Madras University Special Lectures

Fourth Course.

 

Early History of Vaishnavism in South India.

 

 

Lecture I. — Vaishnavism, what it is — the subject — the stage reached by research work upon this by previous work — Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's work  ‘Vaishnavism, Shaivism and minor Religions' in the Encyclopedia of Indo- Aryan Research — Alvars and Acharyas previous to Ramanuja — Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's views — his general position — Recognized order..

Lecture II. — The specific question of Alvar Kulashekhara — his age — evidence upon which Sir R. G. Bhandarkar bases his conclusions — evaluation of the evidence — another similar view — who was Kulashekhara — evidence of his own works — At what period we may have to look for him — evidence of literature and inscriptions — chronological order of the Alvars.

Lecture III. — Was Nam Alvar the last of them all? — Arguments in support of this position — other views – general position of this Alvar — his works — the name Tiruvaymoli and its explanation — the school of Bhakti — Shaivism looked upon as collaborator— Tiruviruttam and Tiruvaymoli — Other Alvars, particularly Periyalvar — evidence of his works — probable age.

Lecture IV. — The first Alvars — their general position and works — Poygaiyar and Poygai Alvar identical — possibility of two Poygaiyars — possible contemporaneity with Tondaman Ilam Tirayan — Tirumalisai Alvar — His Pallava contemporary — Evidence of secular literature -Hither criteria of age — Paripadal — position in Vaishnavism -- effect on general position in regard to Sanskrit literature and history of Indian culture.

 

 

EARLY HISTORY OF VAISHNAVISM

IN SOUTH INDIA

LECTURE: I.

VAISHNAVISM: WHAT IT IS

 

 

At the outset of a course of lectures on Vaishnavism it will be expected that the term Vaishnavism should be defined. It will be equally clear to everybody that anything like a definition of the term Vaishnavism should be difficult unless a small treatise is written upon the subject Like most other religions of India Vaishnavism has a Philosophy and Religion of its own. As a philosophy it bases itself upon the Upanishads and is acknowledged by scholars to be, in certain respects at any rate, a more faithful and closer rendering of the upanishadic teaching. As a religion it reaches its roots into the Tantra. Its religious ritual therefore, is of the Agamic or Tantraic character in general.

Its philosophic character is Upanishadic. To give merely a practical notion of what is to be understood by Vaishnavism I might say here that Vaishnavism regards Vishnu as the supreIne being with Shri or Lakshmi in close association with him. It has its own tenets, which for the sake of brevity might be given in the following text of a contemporary writer of the life of Ramanuja. “With Lakshmi I am supreme; my conviction is difference (or duality); surrendering oneself into the hands of a preceptor is the most secure way to salvation; holy thoughts on the eve of death unnecessary; salvation to a believer certain. At the present time Mahapurna (Periya Nambi) is the guru to be sought."1

1. “ Shriman param tattvam aham, mattam me
bedati prapattir nirapaya hetuh |
navagyakicha smf ti rantyakale
moksho, Mahapurna iharyavaryah ||
Andhriapurna's Yatirajavaibhavam ” SI. 40.

These are the words in which God directed Ramanuja to the acceptance of his mission when at the critical moment he vacillated, harassed by doubt whether he was equal to the burden of the propagation of the gospel of Vaishnavism. The fundamental idea of Vaishnavism is contained in one verse of Tirumalisai Alvar, which may be freely rendered: — "Let Your Grace be for me to-day; let it come to-morrow; let it wait still longer and come sometime after; Your Grace, I am sure is mine. I am certain, O! Narayana, I am not without you, nor are you without me”. 2

It will thus be seen that both in its philosophical and in its ritualistic aspects Vaishnavism reaches back to the same antiquity as other Brahmanic religions, and on a question of origins, it will be found that there is very little to choose in respect of priority and posteriority. Vaishnavism is the direct offspring of the school of Bhakti as ‘Shaivism is, and it seems to me that Vaishnavism diverged from Tantraism definitely in its early association with the Vaidic philosophy. It is not my purpose to discuss this aspect of the subject my concern being the history of Vaishnavism. Sir R, G. Bhandarkar has shown in his book “Vaishnavism etc." that the school of Bhakti so called is traceable to the age of Buddhism and Jainism. This might be regarded as the legitimate orthodox development of the orthodox Madhyadesa at a time when the ferment of dissatisfaction and free thought on the Upanishads led on in the East to the protests of Jainism and Buddhism against Vedic ritualism. Its history in northern India is traceable in its main lines at least from the 5th century B. C., but our concern here is the history of Vaishnavism in the south.

