Thread by @Indumakalktchi

Mapping Tamil Saivism on to Dravidian Christianity in TN

In the very first attempt by the American Missionary Seminary in Batticotta Sri Lanka , a fundamentalist Protestant group working amoung Tamils ,

used its Tamil English journal “Morning Star” to attack saivites and Tamils as living in darkness, and also claimed it’s but by the Aryan-Brahmins and it had nothing of value.

This had proved to be counterproductive as Saivite scholars like Arumuga Navalar effectively countered it.

There fore the strategy was changed and G.U.Pope considered it the most attractive target for Christian appropriation.

In 1900 he brought his English version of “Thiruvasagam ”,he said both bible and Siddhanta taught that there is one supreme God,and not a mere meta physical abstraction of unity,as in Buddhism and Jainism,it also gave importance to the notion of Guru which Pope equated to Christ.

Pope is remembered with gratitude by many Tamils for translating into English the devotional hymns of Manichavasagar, how ever Pope’s clearly revels his elaborate evangelical intention to map saivism to Hebrew psalms and Christian poetry.

When ever Pope finds something positive he wanted to show it as resembling Christianity, and what ever HE finds corrupt is blamed on Hindhu superstition

Pope was ruthless when it came to eliminating every trace of Hinduism that contradicts Christian theology.

M S purunalingam Pillai a convert published a book “A premier of Tamil Literature “ ( 1904) .. he writes “ - || This high and noble system ,based on Agamas or Saiva scriptures, was corrupted by puranic writers was to reconcile the Vedas.....

The Tamilar therefore,are in duty bound to throw off the puranic veil which dims their vision and to realise the old conception of HIm ( Jesus Chris ) as enshrined in the ancient Tamil poems based on Tamilian Agamas ||-

I kid u not, this is an actual text book for grad in TN.

The subsequent theories discusses the great possibility to discern the hidden truth to claim saivism and vaishnavism to early Christianity.

This led to growing movement of Tamil based non-Vedic rituals, being spearheaded by a section of Dravidianist.

One such popular movement is run by Sathyaved Murugan. He popularised concept of Tamil marriages where Vedic rituals are rejected. By claiming the word “vivaha “ means abduct.

This also led to the DMK government changing the Tamil New year from Chitrai to Thai, which MK had explicitly mapped it to Christian saivia Siddantha .

Source : Breaking India
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