Arumuka Navalar
Encyclopedia
Arumuka Navalar was one the early revivalists of native Hindu Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka
and India
. He and others like him were responsible for reviving and reforming native traditions that had come under a long period of dormancy and decline during the previous 400 years of colonial rule by various European
powers. A student of the Christian missionary school system who assisted in the translation of the King James Bible into Tamil, he was influential in creating a period of intense religious transformation amongst Tamils in India and Sri Lanka, preventing large-scale conversions to Protestantism
.
As part of his religious revivalism, he was one of the early adaptors of modern Tamil prose, introduced Western
editing techniques, and built schools (in imitation of Christian mission schools) that taught secular and Hindu
religious subjects. He was a defender of Saivism (a sect of Hinduism) against Christian missionary activity and was one of the first natives to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition. He published many polemical tracts in defense of Saivism, and also sought and published original palm leaf manuscripts. He also attempted to reform Saivism itself – an effort which sometimes led to the decline of popular deities and worship modes and confrontation with traditional authorities of religion. Some post-colonial authors have criticised his contributions as parochial, limited, conservative, and favouring the elite castes.
are found natively in South India
and in Sri Lanka
. During the Sangam period in the early centuries of the common era, Buddhist and Jain
missionary activity from North India resulted in Tamil Hindu
literati defining their own cults and literature. The result was the poems of the bhakti
saints, the Nayanars
and Alvars
. By the 12 th century CE, Saivas and Vaishnavas created a unified approach to religious literature in Tamil
and Sanskrit
, monastic systems, networks of temples and pilgrimage sites, public and private liturgies, and their Brahmin
and non-Brahmin leadership. They institutionalized a definition of a Tamil Hindu on the basis Tamil literary culture.
The mostly Vellala
and Iyer
Brahmin literati were Shaiva
, the largest of the sects. By the 13th to 18th centuries, Shaiva theologians codified their religious traditions as Shaiva Siddhanta
. Shaiva theologians did not formally include or confront Muslims and Christians in this classification but they included them along with Buddhists, Jains, and pagans. Arumuga Navalar was one ofthe first Tamil laymen to undertake as his life’s career the intellectual and institutional response of Saivism to Christianity in Sri Lanka and India.
The 18th and 19th century Tamils in India and Sri Lanka found themselves in the midst of intrusive Protestant Missionary activity. Although Tamil Saivas opposed Roman Catholic and Protestant missions from the earliest days that they were established, literary evidence for it is not available. But by 1835 Tamils who were able to own and operate presses used them to print palm-leaf manuscripts. They also converted native literature from poetry to prose with additional commentary. Most of these activities happened in Jaffna
in British Ceylon
and Madras in Madras Presidency
.
By the time Navalar born, Protestants from England and America had established nine mission stations in the Jaffna peninsula
. Tamils in Jaffna faced a concentrated effort to convert them as opposed to Tamil in Southern India. The first known Saiva opposition to these efforts emerged in 1828 when the teachers of the American Ceylon Mission
(AMC) at Vaddukoddai
wanted to learn and teach the Shaiva scripture Skanda Purana
in their school. This move angered local Shaivas as they interpreted it as a move by the missionaries to understand and then ridicule a religious material. Although the missionaries were able to translate and study the material, they were unable to teach it, as locals boycotted the classes.
As a response, two anti-Christian poems appeared in Jaffna. The poet Muttukumara Kavirajar
(1780—1851) wrote the Jnanakkummi (Song of Wisdom) and Yesumataparikaram (Abolition of the Jesus Doctrine). This was followed up by publications of polemic nature by both sides. AMC's Batticotta Seminary
launched a semimonthly and bilingual periodical called The Morning Star (Tamil Utaya Tarakai). The aim of this periodical was to challenge all non-Protestants to stand up to intellectual scrutiny. The 19th century Protestants of Jaffna believed that Shaivism was evil and in the struggle God and the Devil, they intended The Morning Star to reveal the falsity of Shaivism.
caste. He grew up in the Tamil dominated regions of Sri Lanka
. His home was in the town of Nallur
on the Jaffna peninsula
, a strip of land (40 by 15 miles) separated from South India by the Palk Strait
. The principal town Jaffna
and the peninsula were predominantly Tamil Saiva in culture distinct from that of the Sinhalese Buddhists elsewhere. It was closely linked to the Saiva culture of South India.It was also home to the Jaffna Kingdom
that had patronized this culture before it was defeated by the Portuguese
colonials
in 1621 CE. Nallur was also the capital of the defeated kingdom.
