Arumuka Navalar

Navalar was born in 1822 as Nallur Arumuga Pillai to a Hindu family in Sri Lanka.[2] His family belonged to the Vellalar caste,[7] which constitutes about 50% of the Tamil Hindus on the island nation.[8] The Vellalars were related to farming.[9][10] Historically, the Vellalars had been a part of the elites who owned lands, were literati, patrons of temples and monasteries. At the time of Navalar's birth, they were a part of the socio-political leadership in Jaffna peninsula, a strip of land (40 by 15 miles) separated from South India by the Palk Strait.[8] Navalar grew up in a literati Tamil Shaiva family.[2][11]

Navalar's home was in the town of Nallur on the Jaffna peninsula. The principal town Jaffna and the peninsula (as well as the East of Sri Lanka) 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.[12][11] It was also home to the Jaffna Kingdom that had patronised this culture before it was defeated by the Portuguese colonials in 1621 CE. Nallur was also the capital of the defeated kingdom.[13]

Arumugam's father Kandharpillai was a Tamil poet and provided a foundation in Tamil literature to Arumuga Navalar.[11][14] His mother Sivakami was known for her devotion to supreme Saiva deity Lord 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 Central College to teach English and Tamil.[11] The missionary school principal, Peter Percival employed him to assist in the translation of the King James Bible and other Christian literature into Tamil to further their missionary reach and objectives.[11]

Navalar immersed himself in the study of the Bible as well as the Vedas, Agamas and Puranas. When he started his studies, he wondered whether Shaiva Hinduism or Christianity was the right path.[15] After his studies, he became convinced that the Shaiva religious tradition in the Vedas and Agamas was the right path, and that the Christian path wasn't. Arumugam Navalar felt that Hindu Saivites needed a clearer understanding of their own ancient literature and religion.[16] He continued to help the Christian missionaries but resolved to challenge the theological ideas of these missionaries, as well as launch reforms and spread the original ideas of Shaivism. Navalar left his job under Peter Percival that he had with the Wesleyan Mission, although Percival offered him a higher salary to stay on. He decided not to marry and relinquished his patrimony and did not get any money from his four employed brothers. From then until the end of his life, he and his projects were supported by those who believed in his cause.[17]

Through his weekly sermons at Hindu temples, he also attempted to reform local Tamils of all practices that did not find sanction in the Hindu Vedas and Agamas. The lecture series and its circuit continued regularly for several years and produced a Saiva revival, helping informed piety grow among many Jaffna Saivas. This was a direct tactical response to confront what he called the "mockery" of the Hindus by Christian missionaries.[18] During this period, he continued to assist Percival to complete the translation of the Bible, as well as his study of the primary texts of both Christianity and Hinduism. 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. Navalar believed that the Christian missionaries should be viewed as a gift from Shiva to help awaken his community to discover their own dharma path (puram) from "which they had departed" and away from the path of the "barbaric Europeans" (purappuram), states Hudson.[18][19]

Tamil people are natives in Tamil Nadu and in Sri Lanka. Tamilakam (ancient Tamil country) had followers of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The Hinduism, Tamil and Sanskrit has been spread by priests, traders to Southeast Asia. By the 12th century CE, the Tamils had an extensive network of temples, religious literature and pilgrimage sites dedicated to Shaivism and Vaishnavism[20] Of these, the Shaiva samayam (religious tradition) was most influential in the Jaffna region. They held the Vedas and Agamas to be the bedrock of their beliefs. Navalar was born and raised in this background.[21]

The 18th and 19th century Tamils in India and Sri Lanka found themselves in the midst of intrusive Christian missionary activity and their polemics against Hinduism. According to D. Dennis Hudson, Tamil Saivas opposed Christian missions from the earliest days, based on indirect literary evidence. Printing press was not available to the Hindus in colonial era South Asia, and the Shaiva community used their oral tradition and handwritten notes for anti-missionary literature. Once Hindus gained access to printing presses, they mass-produced religious literature to condemn Christian propaganda in Jaffna and Chennai (then Madras) in the same way that Christian missionaries had used mass-produced literature to attack Hinduism. Arumuga Navalar was one of the first Tamils who became adept at this information war, and to undertake as his life's career the intellectual and institutional response of Saivism to Christianity in Sri Lanka and India.[21]

