Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 31

FEBRUARY, 1924 ]
A SKETCH OF SOUTH INDIAN CULTURE
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to stand between God and individual man came into relief." This feature of devotion is characteristic both of Hindu Bhakti (devotional faith) and philosophic Mahayana Buddhism. “It would seem, therefore, as though the School of Bhakti and tho Vêtulya Heresy of Buddhism aliko were the developments of Brahmanism and Buddhism respectively as a result of the same or similar influence."
This brings the Professor to a survey of the Brahman's position before the rise of the Palla vas. Going back to Vedic times, the Brâhman achieved his two first duties: "the performance of sacrifices and getting others to perform them.” Learning was associated with him from the beginning, and he became its custodian and dispenser. He was thus the teacher giving education as a free gift, but accepting rewards therefor, not as a right but as a recompense, an obligation towards him gradually extended to the whole of society. It had to maintain the Brahman. The obligation became a sacred one, and a Tamil poet praises a royal family" as the one which had never been known to do anything that would cause pain to a Brahman." It was while such & Brahmanism was evolving itself that the notions were infused into it of "a personal God who intervenes in the affairs of man for tho benefit of humanity," and of personal devotion to Him. Thus clid Bhakti arise as the answer to the agnostic cults of Buddhism and Jainism.
The "theistic system of Bhakti consists in the worship of a personal God, who is the Creator and Lord of the Universe. Dovotion to him by unremitting service is the best way to the attainment of salvation, or release from the ever recurring cycle of births and deaths." This system the Professor would trace " back to tho Vedic beginnings, reaching to the Upanishads certainly.” Bhakti, as the Professor says, is love of God and complete devotion to Him, and as a system it "regards Vasudeva as the Supreme Soul, the internal soul of all souls." His worship goes as far back as the Upanishadic times and clearly to the 4th century B.C.
The special home of Bhakti, though not its place of origin, was South India, and the idea of devotion to a porsonal God is traceable in the earliest extant portions of Tamil literature. "The worship of Ksishna and Baladeva seems to have boon quite an ordinary feature of Tanil civilisation in the earliest period of which we have knowledge." Takon as a whole, the literature of the civilisation was essentially Aryan in character, with "indubitable traces of the Aryan features in it, which are very primitive in consequence."
These discussions lead the Professor to his sixth lecture, which is on the Kural of Tiruvalluvar, "& characteristically Tamil classic." The term kural means 'short,' and the work is so called because it consists of aphoristic couplets of four and three feet each. As an ethico-religious work the Kural is intended as to guide for conduct in life. It doals with three only of the "four objects of life" for a curious reason. The 'four objeots' are righteousness, wealth, love and salvation : in Tamil aram, porul, inbam and vidu, and in Sanskrit, dharma, artha, kama and moksha. "If the first three objects of life are attained by adopting a moral lifo, the other follows inevitably in consequenoe. Hence the omission of the fourth in this
work."
The author was clearly acquainted with Chanakya's Arthasdstra, and is in fact deeply indebted to it. It was also known clearly to the writers of the Sangam literature. The Professor here does good service in showing how much this very important Tamil work is strongly infused with Sanskrit culture, ethical and political, and winds up his remarks by a statement that "on a dispassionate examination of the work there seems justification for the assumption that the author of the Kural, though undoubtedly belonging to another caste, Was Brahmanical in religion." .
After this Professor Krishņaswami Aiyangar attacks the difficult historical problem of the Pallavas, warily remarking that "it can hardly be described as being out of the stage of discussion yet." Nearly every one who has considered the subject has come to the conclusion