Arumugam's father Kandhar was a Tamil
poet provided a foundation in Tamil literature
to Arumugam Pillai. His mother Sivakami was known for her devotion to supreme Saiva deity Siva. Arumugam studied the Indian classical language, Sanskrit
as well as Tamil grammar
. Arumugam studied English in a Christian mission run school as a day student. After his studies, he was asked to stay on at the Jaffna Wesleyan Mission School to teach English and Tamil. The missionary school principal, Peter Percival
also used him to assist in the translation of the King James Bible and other Christian literature. Arumugam worked with Percival from 1841 – 1848 during which time he formulated his ideas as to what it meant to be a modern Hindu, under the influence of a progressive, secular and ascendant Western culture based on Judeo-Christian
values.
As he immerged himself in the study of Vedas, Agamas and Puranas, Arumugam Pillai came to the awareness that Saivas needed a clearer understanding of their own religion to stem the tide of conversions. With this in mind he relinquished the job that he had with the Weslyan Mission, although Peter Percival offered him a higher salary to stay on. He also decided not to marry as he felt that it would curtail his freedom. He relinquished his patrimony and did not get any money from his four employed brothers. From then on till the end of his life, he and his projects were supported by those who believed in his cause. Through his weekly sermons at Hindu temples, he also formulated a theory to purify local Tamils of all practices that did not find sanction in a written document such as Vedas and Agamas. The lecture series and its circuit continued regularly for several years and produced a Saiva revival, for an informed piety developed and grew among many Jaffna Saivas. This was a direct tactical response to confront the Protestant’s bible based arguments. While he was becoming a popular preacher, he still assisted Percival to complete the translation of the Bible. When there was a conflict as to Percival’s version and another competing translation, Arumugam traveled to Madras to defend Percival's version. In 1848 he founded his own school and finally parted company with Percival.
and Agamas
. The group also decided to start a press with the help of resident Eurasian
Burghers
. Arumugam Pillai who was part of the organization wrote about the meeting in The Morning Star in a sympathetic tone.
While Arumugam Pillai was still working on translating the Bible, he published a seminal letter in The Morning Star under a pseudonym in September, 1841. It was a comparative study of Christianity and Saivism and targeted the weakness in the argument Protestant missionaries had used against local Saiva practices. Protestant missionaries had attacked the idol worship
and temple rituals of the local Saivas as devilish and of no value but Navar found evidence that Christianity and Jesus himself were rooted in the temple rituals of the ancient Israelites. His letter admonished the missionaries for misrepresenting their own religion and concluded that in effect there was no difference between Christianity and Saivism as far as idol worship and temple rituals were concerned. Although The Morning Star editors tried to reply to the letter, the damage was done.
. It was a weekly event known as Prasangams on every Friday evening. In these secession he read from sacred texts and then preached in a manner that lay people understood. He was helped by his friend Karttikeya Aiyar of Nallur and his students from his school. The sermon topics were mostly ethical, liturgical, and theological and included the evils of adultery, drunkenness, the value of non-killing
, the conduct of women, the worship of the linga, the four initiations, the importance of giving alms, of protecting cows, and the unity of God.
or the weapon representing the main deity as it did not have Agamic sanction.
in India in 1865 and it still exits. But the school system he founded in Sri Lanka was replicated and over 100 primary and secondary schools were built based on his teaching methods. This school system produced numerous students who had clearer understanding of their religion, rituals and theology and still able to function in a western oriented world.
, an important Saiva monastery. He was asked by the head of the monastery to preach. After listening to his preaching and understanding his unusual mastery of the knowledge of Agamas, the head of the monastery conferred on him the title Navalar (learned). This honorary degree from a prestigious Saiva monastery enhanced his position amongst Saivas and he was known as the Navalar since then.
Other notable texts published included The Prohibition of Killing, Manual of worship of Shiva temple and The Essence of the Saiva Religion. His first major literary publication appeared in 1851, the 272-page prose version of Sekkilar
’s Periya Puranam
, a retelling of the twelfth century hagiography of the Nayanars
or Saivite saints. In 1853 he published Nakkirar’s Tirumurukarrupatai, with is own commentary. It was a devotional poem to Murugan
. This was followed by local missionaries attacking Murugan as immoral deity for marrying two women. As a response Navalar published Radiant Wisdom explaining how the stories embody differing levels of meaning. He also published literature of controversial nature. He along with Centinatha Aiyar, published examples of indecent language from the Bible and published it as Disgusting Things in the Bible (Bibiliya Kutsita). In 1852, he along with Ci. Vinayakamurtti Cettiyar of Nallur, printed the Kummi Song on Wisdom of Muttukumara Kavirajar
leading to calls by local Christians to shut the printing press down.
The seminal work that was geared towards stemming the tide of conversions was printed in 1854. It was a training manual for the use of Saivas in their opposition to the missionaries, titled The Abolition of the Abuse of Saivism (Saiva dusana parihara).
