freinds, 1.earlier some members opined that siva was not mentioned in sangam literature. this is not true. siva was very much mentioned by kabilar,baranar and nakkeerar. they were compiled into the 11th thirumurai. 2. the fact is kazhumalam(sirkazhi) is an important town in karikalan's period.he was cgarlanded by the royal elephant there. the term kazhuvu-malam is an important term in saiva siddhantham. that is getting rid of three malams. 3. this means saiva sidhhantham was highly estabilished durig karikalan's period. this means the earlier view that siva is not mentioned in sangam literature is a biased statement. 4. it only adds suspicion to the teory that sangams were influenced by jain monks of kalabhra period who wanted to destoy saiva works. 5. the saiva revival started with the unearthing valuable works like thirumanthiram -which was hidden in the gomuktheeswarar shrine in thiru-avadu-thurai by sambandar.
hence freinds please read 11th thirumurai before commenting about siva's origins in tamil country. in my opinion saivism was highly estabilished in cholamandalam by 500 BC. gandhi
the sangam age is a rather hazy period in tamil history to many of us. please let us know the period, the major kings , the events and supportive evidences including literary ones.
Sangam ages according to scholars have two stages, early stages of the 8 anthologies(ettuthogai) and later 10 anthologies(pathupaatu). Even in the 8 - Paripatal and Kalithokai are considered later works.
But the extent of the spread of the religion is unknown. As for as Early sangam age is concerned, the popular gods were the King Himself, Murugan, Mal and Kottravai.
But surely other Gods were there due to the settlement of Early Brahmins. Kapilar is Brahmin. Dr.Hart says there are two stages of settlement of Brahmins in South. One before BC, where the settlement was low and the Brahmins adopted to the Ingenious customs of the Tamils.(like doing death ceremonies which included cutting the body with sword). There are references in Sangam poems which brings out the difference in religion/philosophy of the Native Tamils and the Brahmins. The Native Tamils believed in the code of Maram and Brahmins believed in the code of Aram. There are lot of chances they brought their gods with them.
The other problem historically is that, we are not sure which custom influenced the present one. Like Natukkal worship has heavily inspired the Lingam worship. The worship of the King as god has heavily influenced the customs of southern Hinduism ( waking up the god with songs,bathing the god, putting new dress, taking god around the town,taking him to sleep ,serving food - which was earlier done to the king considering him as a god).
Even philosophies of the Bakthi both Shaiva and Vaishavana philosophies are heavily influenced by the Sangam agam genre. This has been discussed by A.K.Ramanujan in his Hyms of Drowning book. Small essay on this was written by Dr.Kannan as guest blog in my site. http://karkanirka.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/guestblog1/
So the problem exists whether Shiva Shiddantha existed as separate philosophy during sangam age or whether it got heavily inspired from native Tamil culture. As now there is no conclusive evidence on this issue to my knowledge.
If there is any specific questions, I will try to refer any possible answers.What ever I have written now is from memory and hence no concrete reference included.
re: why some refernces- the whole lot of 11th thirumurai is full of sangam age poets only.
> But the extent of the spread of the religion is unknown. As for as > Early sangam age is concerned, the popular gods were the King Himself, > Murugan, Mal and Kottravai. re: this i cant agree because of the body of literature and the fact karikalan period capital had a close by town named kazhu-malam. this term is unique to saiva philosophy.
> But surely other Gods were there due to the settlement of Early > Brahmins. Kapilar is Brahmin. Dr.Hart says there are two stages of > settlement of Brahmins in South. One before BC, where the settlement > was low and the Brahmins adopted to the Ingenious customs of the > Tamils.(like doing death ceremonies which included cutting the body > with sword). There are references in Sangam poems which brings out the
re: this is very much agreeable to me . i also think so.
> difference in religion/philosophy of the Native Tamils and the > Brahmins. The Native Tamils believed in the code of Maram and Brahmins> believed in the code of Aram. There are lot of chances they brought> their gods with them.> The other problem historically is that, we are not sure which custom
> influenced the present one. Like Natukkal worship has heavily inspired> the Lingam worship.
re: lingam concept was prevalent in afganistan during kushan period. i do not think lingam originated in tamilagam -eventhough it became popular here.
The worship of the King as god has heavily > influenced the customs of southern Hinduism ( waking up the god with > songs,bathing the god, putting new dress, taking god around the > town,taking him to sleep ,serving food - which was earlier done to the> king considering him as a god).
re: this is a good line of observation
> Even philosophies of the Bakthi both Shaiva and Vaishavana > philosophies are heavily influenced by the Sangam agam genre. This has> been discussed by A.K.Ramanujan in his Hyms of Drowning book. Small> essay on this was written by Dr.Kannan as guest blog in my site.> http://karkanirka.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/guestblog1/ > So the problem exists whether Shiva Shiddantha existed as separate > philosophy during sangam age or whether it got heavily inspired from > native Tamil culture. As now there is no conclusive evidence on this > issue to my knowledge.
re: dr.k.loganthan, malaysia meykandar@yahoogroups.com has large body of literature on this. he says saiva doctrines originated in mesopotomia and had come down to south india 3500 years ago.
>>re: why some refernces- the whole lot of 11th thirumurai is full of sangam age poets only.
This very disputable. Various scholars have pointed out existence of poets of identical names. Auvaiyar, Nakkirar , Akathiyar are classic examples. The pointer here is the language used. Language used in each century is different from the following centuries. According to the language pointers only Majority of poems in Akam, Puram, Kurnthokai,Narrinai, Patthiturpatu , Ainkurunooru are the oldest available thats is around 1- 3rd century AD , which had least influence of Sanskrit on them. Even in these anthologies there are some later poems,since all these anthologies were compiled only in 8th century AD.
> re: lingam concept was prevalent in afganistan during kushan period. > i do not think lingam originated in tamilagam -eventhough it became > popular here.
Even I don't say Lingam worship originated here. I am only saying the Nadukkal Tradition has heavily influenced the Linga worship in Tamil Nadu.
It would be really helpful if you could give what all sangam poems you have taken into considerations. reading the orginal poems would give me better idea of the issue we are talking about.