Religious Intolerance and Persecution in South India N K Srinivasan Introduction

The period of 6th to 8th century saw several instances of religious intolerance and persecution in South India, especially in the highly religious milieu of Tamil Nadu state. The religious strife was mainly between the Jains,the Buddhists and the Hindus who were living peacefully for the most part from the first century BCE as shown by several records and literary references. Things changed from the seventh century when the Jains were getting the upper hand in Kanchipuram region---the Pallava Kingdom. A state known for tolerance and open discussion among these religious groups, the Pallavas supported three well developed towns in their capital of Kanchipuram---Siva Kanchi,Vishnu Kanchi and Buddha Kanchi.There were hundreds of temples for Shiva ,Vishnu and Lord Buddha....Where the Buddha temples vanished? The Pallave kings were Vishnu worshippers...The Buddhists had a peaceful time along with the Hindus and the Jains. The Jains were the majority in the Chola kingdom, the region of the Kaveri river delta.It is stated that the Jains were intolerant of the Saivite sects of the Hindus and destroyed the temples of Siva. The temples of Jains multiplied. In the 7th century, the Saivite saints----Appar or Thirunavukarasar and Gnana-sambandar in particular revived the Saivite sect, by converting the jain kings to Saivism. Saivism became the most important Hindu sect in Chola and Pandya kingdoms...Then the religious intolerance towards the Jains and the Buddhists became intense and several instances of persecutions started. This article is a brief account of a few instances which are well chronicled but

generally swept under the carpet by the historians or

rubbished by Hindu zealots, religious leaders and storywriters. It should be noted that the Hindus themselves were sharply divided into two sects---Saivites or Shiva worshippers and Vaishnavites or Vishnu worshippers---each group claiming that their own personal god,namely, Shiva or Vishnu is superior to the other. Though Hinduism is rooted in the concept of One Absolute being or entity called 'Brahman' permeating the Universe, when it comes to worshipping a deity in formal ways in a temple or altar, differences could emerge leading to bitter quarrel and even violent fights. These fights persisted upto 12 th or 13th century...that is ,upto the time of Sri Ramanuja --a Vaishnavite leader who had to flee from the Chola kingdom [which was ruled by a ruthless Saiva ruler ] to the hilly tracts near Mysore ruled by a Jain king.[There were several Chola and Pandya kings who were tolerant of other religions and sects.Raja Raja Chola encouraged a Chinese prince to build a Buddha temple with monastery in Nagapattinam....more about this later.] Sources for this study The main sources quoted by most historians and religious scholars are the canons of Saivites,called "Thirumurais" which includes 'thevaram',thiruvasagam' and other hymnals or poems of saivite saints.An important source is also the work of Sekkhizar who wrote "Peria-Puranam" which chronicles the lives of Saiva saints ---sixty three in number--called "nayanmars". The merit of this work is that Sekkizar wrote nearly a hundred years later and could assess the events with more objectivity and was not directly affected by the political circumstances that influenced the saints who wrote the canonical texts. Historical texts such as the "History of South India" by K A Nilakanta Sastry [a noted historian and former professor of history at the University of Madras]( KAN) and A L Basham's " The wonder that was India" provide valuable summary though they tend to understate the religious

atrocities of those times , mainly because these authors start with the tacit assumption that religious tolerance always prevailed in India and indeed religious tolerance was an important aspect of Indian polity. One can also refer to other texts by R C Majumdar, S. N Dasgupta and

others which contain less information on these points. Gnanasambandar's time and impalement of Jains