A Methodist missionary, who had worked in Jaffna, described the manual thirteen years after it had appeared as:
This manual was widely used in Sri Lanka and India; it was reprinted at least twice in the nineteenth century, and eight times by 1956.
and C.W. Thamotharampillai continued. He was the first person to deploy the prose style in the Tamil language and according to Tamil scholar Kamil Zvelebil
in style it bridged the medieval to the modern.
Navalar established the world’s first Hindu school adapted to the modern needs that succeeded and flourished. While the school he established in Chidamharam in 1865 has survived to this day, similar schools seem to have spread only to two nearby towns. In Sri Lanka, eventually more than one hundred and fifty primary and secondary schools emerged from his work. Many of the students of these schools were successful in defending the Saiva culture not only against Christian missionary activities but also against neo-Hindu
sects. His reforms and contributions were added to by scholars such as V. Kalyanasundaram
(1883—1953), and Maraimalai Adigal
(1876–1950), who developed their own schools of theology within the Saiva heritage. Although it is difficult to quantify as to how many Hindus may have converted to Protestant Christianity without his intervention but according to Bishop Sabapathy Kulendran, the low rate of conversion compared to the initial promise was due to Navalar's activities.
Arumuka Navalar who identified himself with an idealized past, worked within the traditions of Saiva culture and strictly adhered what was available in the Saiva doctrine. He was an unapologetic defender of Savisim and the resultant class and caste privileges enjoyed by the higher castes. Although he never identified him as a Vellala, his efforts led to Saiva Vellala caste consolidation of traditional privileges’ and prevention of the emergence of converted Christian Vellala and Saiva and Christian Karaiyar
elites. Although Navalar did not exhibit any Tamil oriented political awareness or pan ethnic Tamil consciousness as opposed to a Saiva and a defender of traditional privilege, in Sri Lanka and South India, his aggressive preaching of a Saiva cultural heritage contributed to the growth Tamil nationalism
. The Tamil nationalist movement had an element that Saiva Siddhanta preceded all others as the original Tamil religion. Navalar’s insistence on the Agamas
as the criteria of Saiva worship, moreover, gave momentum to the tendency among Tamils everywhere to attempt to subsume local deities under the Agamic pantheon and to abandon animal sacrifice altogether.
Arumuga Navalar’s reforms are seen by some as too conservative and is overly conforming to principles of Sanskritization and caste
hegemony. His affirmation of casteist ideology was officially unacceptable to secular nationalisms, of both India and Sri Lanka. Even within the various schools of Hinduism, Navalar worked vigorously to marginalize the popular Virasaiva traditions of Jaffna along with Vaishnavism
and the popular folk religion. Although Navalar made important contributions towards locating and publishing Palm leaf originals of ancient and medieval Tamil literature, according to Karthigesu Sivathamby
, Navalar deliberately minimized the impact of secular literature amongst Tamils to enhance the position of Saiva religious literature. His legacy still provokes negative reactions from the politically Left oriented Tamil intellectuals, Virasaivas, Dalits amongst Tamil Hindus and activist Christians.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He and others like him were responsible for reviving and reforming native traditions that had come under a long period of dormancy and decline during the previous 400 years of colonial rule by various European
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
powers. A student of the Christian missionary school system who assisted in the translation of the King James Bible into Tamil, he was influential in creating a period of intense religious transformation amongst Tamils in India and Sri Lanka, preventing large-scale conversions to Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
.
As part of his religious revivalism, he was one of the early adaptors of modern Tamil prose, introduced Western
Western
Western may refer to:* Western , a category of fiction and visual art centered on the American Old West** Western fiction, the Western genre as featured in literature* Western music, a type of American folk music-In geography:...
editing techniques, and built schools (in imitation of Christian mission schools) that taught secular and Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
religious subjects. He was a defender of Saivism (a sect of Hinduism) against Christian missionary activity and was one of the first natives to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition. He published many polemical tracts in defense of Saivism, and also sought and published original palm leaf manuscripts. He also attempted to reform Saivism itself – an effort which sometimes led to the decline of popular deities and worship modes and confrontation with traditional authorities of religion. Some post-colonial authors have criticised his contributions as parochial, limited, conservative, and favouring the elite castes.
Background information
Tamil peopleTamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...
are found natively in South India
South India
South India is the area encompassing India's states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area...
and in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. During the Sangam period in the early centuries of the common era, Buddhist and Jain
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
missionary activity from North India resulted in Tamil Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
literati defining their own cults and literature. The result was the poems of the bhakti
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti movement is a Hindu religious movement in which the main spiritual practice is loving devotion among the Shaivite and Vaishnava saints. The Bhakti movement originated in ancient Tamil Nadu and began to spread to the north during the late medieval ages when north India was under Islamic...
saints, the Nayanars
Nayanars
The Nayanars or Nayanmars were Shaivite devotional poets of Tamil Nadu, active between the fifth and the tenth centuries CE...
and Alvars
Alvars
The alwar or azhwars were Tamil poet saints of south India who lived between the sixth and ninth centuries A.D. and espoused ‘emotional devotion’ or bhakti to Visnu-Krishna in their songs of longing, ecstasy and service. Sri Vaishnava orthodoxy posits the number of alvars as ten, though there are...