The 19th century Protestant missionaries from England and America in Jaffna believed that Hindu Shaivism was "evil" and in the struggle God and the Devil, they began to use publications such as The Morning Star to reveal the "falsity" of Hindu Shaivism and highlight texts such as the Skanda Purana in their schools for children. This angered the Shaiva community, who began their own efforts to counter the methods of the Christians.[21][22][19]

Circuit preaching

The popular Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil in Jaffna, destroyed in the late 15th century by the Portuguese and rebuilt in 1750 was targeted by Navalar as built not according to Agamic requirements

Using the preaching methods popularised by the Methodist preachers, he became a circuit preacher. His first secession was on 31 December 1847 at Vaitheeswaran Temple in Vannarpannai. 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.

Literary contributions

Murugan with his two wives. Arumuka Navalar published the Tirumurukarrupatai, a devotional poem dedicated to Murugan.

While in India he published two texts, one was an educational tool (teachers guide) Cüdãmani Nikantu, a sixteenth-century lexicon of simple verses and Soundarya Lahari, a Sanskrit poem in praise of the Primeval Mother Goddess Parvati, geared towards devotion. These were the first effort at editing and printing Tamil works for Hindu Saiva students and devotees.[31] 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).[31] The initial publications included Bala Patam (Lessons for Children) in 1850 and 1851. They were graded readers, simple in style, similar in organisation to those used in the Protestant schools. This was followed up by a third volume in 1860 and 1865. It consisted of thirty-nine 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 in 2007.[32]

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 12th-century hagiography of the Nayanars or Saivite saints.[32] In 1853 he published Nakkirar's Tirumurukarrupatai, with its own commentary. It was a devotional poem to Sri Murugan.[33] This was followed by local missionaries attacking Sri Murugan as an "immoral deity" for marrying two women. As a response Navalar published Radiant Wisdom explaining how the chronicles embody differing levels of meaning and that numerous characters in the Christian Bible, like King David, who were being claimed as examples of good conduct by the missionaries, were being depicted as having multiple wives and sexual partners themselves.[34] He also published literature of controversial nature, in a manner similar to how Christian missionaries were, in what Navalar called as "mocking" the Hindus. 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. The local Christians called for the one-sided censorship of such criticism and to shut down these printing presses.[34][35]

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 "Saiva dusana parihara" (The Abolition of the Abuse of Saivism).[34]

A Methodist missionary, who had worked in Jaffna, described the manual thirteen years after it had appeared as:

"Displaying an intimate and astonishing acquaintance with the Holy Bible. (the author) labors cleverly to show that the opinions and ceremonies of Jehovah's ancient people closely resembled those of Shaivism, and were neither more nor less Divine in their origin and profitable in their entertainment and pursuit. The notion of merit held by the Hindus, their practices of penance, pilgrimage, and lingam-worship, their ablutions, invocations, and other observances and rites, are cunningly defended on the authority of our sacred writings! That a great effect was thus produced in favour of Sivaism and against Christianity cannot be denied".

This manual was widely used in Sri Lanka and India; it was reprinted at least twice in the 19th century, and eight times by 1956.[34]

Arumuka Navalar Memorial hall near Nallur Kandaswamy temple, Jaffna

According to D. Dennis Hudson – a World Religions scholar,[36] Navalar's legacy began in Jaffna, but spread more broadly to Sri Lanka as well as Southern India. Navalar active efforts to set up two centres of reform made him influential in the Tamil community. He started two schools, two printing presses and campaigned against Christian missionary activity in colonial-era Jaffna and Madras Presidency.[37] 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 other Tamil scholars such as U. V. Swaminatha Iyer and C.W. Thamotharampillai continued.[37][30] 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.[38]

