Brahmanical Influence

The context was the decline of trade and urbanism and the emergence of an agrarian order dominated by the Brahmanical Varna hierarchy, which had not consolidated itself in the early historical period. The change may be seen even from the Fifth Century A.D., marked by the earliest land grants to brahmanas and temples.^[1] The land distribution and control through such institutions represented by brahmadeyas and temple-nucleated settlements, to oust the so called heterodox faiths. Brahmanical religions achieved this change through a process of acculturation by incorporating popular and folk elements in worship and ritual, and by assimilating tribal and ethnic groups into the social order through the temple.

The societal change visible from the Sixth Century A.D., was the establishment of the Varna hierarchy, in which the Kshatriya status was assigned to the new ruling families and the traditional ruling families, by the fabrication of impressive genealogies in the prasastis which were composed by the Brahmanas in return for royal patronage and land grants, with the Kshatriya and the Brahmana at the apex of the power structure. The rest of society was placed at the lower levels of the stratified order, with a ritual ranking around the temple. The temple was not only the major institutional base for mobilizing and redistributing economic resources, but also an integrative force and orbit for social organization and the ranking of all the other occupational groups and tribal and ethnic groups of forests and hills.^[2]

It is in the the Kaveri region that this process is traceable through a rich corpus of early Tamil classics and the transitional phase of the spread of Puranic-Brahmanical tradition. Bhakti was propagated through the vernacular language and idiom in their emotionally powerful hymns expressing devotion to a personal god housed in the temple. The Tamil hymnal literature expresses a protest against orthodox Vedic Brahmanism, and they were the recipients of impressive land grants from the ruling families. The temple, therefore, became the focal point of social organization and ritual ranking among various caste, occupational groups and ethnic or tribal people. All of there were brought into the sphere of temple society through Bhakti as the legitimating ideology for socio-political organization. These temples were controlled and managed by Brahmana land holders, non-Brahmana or Vellala land holders of the Ur and the Nadu.^[3] (Agrarian settlement and peasant region respectively)

Viewed from various points, the post-Sangam and pre-seventh century periods were one of ascendancy for the ‘non-orthodox’ creeds. The seventh century religious developments -which are generally regarded in conventional histories as a revival of orthodox forms led to the serious conflict between the two in the royal and urban centers. This revival was achieved, it is said, through Bhakti, which popularized the puranic religions.

Royal conversion was the symbol of change and hence central to this conflict. The Bhakti ideal emanated and spread in a context of social differentiation where conflicts centred around patronage and social dominance as seen in Kanchi and Madurai. Presumably, the ideology of Bhakti throwing open the path of salvation to all, irrespective of caste, imbibed the ideals of the ‘non-orthodox creeds, that is, birth and caste as being no obstacles to salvation, and thereby succeeded in rooting out ‘heretical’ beliefs.’^[4]

Thus the concept of Bhakti acted in two distinct ways in establishing the Brahmanical temple as a pivot for the enactment of the various roles of society. One was by encountering the increasing influence of the heterodox religions, which led to their ultimate decline of subordination. In fact, Jainism, which was more widespread and influential than Buddhism, became as much a part of puranic religion and temple based cult as Vaishnavism and Saivism were. The other was more significant, in that it induced messianic expectations among the lower orders of the Varna-based society through the ideal of salvation.

The temple based Bhakti was also capable of developing into a transcendental norm and hence, acquired a centrality that provided a focus for achieving uniformity among different religions and sects, given their differences. There is, however, no evidence of royal initiative or participation in building canonical temples till the end of the ninth century A.D.^[5] On the basis of epigraphic evidences, it would be possible to show that both Saiva and Vaishnava Bhakti centers are known only through the records of Parantaka I and Aditya I.^[6]

The temple was a determining factor in the expansion of the sacred and temporal domains, which were stupendous royal projects and which mark the apex of the Bhakti movement.^[7] The temple, as the major channel of sociopohtical communication, conveyed the royal orders through inscriptions. Equally important was the fact that it became the venue of the enactment of plays that narrated the king’s achievements both in sacred and the political spheres. Temple entertainments included music and dance. Festivals instituted by the royal family on birth occasions and on their victories, and the setting up of royal images in addition to these Bhakti saints also served to glorify royal power.

There are records of reciprocal flow of money, gold and land gifts to the temple, and their investment with local institutions in different regions.^[8] Auditing of temple accounts and reorganisation the of the redistributive system through royal officers suggest royal penetration into local organization through intervention in the working of the ideological apparatuses.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Nagaswamy, R., ‘An Outstanding Epigraphical Discovery in Tamil Nadu’ in Fifth International Seminar on Tamil Studies, Madurai, 1981,pp. 2-69 and 70.

[2]:

Champakalakshmi, R., op.cit., p.446.

[3]:

Subramaniam, N., op.cit., pp. 361 -372.

[4]:

Champakalakshmi, R., Socio-Religious Movements in Tamil Nadu A.D., 600-1300, National lectures, UGC 1978-1979 (unpublished),pp.4-8.

[5]:

Swamy, B.G.L., ‘The Date of Tevaram Trio:An Analysis and Reappraisal’, in Bulletin of the Traditional Culture, Madras, January-June l975, pp 119-180.

[6]:

Bala Subramaniam, S.R., Chola Temples, New Delhi, 1971, p.141.

[7]:

Champakalakshmi, R., Vaishnava Iconography in Tamil Country, New Delhi, 1981, pp 239-244.

[8]:

S.I.I., Vol.II, No.66.