. By the 12 th century CE, Saivas and Vaishnavas created a unified approach to religious literature in Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, monastic systems, networks of temples and pilgrimage sites, public and private liturgies, and their Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
and non-Brahmin leadership. They institutionalized a definition of a Tamil Hindu on the basis Tamil literary culture.
The mostly Vellala
Vellala
Vellala is a small village in the state of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is near the town of Proddutur in the Kadapa District.The village got its name from the locally famous "Vellala sanjevaraswami ", a temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman....
and Iyer
Iyer
Iyer is the title given to the caste of Hindu Brahmin communities of Tamil origin. Most Iyers are followers of the Advaita philosophy propounded by Adi Shankara...
Brahmin literati were Shaiva
Shaivism
Shaivism is one of the four major sects of Hinduism, the others being Vaishnavism, Shaktism and Smartism. Followers of Shaivism, called "Shaivas," and also "Saivas" or "Saivites," revere Shiva as the Supreme Being. Shaivas believe that Shiva is All and in all, the creator, preserver, destroyer,...
, the largest of the sects. By the 13th to 18th centuries, Shaiva theologians codified their religious traditions as Shaiva Siddhanta
Shaiva Siddhanta
Considered normative tantric Saivism, Shaiva Siddhanta provides the normative rites, cosmology and theological categories of tantric Saivism. Being a dualistic philosophy, the goal of Shaiva Siddhanta is to become an ontologically distinct Shiva . This tradition was once practiced all over India...
. Shaiva theologians did not formally include or confront Muslims and Christians in this classification but they included them along with Buddhists, Jains, and pagans. Arumuga Navalar was one ofthe first Tamil laymen to undertake as his life’s career the intellectual and institutional response of Saivism to Christianity in Sri Lanka and India.
Response to missionary activity
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
in British Ceylon
British Ceylon
British Ceylon refers to British rule prior to 1948 of the island territory now known as Sri Lanka.-From the Dutch to the British:Before the beginning of the Dutch governance, the island of Ceylon was divided between the Portuguese Empire and the Kingdom of Kandy, who were in the midst of a war for...
and Madras in Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
.
By the time Navalar born, Protestants from England and America had established nine mission stations in the Jaffna peninsula
Jaffna Peninsula
The Jaffna Peninsula is an area in Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is home to the capital city of the province, Jaffna and comprises much of the former land mass of the ancient Tamil kingdoms of the Nagas and the medieval Jaffna kingdom. The peninsula is mostly surrounded by water, connected to...
. Tamils in Jaffna faced a concentrated effort to convert them as opposed to Tamil in Southern India. The first known Saiva opposition to these efforts emerged in 1828 when the teachers of the American Ceylon Mission
American Ceylon Mission
The American Ceylon Mission to Jaffna, Sri Lanka started with the arrival in 1813 of missionaries sponsored by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions . The British colonial office in India and Ceylon restricted the Americans to the relatively small Jaffna Peninsula for...
(AMC) at Vaddukoddai
Vaddukoddai
Vaddukoddai is small but important town in the minority Sri Lankan Tamil dominated Jaffna peninsula of Sri Lanka...
wanted to learn and teach the Shaiva scripture Skanda Purana
Skanda Purana
The Skanda Purana is the largest Mahapurana, a genre of eighteen Hindu religious texts. The text is devoted mainly to the lilas of Kartikeya , a son of Shiva and Parvati. It also contains a number of legends about Shiva, and the holy places associated with him...
in their school. This move angered local Shaivas as they interpreted it as a move by the missionaries to understand and then ridicule a religious material. Although the missionaries were able to translate and study the material, they were unable to teach it, as locals boycotted the classes.
As a response, two anti-Christian poems appeared in Jaffna. The poet Muttukumara Kavirajar
Muttukumara Kavirajar
Muttukumara Kavirajar , the Ceylon / Sri Lankan Tamil poet, was one of the earliest Hindus to protest via published native literature the conversion attempts by the various Protestant missionaries within the Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka. He wrote the Jnanakkummi or Kummi Song on Wisdom and...
(1780—1851) wrote the Jnanakkummi (Song of Wisdom) and Yesumataparikaram (Abolition of the Jesus Doctrine). This was followed up by publications of polemic nature by both sides. AMC's Batticotta Seminary
Batticotta Seminary
The Batticotta Seminary was an educational institute founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 's American Ceylon Mission at Vaddukodai, in the Jaffna Peninsula north Sri Lanka in 1823. It was closed in 1855. The reason for such a decision being that it was not successful...
launched a semimonthly and bilingual periodical called The Morning Star (Tamil Utaya Tarakai). The aim of this periodical was to challenge all non-Protestants to stand up to intellectual scrutiny. The 19th century Protestants of Jaffna believed that Shaivism was evil and in the struggle God and the Devil, they intended The Morning Star to reveal the falsity of Shaivism.
