important historical dimension.

It is widely acknowledged that Tamil culture

played an early and critical role in establishing

the sense of bhakti as an all-encompassing

emotional reality. In the Padmapurana this sort

of bhakti is personified as a woman who was

born in South India and wandered northward through

the western provinces, aging all the while,

until she arrived in the Braj region, where

she experienced a sudden rejuvenation. The

process being described - the so-called bhakti

movement in Indian religion - spanned the millennium

from the sixth to the sixteenth century, and genuine

continuities can be found throughout the period

that are in force even today. These include the

singing of devotional songs composed in vernacular

languages by poets who have attained the status of

saints; a sense of mutual companionship of many

of these poet-saints; a tendency to consider

both sexes and all strata of society as poetential

devotees; and above all a cultivation of personal

experience as against external or ritual

punctiliousness. Collectively, these traits

present a formidable contrast to the ritually

oriented Vedic traditions preserved by the

brahman caste."

 

The non-vedic religions have also undergone

a similar process. Bhakti cult in Jainism begins to

show up in sangam texts. In the mahAyAna buddhism,

Tamil and Dravidian substratum is possibly the

reason behind the bhakti, gaNDavyUha sUtram

has many kalyanamitra sites of the South that

are identifiable with the help of sangam texts.

The myths that Panini was inspired by Shiva

and by Avalokitezvara were possibly created

and fought in the South. The malaya mountains

(Potalaka for Buddhist, Potiyil in Sangam tamil)

was said to harbor Avalokita by Buddhists,

and Dakshinamurti by Shaivaites. See my old

postings in Indology with some points

given for the Southern orgin of these Panini myths,

(I wrote them after reading Prof. Deshpande's

Who inspired Panini? in JAOS).

"Where was Panini inspired?"

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R10625

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R10898

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R11199

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R12288

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R11544

http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-shl/WA.EXE?A2=ind9812&L=indology&P=R25840

 

See Dr. Palaniappan's papers on Parvata in an early

Buddhist grammar identified as Malaya/Potiyil

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/members/palaniappan-parvata.html

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/members/palaniappan-patanjali.html

 

Palaniappan earlier gave the Padmapurana quote on 1 oct 2000:

(from Indology archives):

In "Slaves of the Lord", Vidya Dehejia translates a line of

Padmapurana as follows:

"And Bhakti spoke:

I was born in the Dravida country, matured in Karnataka, spent

my youth wandering in Maharashtra, attained old age in Gujarat...

Padma Purana, uttara khanda

chapter 189, line 54"

 

A request to the list: What's the Sanskrit shlokam refered

here? Thanks.

 

Regards,

N. Ganesan

 

Note: The Kerala historians in

http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15042001/Art06.htm

are wrong in attributing this to Sanskaracharya.

 

He was several centuries later than the times when

Jains and Buddhists were defined as the "Other".

Note that the mention of Sankara archaeologically

occurs in two Tamil inscriptions, the only inscriptions

relating to the philosopher Sankara. The earliest

among them is a Chola inscription dated 1065 AD.

As Prof. Witzel said on the dating of the RV,

"Archaeology determines the dates." Myths

on Sankara nowadays abound, (Cf. A. Rambachan,

P. Hacker, ...) one of them is that Sankara

erased buddha statues! It is the bhakti

mass movement headed by Sambandhar (whom

Sankara is supposed to sing in Soundrayalahari)

and Appar and Alvars (Eg., Tirumangai) that started

the destruction. - NG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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