Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 208

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
tali and the presenting to the bride of the new sari by the husband's party prior to marriage called, are all Dravidian customs, symbolic of slavery or purchase and do not find any sanction in the sacerdotal formulae of the grihya ritual in use among the Aryans. In all these respects the Nambudris seem to differ from the other southern Brahmans. So much was the South favoured by the colonization of the Brahmans before the 6th century that the Purdṇas, that seem chiefly compiled during the early Chalukyan kings, went to the length of prophesying that in future the only refuge of Brahmanism would be the extreme south of the Peninsula, in the basin of the Tâmraparat. For they shrewdly found out how in the North, subjected to foreign inroads and irruptions from without, there was not much chance of their keeping either their blood or their religion pure, and they with one voice declared :
196
[JULY, 1913.
कलौ खलु भविष्यन्ति नारायणपरायणाः । कचित्कचिन्महाराज इमिडेषु च भूरिशः ॥ साम्रपर्णी नदी यत्र कृतमाला पयस्विनी । कावेरी व महाभागा
etc. etc. Bhag.
Nor were their apprehensions long allowed to remain unconfirmed; the worst sort of disaster soon overtook them, when, early in the 8th century A. D. (711 A. D.), the relentless iconoclastic Muhammadan storm burst upon the land. It was Gujarât, that first suffered from the outburst. The Bhagavata Sampradayins-worshippers of Krishna, who formed the bulk of the population of Gajatât, Muttra and the north-west generally, soon felt the pressure of the times and the wisest among them migrated to the south and peopled the Telugu, Kannada and Tamil kingdoms. In the 9th and the 10th centuries their numbers increased when the Muhammadan incursions became more frequent and more threatening. It was these that brought into the South the Renaissance literature of the North, the product of more recent times, made during the times of king Bhoja of Dhârâ and the Guptas of Ujjain and Pâțaliputra and Harshavardhana of Kanauj,
The earlier emigrants had brought but the Mimdied, the Epics and the Sutras. It is these latter that brought Logic, Grammar and Belles-lettres in general, and gave an impetus to learning in the South. The 10th and the 11th centuries formed the Augustan period of Dravidian literature, alike in the Telugu, Tamil and Kannada lands. The chief impetus for this magnificient activity was given by the new-coming Aryan settlers. So much did Raja-raja, the powerful Chola king at Kanchi, recognize the value of these new comers that he defended them against the attacks of his aunt Kunda-Avvai, who remonstrated with him for showing favour to the culture of the North in preference to his own Tamil. The Srivaishnavs revival in the 11th century A. D. in the South was only an episode in the literary culture that came with this latest emigration. Sri-Râmânaja himself was directly related to Saint Alavandar, grandson of Nathamuni. In all likelihood Nathamuni's father or grandfather was one of the pioneers of these latest settlers. If we examine the account given of the way in which these behaved towards each other, though settled in far off places like Kanchi, Srirangam, Madura and so forth, we are bound to conclude that they belonged to a closely-knit sept, and that they could be easily marked off from the rest of the Brahman population among whom they had settled; the real name of the Saint Alavandar, i. e., the name Yamunai-thuraivar (the sage of the Jumna) itself tells us how new these settlers must have been in their new homes at the time of the sage. Even to this day these are distinguished from the other Brahmans of the South in several respects and go generally by the name of Vadamas, meaning North-country men. It was chiefly from this community that the bulk of the Srivaishnava conversions were made. Even in the Kannada and Telugu country, it is the Bhagavata Sampradayins that easily passed into the Srivaishnava or the Madhva fold. One distinguishing feature of these Sampradayins is their partiality for Vishnu in his incarnation of Krishna. The Bhagavata-Purana, which seems to have been compiled by one of their number