Modern India and the Indians by Monier-Williams Monier

Author:Monier-Williams, Monier
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

Religions of Southern India.

Religion is even more closely interwoven with every affair of daily life, and is even more showily demonstrative in the South of India than in the North. Unhappily, it is not of a kind to strengthen the character or fortify it against temptation. Yet its action on social, domestic, and political life is so potent, that to make clear the condition of the people, I must briefly explain the nature of their creeds.

A distinction has already been pointed out between Brāhmanism and Hindūism1. Brāhmanism is the purely pantheistic and not necessarily idolatrous creed evolved by the Brāhmans out of the religion of the Veda. Hindūism is that complicated system of polytheistic doctrine, idolatrous superstitions, and caste usages which has been developed out of Brāhmanism after its contact with Buddhism and its admixture with the non-Āryan creeds of the Drāvidians and Aborigines of Southern India. Brāhmanism and Hindūism, though infinitely remote from each other, are integral parts of the same system. One is the germ or root, the other is the rank and diseased outgrowth. It is on this account that they everywhere coexist in the same localities throughout the whole of India. Nevertheless, the most complete examples of both creeds are now to be looked for in Southern India, because the North has been always more exposed to Muhammadan influences. In fact, it was the South which produced the great religious revivalists, Kumārila, Sankara, Madhva, Rāmānuja, and Vallabha.

The followers of Śankara (who lived about the seventh or eighth century of our era, and whose successors reside at Śringeri, on the Mysor Ghāts) are usually strict Brāhmans. They call themselves Smārtas, as observers of Smṛiti or traditional doctrines and ceremonies, and their creed is generally pure Brāhmanism. In other words, they are pure Pantheists. They accept the Vedas, Itihāsas, Manu, and Purāṇas and maintain the doctrine of one universal Spirit, manifesting himself equally in Brahmā, Vishṇu, and Śiva, and developing himself in every other form of divine, semi-divine, human and demoniacal personality.

The adherents of Madhva, on the other hand, call themselves Vaishṇavas—as worshippers of the god Vishṇu alone, whom they regard as the one Supreme Being, admitting that he has assumed various incarnations for the preservation of his creatures. They also differ from the Smārta followers of Sankara in maintaining an eternal distinction between the human and Supreme Soul. This is a form of Hindūism which has more common ground with Christianity than any other. I have met with many excellent and intelligent Brāhmans and others in the South of India who profess it.

But the great majority of South Indian Vaishṇavas are followers of Rāamānuja, who led the Vaishṇava revival in the twelfth century. These illustrate the operation of a law which appears essential to the vitality of every religious and political system. They have separated into two grand antagonistic parties—the Tengalais, or followers of the Southern doctrine, who maintain the doctrine of absolute faith in Vishṇu, which they illustrate by a kitten's passive dependence on the hold

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