Biography
Navalar, born Arumukam also spelt Arumugam (or Arumuga Pillai) in 1822, belonged to an elite VellalasVellalar (Sri Lankan Tamil)
Vellalar amongst Sri Lankan Tamils are a dominant group of formerly agricultural landlord related caste from Sri Lanka that is found amongst all walks of life and around the world as part of the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora.- Origins :...
caste. He grew up in the Tamil dominated regions of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. His home was in the town of Nallur
Nallur (Jaffna)
Nallur , , is a small holy town within the present day city of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. It is located 3 km away from the colour and bustle of Jaffna Town. Originally known by its Royal term "Singai Nagar", Nallur formerly functioned as the capital of the ancient Jaffna kingdom for many years during...
on the Jaffna peninsula
Jaffna Peninsula
The Jaffna Peninsula is an area in Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is home to the capital city of the province, Jaffna and comprises much of the former land mass of the ancient Tamil kingdoms of the Nagas and the medieval Jaffna kingdom. The peninsula is mostly surrounded by water, connected to...
, a strip of land (40 by 15 miles) separated from South India by the Palk Strait
Palk Strait
Palk Strait is a strait between the Tamil Nadu state of India and the Mannar district of the Northern Province of the island nation of Sri Lanka. It connects the Bay of Bengal in the northeast with the Palk Bay and thence with the Gulf of Mannar in the southwest. The strait is wide. Several...
. The principal town Jaffna
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
and the peninsula were predominantly Tamil Saiva in culture distinct from that of the Sinhalese Buddhists elsewhere. It was closely linked to the Saiva culture of South India.It was also home to the Jaffna Kingdom
Jaffna Kingdom
The Jaffna kingdom , also known as Kingdom of Aryacakravarti, of modern northern Sri Lanka was a historic monarchy that came into existence around the town of Jaffna on the Jaffna peninsula after the invasion of Magha, who is said to have been from Kalinga, in India...
that had patronized this culture before it was defeated by the Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
colonials
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
in 1621 CE. Nallur was also the capital of the defeated kingdom.
Arumugam's father Kandhar was a Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
poet provided a foundation in Tamil literature
Tamil literature
Tamil literature refers to the literature in the Tamil language. Tamil literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of evolution...
to Arumugam Pillai. His mother Sivakami was known for her devotion to supreme Saiva deity Siva. Arumugam studied the Indian classical language, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
as well as Tamil grammar
Tamil grammar
Much of Tamil grammar is extensively described in the oldest available grammar book for Tamil, the Tolkāppiyam. Modern Tamil writing is largely based on the 13th century grammar which restated and clarified the rules of the Tolkāppiyam, with some modifications.-Parts of Tamil grammar:Traditional...
. Arumugam studied English in a Christian mission run school as a day student. After his studies, he was asked to stay on at the Jaffna Wesleyan Mission School to teach English and Tamil. The missionary school principal, Peter Percival
Peter Percival
Peter Percival was a British born missionary, linguist and a pioneering educator in Sri Lanka and South India during the British colonial era. His work influenced prominent people such as Robert Bruce Foote a pioneering geologist and archeologist and Arumuka Navalar, a Hindu revivalist...
also used him to assist in the translation of the King James Bible and other Christian literature. Arumugam worked with Percival from 1841 – 1848 during which time he formulated his ideas as to what it meant to be a modern Hindu, under the influence of a progressive, secular and ascendant Western culture based on Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
values.
As he immerged himself in the study of Vedas, Agamas and Puranas, Arumugam Pillai came to the awareness that Saivas needed a clearer understanding of their own religion to stem the tide of conversions. With this in mind he relinquished the job that he had with the Weslyan Mission, although Peter Percival offered him a higher salary to stay on. He also decided not to marry as he felt that it would curtail his freedom. He relinquished his patrimony and did not get any money from his four employed brothers. From then on till the end of his life, he and his projects were supported by those who believed in his cause. Through his weekly sermons at Hindu temples, he also formulated a theory to purify local Tamils of all practices that did not find sanction in a written document such as Vedas and Agamas. The lecture series and its circuit continued regularly for several years and produced a Saiva revival, for an informed piety developed and grew among many Jaffna Saivas. This was a direct tactical response to confront the Protestant’s bible based arguments. While he was becoming a popular preacher, he still assisted Percival to complete the translation of the Bible. When there was a conflict as to Percival’s version and another competing translation, Arumugam traveled to Madras to defend Percival's version. In 1848 he founded his own school and finally parted company with Percival.
