civilizational ardour

[nanda chandran]

S Mathuresan writes :

>nanda candran rplies:
>If classical Sangam age is between anywhere 500 BC to 500 AD, it is the age
>of the most vigorous philosophical development in Samskrutam literature. It
>was the age of the later Upanishads, the Buddha, Mahavira, the Astika and
>the nAstika schools. Where is the basis for your claim?
>

>>   Exactly. Among the philosophical works like Upanishads, etc.,
>>we do not find a body of lit. paralleling Sangam works.

The answer to this question is deeply rooted in the history and progress of
the
Vedic religion and the caste system itself.

In most cultures you'll find that the God is worshipped - solely because
he's
considered as an *other* - an entity seperate from the worshipper. The
history of
the world reveals that God has been identified with nature, the Sun, with
animals,
with warrior heroes etc

In such worship, it is necessary for the worshipper to address the Lord in
some
way of praise to gain his favor. This is the origin of devotional worship.

This can be observed in the Samhitas parts of the shruti, where hymns are
sung
to gain the favour of Indra, Agni and Vayu. To further please the Lord
sacrifices
too were carried out.

Then we've the mystics of the Upanishads, who realize that when it's he
who's
created the world, what's the point in sacrificing to him, what belongs to
him?
So true sacrifice is to sacrifice oneself - the Ego. Plus this process led
to further
awakening that in essence, man himself wasn't different from the creator -
advaitam.
So reality or God was considered inherent in man. And it's my opinion, that
this
turn in religion was due to binding a set of people to the field as a
profession.
Since it was all that they had to do, they truly made inways into it.

This trend can be observed in all early Arya religions - Buddhism, Jainism
and
the five astika schools, except Purva MimAmsa which still preached Vedic
sacrifices.
For SAmkhya and Yoga, it's the seperation of Purusha (Self) from Prakriti,
which is liberation.
Both early NyAya and the Vaiseshika had no place for a creator God and for
them
too, it's the knowledge of the Self which is the liberator. Early VedAnta
probably
preached identity with difference and Advaitam preaches absolutism, denying
all
change as mithyam or unreal. For the Jainas the evolved purified Self, which
attains
nirvAna. Early TherevAda Buddhism seems to consider nirvAna as an other, but
very
impersonal and hence not devotional. The SarvAstivAdins and VijnAnavAdins
identify
nirvAna with atoms and consciousness respectively, not as an other, but as
the
inherent reality in man. And ShUnyavAda Buddhism asserts that there's no
difference between samsAra and nirvAna itself.

But then how do you attain this reality? All these schools are unanimous in
their
claim that it's *knowledge* which is the liberator. When we know our real
identity
that's the Real (ofcourse, Buddhism doesn't belive in a Self. But even for
it,
it's knowledge which is the liberator).

As Seneca says, "No wind is favorable, if the port to which we sail is not
clear".
So all schools tried to give the exact description of the Real. Not only
that
they also tried to disprove the theories of their rivals. And this gave
birth to the philosophic speculation of these schools which resulted in the
development of metaphysics, psychology, logic and epistemology.

Since the whole profession of the brAhmanas was this, a great amount of
literature
was developed. Jainas and bauddhas too as they were basically a monastic
religion
developed quite a bit of literature.

So the situation had become : when you're the reality, whom do you worship?

And this is the reason, that devotional literature is lacking in the golden
age
of Vedic history for religion had become extremely philosophical.

But that doesn't mean there was no devotional literature in the scholastic
period - there are a few -
Shankara's hymns, Nagarjuna's Catuhstava etc But it wasn't the predominent
inclination.

But I doubt whether this philosophic religion was prevelant among the
masses.
Probably the sacrificial religion was what was encouraged amongst the
people and later with the Buddha the religion became more ethical. The
Puranas,
the IthihAsAs and MahAyAna Buddhism bring a devotional element in popular
religion, but I doubt if this has much effect on the religion of the serious
practitioners - the brAhmanas and the nAstika monks.

Religion in the Southern lands - the Nayanmars and Azlwars - is basically
the
normal popular religion where God is worshipped as an other and hence -
devotional worship. Needless to say, very inspiring devotional poetry and
literature in
this vein were produced.

And the meeting of this stream with the brAhmanic philosophical religion, is
what spawned
the bhakti schools of VedAnta - VishitAdvaitam, Dvaitam etc - which ignore
knowledge as the liberator and enjoin devotion or *bhakti* as the means to
salvation.
It's not unlikely that due to the Moslem invasions, there was felt a need to
disperse the faith
amongst the people too for cultural solidarity. And in this period
devotional literature
of great quality was produced even in Samskrutam and other local dialects.

So the reason that devotional literature is lacking in early Vedic history
is
more due to the fact that religion itself had taken a different and more
serious turn, due to exclusive concentration  on these matters by a set of
people.

>The following
>lines have nothing to do with my original posting.

It has everything to do with it, except you do not choose to acknowledge it.

>Some poor folk in Tamil Nadu still sacrifice animals to Gods, drink liquor
>when somebody dies and dance and sing on the streets following the corpse
>to
>the graveyard.
>
>Do 'upper caste' Tamils do that? I don't think racially they're different
>from the poor Tamils and have a lot in common in culture and language with
>the poor Tamils.
>
>So why are they different? And whose is the original culture?
>
>Did the poor folk descend in terms of culture or did the richer folk
>ascend?
>And how so? And given the claims of the "secular" nature of
>dravidian culture why is there such a discrepancy in the culture between
>the
>same people, at all?


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