Inventing the Dravidian Race Part - 2, De-Hinduising Tamil Traditions excerpts from the book 'Breaking India'

Since colonial times to this day there has been attempts to construct an ethnic-religious identity separate from the rest of India, and to find christian roots for this so-called 'Tamil religion'. This entailed manipulating  the interpretations of the literary core of Tamil tradition, which consists of three main elements: 

i) Thirukural, a classical Tamil text containing ethical literature that is very much a part of the Indian Smriti tradition; 

ii) Saiva Siddhantha, a Vedanta branch of Saiva philosophy; and

iii) A huge body of classical Tamil devotional literature.

 


Thirukural

As per recorded statements of Robert Caldwell, the so called saviour of the Tamil people noted on number of occasions that nothing ethical or civilised could come out of the Dravidian mind, either by itself or under the influence of the Vedic religion. But at the same time he did not want to credit Vedic tradition, so he chose another source. He attributed Thirukural to Jainism. Even if for a moment this is believed to be true, Caldwell in his attempt to create fake origins and sources forgot that Jainism is also part of the Vedic religious system which in effect puts the Thirukural within the Hindu tradition. At any rate Caldwell's claims have been demolished. G.U Pope another missionary maintained that Thiruvalluvar was under Christian influence (St. Thomas) that produced this literary work. This claim for decades has been rejected even from within the christian missionary community. However, it is being revived today by evangelical movements in Tamil Nadu.

Saiva Siddhantha

Dravidian scholars labour to position Saiva Siddhantha as something unique to Tamil spirituality and not linked to Hinduism although the traditional works of Saiva Siddhantha refers to Vedas as their authority. G.U Pope and other missionaries positioned it as a monotheistic approximation of Christianity but not exactly pure Christianity. They then attempted to hoodwink people into believing that they were following a polluted form of Christianity and they could help people in upgrading to pure Christianity via conversion.

Tamil Devotional Literature

All hymns written in Tamil speak of Siva as living in the Himalayas and even address him as 'Arya'. Evangelist and pro Dravidian scholars fabricated the origins and distorted the interpretations of their contents to suite their agendas.

Chrisitian historian Stephen Neill rejects Pope and Caldwell's fraudulent claim with a tone of empathy: 'Their brilliant imagination has produced a beautiful romance. The sober verdict of historical judgment must be that any Christian influence on Tamil literature is unlikely...what we see is devout minds working on similar problems and arriving independently at comparable results'.

Source:

Breaking India by Rajiv Malhotra and Aravindan Neelakandan