2. Nanmukan Tiruvandadi 7.

 

THE SUBJECT.

 

The history of Vaishnavism in South India came in for attention as a subject of study while yet that eminent Tamil scholar and philologist, Bishop Caldwell, was actively working in the field of the history of the literature of Tamil. In the course of his investigations he arrived at, to us somewhat strange, conclusion that Vaishnavism was the foundation of Ramanuja more or less It is nothing strange since he regarded the Augustan age of Tamil literature to have been in the 13th century of the Christian era and later; but what is still more strange is that the late professor M. Sheshagiri Shastriar, the first Indian occupant of the chair of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology in the Presidency College, should have held the same view and stated specifically that the Alvars were disciples of Ramanuja. The error in the case of Caldwell arose from his finding the Centum on Ramanuja included in the Prabandham 4000. That excuse cannot be held to justify the view of the Indian professor. Since then investigation on the subject has advanced many stages, and many scholars have worked in the field with, more or less, of success. There were often controversies, enlivened occasionally by a certain amount of acrimoniousness, and certain conclusions were made possible notwithstanding this particular feature. The late Mr. Sundaram Pillai could not find any history in the Vaishnava traditions, and there were not wanting scholars who went to the other extreme of argument, and would deem it hardly necessary to subject these traditions to a critical examination at all. This latter school is ably represented by Mr. A. Govindacharya whose work, the “Divine Wisdom of the Dravida Saints", embodies the traditional account. Some of my younger friends submitted theses on this subject for their M. A. degree examinations of which a few were published. My attention was particularly drawn to this subject by an article on the “Age of Manikkavasagar” contributed by the late Mr. L. C. Innes. As became a late eminent judge of the High Court the article dealt with the main thesis with a very large number of obiter dicta scattered about the article on various matters of vital interest ta the literary history of Tamil, a part at any rate of the history of Vaishnavism came in for some observation, which drew my attention. At about the same time the late Mr. Gopinatha Rao was writing a history of Vaishnavism in the pages of the Madras Review. The essential part of it he repeated very recently in his Sir Subrahmania Iyer Lectures delivered before the University of Madras. During recent years Mr. M. Shrinivasa Iyengar, M. A. devoted a considerable space to this history in his learned work ‘Tamil Studies’. Professor Rajagopalachariar of the Law College, Madras dealt with the subject but not from the historical point of view essentially. Meanwhile Pundit M. Raghavaiyangar dealt with the history of some of the Alvars in the Sen Tamil with his usual learning.

The culmination of this series of efforts upon the history of Vaishnavism was reached in Sir R. G. Bhandarkar's "Vaishnavism, Shaivism and minor Religions". This was published by the veteran orientalist as a part of the Encyclopedia of Indo-Arian Research. The first part Vaishnavism attempts to deal with the whole history of Vaishnavism from the beginning which the learned Doctor finds in the period co-eval with the rise of Buddhism and Jainism, if not earlier. It is this classical work on the subject that challenged my attention as the learned scholar quoted from me when he reached the history of Vaishnavism in South India, and offered some criticism of my work.

He agreed with me that the Alvars and Acharyas were previous to Ramanuja and should be looked for in that particular period; but he questioned my views in regard to the traditionally recognized order in which these are mentioned. This criticism naturally called for a re-examination of my position with the fullness that the great reputation of the venerable doctor and his learning alike demanded. It is therefore necessary to state his views more fully and exhibit his general position before proceeding to examine them carefully.