The Chola kingdom was initially a Jain dominated country and the Saivite leader at that time,Appar was tortured in many ways. According to the legends, by the grace of Lord Shiva, he remained unscathed and it so happened that he cured the Chola king of his serious illness and the king

embraced Saivism. Following that, the king ordered to build several Shiva temples or renovate the old ones.The Jains moved to other neighboring countries. The story is different when it came to the Pandyan kingdom. This king also supported Jains. Gnana sambander, a young boy with divine attributes, undertook to visit the hostile country to help the saivites and encountered the King and his Jain courtiers. He challenged the Jain clergy for wordy debates and special 'tests" which could prove

the supremacy of either Saivism or Jainism. For instance, in one test, palm leaves with verses inscribed on them would be made to float in the river Vaigai which flows in Madurai, the Pandyan capital. The palm leaves that float againt the river current are considered victorious. Such tests ,they concluded, would settle which religion is the right one to follow. In these tests, due to the divine powers of Gnana Sambander,as claimed by Saivite scholars, saivism won and Jainism was defeated. As a mark of this defeat, the Jains were ,not only excommunicated or asked to flee from the country, but 8000 Jains were killed by impalement---a common punishment meted out ,in those days, to criminals. A Tamil pundit told me that this punishment was not given

by the converted king, but accepted by the Jains themselves as a precondition---that , if they were defeated, they would kill themselves [self-immolation]by impalement. This reasoning is clearly unethical because even if the jains had been defeated according to the rules of the debate, the benevolent King, following the tenets of Saivite faith, could have sent them out and prevented them from impalement or given other forms of punishment such as banishing them to a remote island....Why let this incident happen? This barbaric act which is well chronicled, has been explained away in many texts/sources by clever arguments. KAN states that though that peroid in history was full of religious strife, events such as this might not have happened or might be an exaggerrated account. In other words, KAN refuses to believe that such things could happen in his peace-loving Tamil Nadu. Unfortunately, Sekkhzhar in Peria Puranam is more candid and chastises the great Saivite saint Gnana-sambandar for being a silent spectator to this atrocity of impalement of Jains. How could a divinely ordained Saint could encourage such scenes. One word from him to the King would have pardoned the Jains --- an act of charity that would be more befitting to the Tamil culture nurtured by Avvaiyar and Thiruvalluvar. Instead of choosing to be a peacemaker, the saintly Gnanasambandar, a man of God, became a Were these

religious fanatic , out to spread his sect.

religious zealots merely blind in their fervour to propagate their faith and lost their humanity? This incident is also condemned by several historians in our times---for instance, M Rajamanickam in his book on "History of Pallavas" mentions this incident and decries the attitude of Gnana-sambandar. Persecution of Buddhists While Jains suffered much at the hands of Saivites, the Buddhists were presecuted and driven out by Vaishnavites

and their kings. After the Pallava empire was ransacked and ruled by the Cholas, the religious harmony that prevailed at Kanchi was lost.The Buddhists had to flee this country.Along with Kalinga refugees, many went to Sri Lanka [former Ceylon] to settle there. The Buddhist temples [viharas] which were in large numbers in Kanchi,were loaded with gold and gem-stone ornaments.They were taken away by the Cholas. [Much later ,in the 11th and 12th centuries , the Cholas and the Cheras used to periodically raid the Buddhist temples in Sri Lanka and plundered them.] The coastal town of Nagapattinam was an important Buddhist centre with a flourishing monastery where Buddhist scholars were trained. This centre was known as the Budhhist University even in first century or during the Roman times. In the 8th century, the last of the Alwars, Thirumangai Alwar,was a local chieftain and the army commander for the Chola king.He wrote beautiful hymns, the largest number of them after Nammalvar,nearly 1000 verses, in the Vaishnava canon,called "Nalayira Divya Prabandam" the 4000 verses sacred text for Vaishnavas. [These 4000 verses, a collection of fine peoms by the 12 Alwars, draw mainly from the stories of Avatars or incarnations of Vishnu, especially Krishna,Rama and Vamana and contains highly philosophic concepts and hence called "Tamil Veda".They were collected by Nathamuni around 850 AD and therefore the Alwars belonged to a period before 9th belonged to a period century and

from 5th century to 8the century.

