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 story-

writers.

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

religious fanatic , out to spread his sect. Were these

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 century and

belonged to a period 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.

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