The Bhagavata itself states in book XI, Ch. X that Vishnu assumed different forms in the first great periods of time, and describes the different modes of worship of Him. For the Kali age he has simplified even the agamic worship of the previous age to the extent of offering salvation to those who would devote themselves to him without even subjecting themselves to the discipline of acquiring spiritual knowledge and practising Vairagya, (not giving way to the desires of the flesh). In order the more effectively, to achieve His object of saving the people of this earth He will come into this world, according to the Purana, in ten avatars of His, different from those of the previous aeons of time. His real devotees will be found scattered here and there in the whole of Bharatavarsha, but they will be found in large numbers in the Dravida country on the banks of the Tamraparni, the Vaigai (Kritamala), the Palar (Payasvini), the Kaveri and the Mahanadi flowing west (that is, Periyar) It is in this favourable spot that He would descend to do the work of salvation.1

1. kṛtādiṣu prajā rājan
kalāv icchanti sambhavam
kalau khalu bhaviṣyanti
nārāyaṇa-parāyaṇāḥ
kvacit kvacin mahā-rāja
draviḍeṣu ca bhūriśaḥ

tāmrapar ṇ ī nadī yatra
kṛtamālā payasvinī
kāverī ca mahā-puṇyā
pratīcī ca mahā-nadī

ye pibanti jalaṁ tāsāṁ
manujā manujeśvara
prāyo bhaktā bhagavati
vāsudeve ’malāśayāḥ. (SB 11.5.38)

In the land of Tamraparni was born Nammalvar and Madhurakavi; in that of the Vaigai, Periyalvar and his daughter Andal; in that of the Palar, Poygai Alvar, Bhudattalvar, Fey Alvar and Tirumalisai Alvar; in that of the Kaveri, Tondaradippodi, Tiruppan Alvar and Tirumangai Alvar; and in that of the Periyar, Kulashekhara, if his birth place was Tiruvanjikkulam in the state of Cochin. This citation would make the Bhagavatam a work posterior to the age of the Alvars, but it is possible that this chapter is a later interpolation. Granting that it is, it ought to have been interpolated long before Vedanta Deshika, as he quotes the passage as authority for certain of his positions in his work Rahasyatrayasaram. It would be an interesting enquiry in itself to compare in detail the Prabandha works and the Bhagavatam. That work will have to be left over for the present What is to the point in the history of Vaishnavism in this citation is that Bhakti gets associated with the south, almost exclusively as it were, though even here its connection with the Agama and Tantra is clearly indicated.

In regard to this however, it would be just as well to call attention to what the Padma Purana has to say regarding Shrimad Bhagavatam and how it actually came into existence. In the course of his interminable peregrinations sage Narada happened to be in the vicinity of Gokula on one occasion when he saw a young woman in distress in a desert tract with two elderly men lying apparently dead near her. The sight of the sage put some heart into her to appeal to him to solve to her the riddle that brought her to her then distressful condition. She said she was born in the Dravida country, had her early growth in the Karnataka and flourished to some extent in the Maharashtra. She proceeded thence to Gujarat with her two sons when life became difficult for her. As she moved further from there life to her was becoming gradually impossible; but she kept trudging on as best she could till she came to where she actually was at the time. When she touched the ground on which she then stood, she was suddenly transformed into the youthful woman she was while her two young sons were grown old and withered, ultimately falling dead as she thought they were.

Sage Narada pondered a little while and then addressed the young woman like one who knew it all. He said that she had no cause to distress herself. She was Bhakti (devotion) and her two little ones were Gnana (spiritual knowledge) and Vairagya (negation of desire). In olden times even Bhakti required the assistance of these two auxiliaries for the attainment of salvation; but in this age of Kali, Bhakti alone was quite enough — the more so when she was actually in the ground hallowed by the feet of Lord Krishna as a child. Hence the death of her children who were mere superfluities for her purpose. The points worth noting in this story for our purposes is that the Dravida country was the land of birth of Bhakti which flourished to a gradually diminishing extent in the Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Whatever may be the source which the Purana quoted above might have taken its information from, it is actually found that the Alvars and Acharyas of the Vaishnavas as well as the Adiyars of the Shaivas were people born in the Tamil country, all of them exclusively, and propagated their gospel there. Dr. Bhandarkar has given satisfactory evidence of a very much earlier and a northern origin for the cult of Bhakti and there are evidences of its prevalence in the centuries preceding the Christian era in the region of "the middle country" in northern India. We shall show presently that the inspiration, for Vishnu Bhakti at any rate, came from the north. The school of Bhaktas in the Tamil land elaborated and worked it up with features characteristic of Tamil culture and sent it back in a more realistic reflex wave which swept over the whole land of India. We shall now proceed to the history of this school of Vaishnavism in the south.