The poems were later codified by Alavandar ,grandson of Nathamuni.] It should be noted that the first three Alwars , Pey, Bootham and Poigai , were pure souls which accepted both Shiva and Vishnu as their Lord. They could see no difference between Haran ,riding a rishaba or buffalo and Hari, Lord Vishnu gliding down on an eagle,Garuda. They belonged to 5th century. But things changed when we study

the hymns of later Alwars. They showed that only Lord Vishnu is the Supreme Being or Paramatman and Lord Shiva or Lord Brahma had inferior position in the pantheon of gods. Only Lord Vishnu is fit to be worshipped by a pure

or staunch Vaishnava.!The Alwars maintaned that it was Vishnu who created Brahma and Shiva. This led to schism in the Hindu community of those years,especially in the religiously advanced region of Tamil Nadu. Bitter quarrels emanted from this land between Saivaites and Vaishnavites. The latter Alwars, with the exception of Perialwar and the lady Alwar, Andal or Gotha, daughter of Perialwar, spoke disparagingly about the Bhuddists and Jains. In fact there are several verses in the canon of 4000 verses, directly attacking these two religious groups. The antogonism towards Buddhists took serious turn in the 8th century---the period when the last two Alwars--Thondar-adipodi Alwar and Thirumangai Alwar were singing their hymns. Tondar-adipodi,one of the greatest saints and devotees of Lord Vishnu and the SriRangam temple, even goes to the extent of saying that "it would be better even to cut off the heads of Buddhists and Jains" in one of his verses,dedicated to Lord Ranganatha,the presiding deity of Sri Rangam temple. [Verse 8 in 'Thirumalai". A translation is as follows:"O Lord of Sri Rangam! The hate filled heretics, mundas and the god-less Sakhyas [Buddhists] speak irresponsibly about you,that itself will be their doom.If the opportunity arises,chopping off thier heads right there is the right karma for me."] One cannot imagine how a pure devotee of the benevolent Lord could stoop to this level.Some have argued that it is only an agry outburst of a sincere devotee and could not be taken seriously! . In modern times, this Alwar would be accused of inciting communal violence. With such outbursts from th e Alwars, the Buddhists were driven out of their homes and their

temples were plundered and destroyed.How could one explain the total disappearance of all the Buddhist viharas from Buddha Kanchi town in Kanchipuram. An important incident in this connection is the destruction of the Buddhist temple in Nagapattinam.This temple,associated with a large monastery, had a Buddha image or icon of solid gold. Thirumangai Alwar, in his capacity as the commander of Chola army, ransacked this temple and took away the gold image and used this gold for decorating the walls in Sri Rangam temple.This incident has been mentioned in several texts. [There are quaint stories how the Alwar entered the temple through the roof top and let one young boy to drop inside and cut asunder the support for the gold statue of Budhha.]It is a moot point whether Thirumangai Alwar [a.k.a Thirumangai Mannan or King] stole this image or lifted it out of a temple after raiding it. [It is also possible that the large number of monks residing in the temple were forced to leave or embrace Hinduism.]Some scholars glibly remark that such ransacking of temples for booty was common in those days and so the Alwar did not do anything outragious.! Some devotees explain away that this Alwar did this act mainly for the sake of embellishing the temple at Srirangam and not for personal gain and hence his act is not to be condemned. [Note: There were two Buddhist temples built in Nagapattinam . The first one was built by a chinese king at the time of the Pallava king Rajasimha who ruled from 690 to 728 CE. A second temple, a larger one,called 'Chudamani Vihara' was built with the patronage of Raja Raja Chola by a Java {Indonesia]king around 1006 C E. This temple was delapidated and destroyed by Jesuit priests

when Nagapatnam was a Dutch colony. Recent archealogical studies by Dr R Nagaswamy's team revealed nearly 350 Buddha images around Nagapatnam.Thus this city was a great Buddhist centre in Tamil Nadu.

There was a earlier one built in Emperor Ashoka's time. We are not sure which temple was plundered by Thirumangai Alvar, most probably the one built in Pallava's time.] Though I do not wish to detract from the greatness of these two Alwars as great devotees of the Lord, Vishnu or Ranganatha of Sri Rangam and did great service to Vaishnavism by their soul-stirring hymns , the fact remains that they were far from the pious , peace-loving servants of God. There were religious fanatics who also weilded power due to thier influence over the local kings. Many scholars agree that Thirumangai Alwar, though a great poet, was a strong bigot and tored down other religions and Saivism by clever arguments.They were interested in their narrow religious sectarian views which they upheld for others to follow. They were more interested in propagating their narrow faith rather than love humanity as children of One God.! [Thirumangai was a contemporary of Gnana Sambandar.The latter invited him to Sirkali and made him sing in the praise of Lord Shiva. Gnanasambandar did appreciate the poetical skills of Alwar and gave him a vel or lance as a

