Tamil mythology

Tamil mythology means the stories and sacred narratives belonging to the Tamil people. This body of mythology is a mix of elements from the pre-Hindu Dravidian and Indus Valley cultures with Vedic and orthodox Hindu aspects of the Sanskritic tradition.

Early traditions

In the Neolithic period, the Tamils were a herding, nature-oriented culture with a nature-based mythology of deities of the land. For example, Murugan was a major god of the hunt who battled evil forces (like the Greek Dionysus or Hindu Kṛṣṇa, he was often accompanied by a following of beautiful young women) and Ventan was a god responsible for rain and general well-being. A tradition of ecstatic worship involving sexuality and intoxication apparently existed among the early Tamils. In sacred places a liṇga-like pillar called a "kantu" represented the deity.

With the arrival in South India of the Jains, Buddhists, and Hindu Brahmin in the third century BCE, the myths and religious practices of the Tamils became somewhat codified for the next thousand years.

Medieval and modern traditions

In the eighth century, the land of the Tamils became the setting for a particularly devotional form of Hinduism marked by the works of poet-saints, especially followers of Śiva, called Nāyaṇārs, and followers of Viṣṇu, called Āḷvārs. Among the most famous of the Āḷvārs was Nammāḷvār, who lived in the late ninth and early tenth centuries, and wrote especially about Viṣṇu's avatar Kṛṣṇa, and espoused the beliefs of Vedānta. The most notable of the Nāyanārs was the ninth century Māṇikāvacakar, who stressed the ecstatic aspect of the worship of Śiva. The poet-saints took stories from the Sanskrit texts and gave them Tamil settings and a peculiarly Tamil sense of the closeness that could be achieved between the given deity and the worshipper.

The late eighth and early ninth century was also the period of Śaṇkara, who preached Advaita Vedānta, a form of Hinduism that stresses the absoluteness of Brahman. By the tenth century, the person of the Goddess (often in her aspect as Kālī), who from ancient times had been a popular deity, had regained a position of equality with Śiva and Viṣṇu, a position she holds to this day. Other popular deities who retain positions of importance in Tamil mythology with Śiva, Viṣṇu, and the Goddess are Śiva's sons Murugan and Gaṇeśa.

The twelfth century saw a flowering of Tamil literature, particularly featuring the poet Kampaṇ's "Ramavataram", the Tamil version of the Rāmāyaṇa epic.

Since the sixteenth century, a tradition of stories about the childhoods of the gods has been a significant aspect of Tamil mythology. Tamil mythology remains one of the richest and most complex narrative traditions in India.

ee also

*The Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature
*Sangam literature
*Manimekhalaï
*Aṇṇaṇmār
*Catakaṇtarāvaṇaṇ

References