Saiva revivalism
To confront the power of the of Christian civilization and to use the instruments of Western civilization’s knowledge to reform their religion, in September, 1842 two hundred Hindu men gathered at a Siva temple monastery. The group decided to open up a school to study VedasVedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
and Agamas
Āgama (Hinduism)
Agama means, in the Hindu context, "a traditional doctrine, or system which commands faith".In Hinduism, the Agamas are a collection of Sanskrit scriptures which are revered and followed by millions of Hindus.-Significance:...
. The group also decided to start a press with the help of resident Eurasian
Eurasian (mixed ancestry)
The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian descent....
Burghers
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
. Arumugam Pillai who was part of the organization wrote about the meeting in The Morning Star in a sympathetic tone.
While Arumugam Pillai was still working on translating the Bible, he published a seminal letter in The Morning Star under a pseudonym in September, 1841. It was a comparative study of Christianity and Saivism and targeted the weakness in the argument Protestant missionaries had used against local Saiva practices. Protestant missionaries had attacked the idol worship
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
and temple rituals of the local Saivas as devilish and of no value but Navar found evidence that Christianity and Jesus himself were rooted in the temple rituals of the ancient Israelites. His letter admonished the missionaries for misrepresenting their own religion and concluded that in effect there was no difference between Christianity and Saivism as far as idol worship and temple rituals were concerned. Although The Morning Star editors tried to reply to the letter, the damage was done.
Circuit preaching
Using the preaching methods popularized by the Methodist preachers, he became a circuit preacher. His first secession was on December 31, 1847 at Vaideeswaran Temple in VannarpannaiVannarpannai
Vannarpannai is a notable suburb within the Jaffna town municipality in the northern Jaffna District in Sri Lanka. It is home to many cultural insituitions that are important for the Saiva revivalism of the local minority Sri Lankan Tamils as initiated by Arumuga Navalar. It is home to Kathiresan...
. It was a weekly event known as Prasangams on every Friday evening. In these secession he read from sacred texts and then preached in a manner that lay people understood. He was helped by his friend Karttikeya Aiyar of Nallur and his students from his school. The sermon topics were mostly ethical, liturgical, and theological and included the evils of adultery, drunkenness, the value of non-killing
Ahimsa
Ahimsa is a term meaning to do no harm . The word is derived from the Sanskrit root hims – to strike; himsa is injury or harm, a-himsa is the opposite of this, i.e. non harming or nonviolence. It is an important tenet of the Indian religions...
, the conduct of women, the worship of the linga, the four initiations, the importance of giving alms, of protecting cows, and the unity of God.
Conflicts with Hindus
In his weekly sermons, he attacked Christians and Hindus as well. He specifically attacked the trustees and priests of the Nallur Kandaswami Temple in his home town because they had built the temple not according to the Agamas a century ago as well as used priests who were not initiated in the Agamas. He also opposed their worship of VelVel
The Vel is the divine javelin/spear of the Hindu Deity Murugan.The spear used by ancient Tamils in warfare is also commonly known by this name.-Vel in Hindu Mythology:...
or the weapon representing the main deity as it did not have Agamic sanction.
Reformed school system
The school he founded was called Saivaprakasa Vidyasala or School of Siva's splendor. The school did not follow the traditional Tamil teaching system, in which each student worked on his own pace and the teacher pupil ratio was extremely low. Although this system produced stellar experts in subject matter but took too much labor and was inefficient compared to the western system used by the Missionaries. He developed his teaching methods based on the exposure he had with the Missionaries. He developed the curriculum to be able to teach 20 students at a time and included secular subject matters and English. He also wrote the basic instruction materials for different grades in Saivism. Most of his teachers were friends and acquaintances who were volunteers. This school system was duplicated later in ChidambaramChidambaram
Chidambaram is a fast growing industrial city in Eastern part of Tamil Nadu and the taluk headquarters of the Cuddalore district. It is located in 58 km from Pondicherry, 60 km from Karaikal, and 240 km south of Chennai by rail...
in India in 1865 and it still exits. But the school system he founded in Sri Lanka was replicated and over 100 primary and secondary schools were built based on his teaching methods. This school system produced numerous students who had clearer understanding of their religion, rituals and theology and still able to function in a western oriented world.
Navalar title
As an owner of a pioneering new school with the a need for original publications in Tamil prose to teach subjects for all grades, he felt a need for a printing press. He and his colleague Sadasiva Pillai went to Madras, India in 1849 to purchase a printing press. On the way they stopped at Tiruvatuturai Ateenam in Tanjavur, IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, an important Saiva monastery. He was asked by the head of the monastery to preach. After listening to his preaching and understanding his unusual mastery of the knowledge of Agamas, the head of the monastery conferred on him the title Navalar (learned). This honorary degree from a prestigious Saiva monastery enhanced his position amongst Saivas and he was known as the Navalar since then.