memento.The Alwar carries this vel in many images found in temples.] Adi Shankara and Buddhism Adi Shankara , the great proponent of Advaita lived at the time of these later alwars.His period is often stated as 788 to 820 CE. Thus Adi Shankara could have been also familiar with these atrocities. Adi Shankara however vanquished Buddhist scholars with his debates .He is usually credited with the destruction of Buddhist faith in India, the land of its birth, but it should be noted that Buddhism was getting beaten from several quarters. Religious Bigotry between saivites and vaishnavites While religious harmony prevailed in Kanchi, when even jain monks wrote commentaries on vedantic texts, all that disappeared in the 8th century.The saivites centred around

the Chidambaram temple while the Vaishnavites gravitated towards the Sri Rangam temple. Both the temples were richly endowed by local kings and decorated with gold plating of towers and sanctun-sanctorum and enriched with ornaments for presiding deities. During this period,it was common for a Shaiva King to persecute the Vaishnava pontiffs and devotees. This continued from 8th century to 12 the century when Sri Ramanuja emerged as the Supreme pontiff of Vaishnavas with his base at Sri Rangam. In Sri Ramanuja's time, the local king was hostile to his

disciples and the legend says that the eyes of his disciple Kuresa was gouged by the fanatics of the king.Sri Ramanuja fled the country with his small band of disciples and crossing the Ooty hills, took asylum at a Jain king's

small kingdom in Melkote near Mysore.The king Bitte Deva was indeed an ardent jain but was converted later to Vasihnavism by Sri Ramanuja. Now this pontiff could build several temples around Melkote and establish vaishnava communities from local people. Many records say that Vishnuvardana, the new name for the Jain king ,helped to build these temples and used the stone masonry of broken Jain temples. Sri Ramanuja's team also built several nice temple tanks out of these stones for the local population.[It should be noted that wife of this king,Shantala, a famous dancer ,remained a Jain and supported Jain temples/monasteries.!][It should be added that Vaishnavas were ,in general, above caste prejudices and many saints,including Alwars, belonged to lower castes.Sri Ramanuja even instituted the system of temple entry for the outcastes one day in a year....a kind of social reform to be emulated by Mahatma Gandhi in 1920's.]Sri Ramanuja remained in Melkote for about 12 years and returned to Sri Rangam after the ruler changed. The schism between Saivites and Vaishnavites had continued in many ways. One common way is to make derogatory remarks on the other sect and make ridiculous comments on Vishnu or Shiva. Unfortunately these narrow minded teachers/puraniks forgot the legend that Parvathy, the

consort of Lord Shiva, is indeed a sister of Lord Vishnu and in fact it was Vishnu who gave away [ [performed kanyadhan] Parvathy to Shiva during the wedding. The bigotry and animosity between the two sects had considerably decreased in the past few decades but still persists in local communities and among scholars of both the sects. The religious intolerance described here is indeed a small aberration in the larger context of the religious traditions found in India. But the intolerance described in this article should be mentioned and not swept under the carpet in the literature dealing with religious history or Hinduism. When one reads about the atrocities perpetrated by Mughal rulers in the North and Malik Kafur in the south, one should recall that religious bigotry and persecution did prevail in earlier times too, which many historians loathe to admit and sweep under a carpet. References 1 K A Neelakanta Sastry History of South India ---Oxford Univ Press 2 A L Basham--- The wonder that was India 3 M Rajamanickam---- History of Pallavas--a Tamil text 4 Swami Ramakrishnananda ---Life of Sri Ramanuja-Ramakrishna Math ,Chennai 5 Srirama Bharati --- The sacred book of four Thousand --Sri Sadagopan Pathasala-Jaladampet,Chennai 6 S M S Chari---Philosophy and theistic mysticism of the Alvars---Motilal Banarsidass--Delhi 7 John Keay--India-A history---Grove Press,N Y. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------