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.[29] Many of the students of these schools were successful in defending the Hindu Saiva culture not only against Christian missionary activities but also against neo-Hindu sects.[29] 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 Hindu Saiva heritage.[29] 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.[39]

Arumuka Navalar who identified himself with an idealised past, worked within the traditions of Hindu Saiva culture and adhered to the Hindu Saiva doctrine.[20][40] He was an unapologetic defender of Hindu Shaivism. Although he never cared much for his caste identity, as he considered all living beings as equal, his efforts led to the consolidation of traditional privileges of Hindu Saiva Vellala (farmers, landlords) and Karaiyar (warriors).[41][42] Although Navalar did not show much interest in Tamil politics and kept his focus on defending the Hindu Shaiva faith in Sri Lanka and South India, his aggressive preaching of a Hindu Saiva cultural heritage contributed to the growth Tamil nationalism.[43][44] The Tamil nationalist movement had an element that "Hindu Saiva Siddhanta preceded all others as the original Tamil religion", states Dennis Hudson.[39] Navalar's insistence on the Agamas as the criteria of Hindu 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.[45]

Navalar and his followers have been accused by some such as Sivathamby of focusing on the religious literature "in their anxiety", and "openly keeping away" from the secular Tamil literature, as they opposed the Christian missionaries.[19][46] According to David Shulman, however, Navalar was among the pioneers who first located and printed the predominantly non-religious Tamil Sangam literature in 1851 (Thirumurukaattuppadai, one of the Ten Idylls) and the earliest paper editions of a palm-leaf manuscript on the ancient Tamil grammar text, Tolkappiyam.[47] According to Kamil Zvelebil – a Tamil literature scholar, Navalar was one of the key persons who identified, edited and published the secular and religious classical Tamil literature before 1879. He also inspired his fellow Tamils to publish Hindu texts and their translations.[30][47]

His critics state that Navalar was an example of a "hegemonic caste" and his hidden agenda was to promote his own caste. Arumuga Navalar found support from the Brahmins and his own literati caste of Vellalas in the Tamil community, according to Wilson, because he accepted and recognized their caste-based status.[48][49] His supporters state that Navalar had no such hidden agenda, and his active efforts to reform attest to Navalar's commitment to end social vices such as alcoholism, violence against animals and others.[49] According to Peter Schalk, Navalar has also been accused of despising the Vaishnava and Jaina community.[49]

Navalar's legacy has provoked negative reactions and criticism from the political left of South Asia. Navalar, states Schalk, was a theologian who used indirect "metonymic language" with "coded words" that metaphorically supported the traditional caste system privileges within the colonial era administration. His supporters, in contrast, interpret the same "coded words" differently and view him as an "organic intellectual" committed to religious growth through reforms and one committed to the human rights and freedom struggle of the Tamil people.[50]

• Ambalavanar, Devadarshan Niranjan (2006). "Arumuga Navalar and the construction of a Caiva public in colonial Jaffna (Sri Lanka, India)". Harvard University. Retrieved 20 September 2011.
• Pfaffenberger, Bryan (1982), Caste in Tamil culture:The Religious foundations of Sudra domination in Tamil Sri Lanka, Syracuse University, ISBN 0-915984-84-9
• Rajesh (2003). "Research Theme: Mapping the processes of transmission, recovery and reception of classical Tamil literature in late 19th and early 20th century colonial Madras Presidency" (PDF). Institut français de Pondichéry (Department of Indology). Archived from the original (.pdf) on 17 July 2007. Retrieved 18 October 2007.
• Young, Richard; Jebanesan, S (1995). The Bible trembled : the Hindu-Christian controversies of nineteenth-century Ceylon. Vienna Inst. für Indologie. ISBN 3-900271-27-5. OCLC 243818092.

• Arumuka Navalar, a contemporary Christian Missionary perspective
• Arumuka Navalar, a Hindu perspective