Literary contributions
While in India he published two texts, one was an educational tool (teachers guide) Cüdãmani Nikantu, a sixteenth-century lexicon of simple verses and Saundarya Lahani, a poem in praise of goddess, geared towards devotion. These were the first effort at editing and printing Tamil works for Saiva students and devotees. His press was set up in a building that was donated by a merchant of Vannarpannai. It was named the Vidyaanubalana yantra sala (Preservation of Knowledge Press). The initial publications included Bala Potam (Lessons for Children) in 1850 and 1851. They were graded readers, simple in style, similar in organization to those used in the Protestant schools. This was followed up by a third volume in 1860 and 1865. It consisted of thirtynine advanced essays in clear prose, discussing subjects such as God, Saul, The Worship of God, Crimes against the Lord, Grace, Killing, Eating meat, Drinking liquor, Stealing, Adultery, Lying, Envy, Anger, and Gambling. These editions were in use 2007.Other notable texts published included The Prohibition of Killing, Manual of worship of Shiva temple and The Essence of the Saiva Religion. His first major literary publication appeared in 1851, the 272-page prose version of Sekkilar
Sekkizhar
Sekkizhar was a poet and scholar of Tamil Shaiva Siddhanta, a Saiva saint contemporary with the reign of Kulothunga Chola II. He compiled and wrote the Periya Puranam , 4253 verses long,recounting the life stories of the sixty-three Shaiva Nayanars, the poets of Shiva who composed the liturgical...
’s Periya Puranam
Periya Puranam
Periya Puranam , that is, the great purana or epic, sometimes also called Tiruttontarpuranam is a Tamil poetic account depicting the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanars, the canonical poets of Tamil Shaivism. It was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkizhar...
, a retelling of the twelfth century hagiography of the Nayanars
Nayanars
The Nayanars or Nayanmars were Shaivite devotional poets of Tamil Nadu, active between the fifth and the tenth centuries CE...
or Saivite saints. In 1853 he published Nakkirar’s Tirumurukarrupatai, with is own commentary. It was a devotional poem to Murugan
Murugan
Murugan also called Kartikeya, Skanda and Subrahmanya, is a popular Hindu deity especially among Tamil Hindus, worshipped primarily in areas with Tamil influences, especially South India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Mauritius and Reunion Island. His six most important shrines in India are the...
. This was followed by local missionaries attacking Murugan as immoral deity for marrying two women. As a response Navalar published Radiant Wisdom explaining how the stories embody differing levels of meaning. He also published literature of controversial nature. He along with Centinatha Aiyar, published examples of indecent language from the Bible and published it as Disgusting Things in the Bible (Bibiliya Kutsita). In 1852, he along with Ci. Vinayakamurtti Cettiyar of Nallur, printed the Kummi Song on Wisdom of Muttukumara Kavirajar
Muttukumara Kavirajar
Muttukumara Kavirajar , the Ceylon / Sri Lankan Tamil poet, was one of the earliest Hindus to protest via published native literature the conversion attempts by the various Protestant missionaries within the Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka. He wrote the Jnanakkummi or Kummi Song on Wisdom and...
leading to calls by local Christians to shut the printing press down.
The seminal work that was geared towards stemming the tide of conversions was printed in 1854. It was a training manual for the use of Saivas in their opposition to the missionaries, titled The Abolition of the Abuse of Saivism (Saiva dusana parihara).
A Methodist missionary, who had worked in Jaffna, described the manual thirteen years after it had appeared as:
This manual was widely used in Sri Lanka and India; it was reprinted at least twice in the nineteenth century, and eight times by 1956.
Legacy and assessment
According to Prof. Dennis Hudson, Navalar's contributions although began in Jaffna, spread to both in Sri Lanka as well as Southern India, thus establishing two centers of reform. He had two schools, two presses and pressed on against Christian missionary activity on both sides as well as against Hindus whom he thought were unorthodox. He produced approximately ninety-seven Tamil publications, twenty three were his own creations, eleven were commentaries, and forty were his editions of those works of grammar, literature, liturgy, and theology that were not previously available in print. With this recovery, editing, and publishing of ancient works, Navalar laid the foundations for the recovery of lost Tamil classics that his successors such as U. V. Swaminatha IyerU. V. Swaminatha Iyer
U. V. Swaminatha Iyer , 1855–1942 C.E., was a Tamil scholar and researcher who was instrumental in bringing many long-forgotten works of classical Tamil literature to light...
and C.W. Thamotharampillai continued. He was the first person to deploy the prose style in the Tamil language and according to Tamil scholar Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Václav Zvelebil was a distinguished Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, notably Tamil, Sanskrit, Dravidian linguistics and literature and philology.- Biography :...
in style it bridged the medieval to the modern.
