Affluent Savvy
Affluent Savvy
Photo: Armin Rimoldi
By the time later puranas were written (eighth century CE) the change was complete. For the high tradition, defined by Brahmins, Shiva became a vegetarian god.
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Read More »The author, who asked the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh to study the Tamil Saivite texts, should have done it herself. Had she done it, she would have found that in the Sangam literature itself (300 BCE to 300 CE) Shiva appears as a great god with all the characteristics with which he is venerated today. If one is to make a compilation of all the attributes of Shiva as presented in Sangam literature, then this is the picture we get: he sits under the banyan tree imparting Vedic wisdom; from his mouth emanates the four Vedas; he has three eyes and a blue throat; he lives in the Himalayas with his consort Uma and tamed Ravana when the demon tried lifting the Himalayas; he is an archer with fiery arrows who destroyed the three demonic worlds with the Himalayas as the bow and the cosmic serpent as his bow string; he has five heads and from him came Muruga of six heads; He is both a consummate lover and also a great yogi. He has three eyes and eight hands. (Prof M Shanmugam Pillai, International Institute of Tamil Studies, 1996, pp.87-95) The interesting thing is that his worship is so ingrained in the Tamil society that his features are used as similes and metaphors when referring to the ‘secular’ aspects of life. For example, when a specific king among the three Tamil kings was to be praised, he is compared to the third eye of Shiva. All these show how much the Rudra-Shiva imagery is integrated into the Tamil cultural matrix. Tamil literature also shows that the worship of varied types – from shamanic to ascetic to yogic and tantric – were all practised in the devotion of not only Shiva but also his son, Skanda-Muruga. While in the Sangam literature we see the Vedic system itself having varied worshipping modes, gradually, we see vegetarianism becoming a venerated social norm. Contrary to the Hindu-phobic, where the Jain-Buddhists are hailed as egalitarian, rebellious, heterodox systems against the Vedic system of social hierarchy and stratification, in Tamil society we are able to see diametrically different dynamics. The Jains insisted that vegetarianism be the most venerated of all social norms and regarded communities involved in hunting and fishing as of inferior birth. Classic Sangam literature, Thirukkural, which refers explicitly to Vedic deities like the avatars of Vishnu and Sree, has a separate chapter on abstaining from meat. Saivism by the fifth century had produced canonical scriptures which necessitate vegetarianism. Thirumoolar’s Thirumantiram, a yogic text of Tamil Saivism, says that those who indulge in meat-eating would be tied and thrown into hell fire. (199).
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Learn More »Yet, the greatness of Hindu pluralism insists throughout that both vegetarian and non-vegetarian worships of Shiva are recognised as equally pleasing to Him. Gnana Sambandar (seventh century) says that Shiva is common to those who consider meat eating as abhorrent and who offer him meat with love. (Thirumurai.3.53.9) Interestingly, in Tamil Nadu, those who spearheaded the reform movement to stop the ritual killing of animals in temples were mostly non-Brahmin seers like Ramalinga Vallalar and Thiru Muruga Kirupananda Vaariyar. The dogmatic association of vegetarianism with ‘high religion of Brahmins’ is just that - historically false, untenable dogma. So, when for a specific ritual of Shiva abstinence from meat is required, the devotees of Shiva can understand that as natural and not imposed vegetarianism. But then, what value do a few truths of a pagan religion like Hinduism hold to Marxist vested interests? Just like human beings fall prey to the murderous lust of Marxist storm troopers in the Stalinist killing fields of Kerala, facts, truths and the high poetry of pagan Hinduism fall prey to academic storm troopers of Marxist variety. Ultimately, the hatchet job on Shiva by a scholar on religion shows how degraded the academic standards of present Indic studies are because of Marxist stranglehold. It also shows that now it is the Hindutvaites who carry on their shoulders the responsibility of reviving Indic studies and push it to the standards of excellence which it had under scholars like Ananda Coomarasamy, Stella Kramrisch and Kapila Vatsyayan. We need to create such schools of holistic Indology throughout India, in all educational institutions, at all levels, on a war footing. We do not have the luxury to indulge in false pride and pseudoscientific claims.
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