Navalar established the world’s first Hindu school adapted to the modern needs that succeeded and flourished. While the school he established in Chidamharam in 1865 has survived to this day, similar schools seem to have spread only to two nearby towns. In Sri Lanka, eventually more than one hundred and fifty primary and secondary schools emerged from his work. Many of the students of these schools were successful in defending the Saiva culture not only against Christian missionary activities but also against neo-Hindu
Neo-Hindu
"Neo-Hindu" refers to Hinduism-inspired new religious movements,* in India, see Hindu revivalism* in the West, see Hinduism in the West-See also:*Hindu denominations#Newer movements*List of new religious movements...
sects. His reforms and contributions were added to by scholars such as V. Kalyanasundaram
V. Kalyanasundaram
Thiruvarur Viruttacala Kalyanasundaram, , better known by his Tamil initials Thiru Vi Ka , was a Tamil scholar, essayist and activist. He is esteemed for the strong humanism of his essays, the analytical depth of his commentaries on classical Tamil literature and philosophy, and the clear, fluid...
(1883—1953), and Maraimalai Adigal
Maraimalai Adigal
Maraimalai Adigal was an eminent Tamil orator and writer. He was a devout Hindu as a staunch follower of Saivism. He has authored more than 100 books, including works on original poems and dramas, but most famous are his books on his research into Tamil literature. Most of his literary works were...
(1876–1950), who developed their own schools of theology within the Saiva heritage. Although it is difficult to quantify as to how many Hindus may have converted to Protestant Christianity without his intervention but according to Bishop Sabapathy Kulendran, the low rate of conversion compared to the initial promise was due to Navalar's activities.
Arumuka Navalar who identified himself with an idealized past, worked within the traditions of Saiva culture and strictly adhered what was available in the Saiva doctrine. He was an unapologetic defender of Savisim and the resultant class and caste privileges enjoyed by the higher castes. Although he never identified him as a Vellala, his efforts led to Saiva Vellala caste consolidation of traditional privileges’ and prevention of the emergence of converted Christian Vellala and Saiva and Christian Karaiyar
Karaiyar
Karaiyar, also known as Karayar, Karaiar or Kurukulam, is traditionally both a seafaring and warrior caste found in the Tamil Nadu state of India, coastal areas of Sri Lanka, and globally among the Tamil diaspora.-Origins:...
elites. Although Navalar did not exhibit any Tamil oriented political awareness or pan ethnic Tamil consciousness as opposed to a Saiva and a defender of traditional privilege, in Sri Lanka and South India, his aggressive preaching of a Saiva cultural heritage contributed to the growth Tamil nationalism
Tamil nationalism
Tamil nationalism in India is an aspiration by some Tamils to establish, at minimum, self determination or at maximum secession from India to establish an Independent Tamil State of which would consist of today's Tamil nadu, Puducherry and Tamil Eelam of Sri Lanka...
. The Tamil nationalist movement had an element that Saiva Siddhanta preceded all others as the original Tamil religion. Navalar’s insistence on the Agamas
Āgama (Hinduism)
Agama means, in the Hindu context, "a traditional doctrine, or system which commands faith".In Hinduism, the Agamas are a collection of Sanskrit scriptures which are revered and followed by millions of Hindus.-Significance:...
as the criteria of Saiva worship, moreover, gave momentum to the tendency among Tamils everywhere to attempt to subsume local deities under the Agamic pantheon and to abandon animal sacrifice altogether.
Arumuga Navalar’s reforms are seen by some as too conservative and is overly conforming to principles of Sanskritization and caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
hegemony. His affirmation of casteist ideology was officially unacceptable to secular nationalisms, of both India and Sri Lanka. Even within the various schools of Hinduism, Navalar worked vigorously to marginalize the popular Virasaiva traditions of Jaffna along with Vaishnavism
Vaishnavism
Vaishnavism is a tradition of Hinduism, distinguished from other schools by its worship of Vishnu, or his associated Avatars such as Rama and Krishna, as the original and supreme God....
and the popular folk religion. Although Navalar made important contributions towards locating and publishing Palm leaf originals of ancient and medieval Tamil literature, according to Karthigesu Sivathamby
Karthigesu Sivathamby
Karthigesu Sivathamby born in Karaveddy, Jaffna, Sri Lanka is an emeritus professor of University of Jaffna.Sivathamby has written and published more than 70 books and monographs and presented and published 200 papers at international seminars and journals on Sri Lankan Tamil history and...
, Navalar deliberately minimized the impact of secular literature amongst Tamils to enhance the position of Saiva religious literature. His legacy still provokes negative reactions from the politically Left oriented Tamil intellectuals, Virasaivas, Dalits amongst Tamil Hindus and activist Christians.