Universalism, Dissent, and Canon in Tamil Śaivism, Ca. 1675-1994
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BEYOND THE WARRING SECTS: UNIVERSALISM, DISSENT, AND CANON IN TAMIL ŚAIVISM, CA. 1675-1994 by Eric Steinschneider A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto © Copyright by Eric Steinscheider 2016 Beyond the Warring Sects: Universalism, Dissent, and Canon in Tamil Śaivism, ca. 1675-1994 Eric Steinschneider Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto 2016 Abstract Scholarship on the formation of modern Hindu universalism in colonial South Asia has tended to focus on the Western-gazing and nationalist discourses of acculturated elites. Less attention, however, has been paid to comparable developments within the regionally situated vernacular religious traditions. The present dissertation addresses this issue by considering how several distinctly vernacular Śaiva traditions in Tamil-speaking Southern India transformed through the impact of the colonial encounter. At the center of this transformation, which produced “Tamil Śaivism” as a monolithic Tamil religion, was a shift in the way in which these sectarian traditions articulated and contested specific interpretations of Śaiva theology and sacred textuality. Chapter One contextualizes the thesis’ arguments by focusing on the internally diverse character of early-modern Tamil Śaiva intellectual culture, and more especially on the phenomenon of pan-sectarianism in two contemporary eclectic Tamil Vīraśaiva treatises. The next three chapters explore how such pan-sectarian claims were placed under enormous pressure in the nineteenth century. Chapter Two examines a low-caste commentary on a classic of Tamil Advaita Vedānta that attempts to critique the orthodox religious establishment and reinscribe Śaivism as a monism. In Chapter Three I look at how the fiery Śaiva Siddhāntin Cōmacuntara Nāyakar responds to the perceived threat of Brahminical religion by consolidating a monolithic ii account of Tamil Śaivism around the medieval poet-saint Tiruñāṉacampantar. Chapter Four situates this consolidation within a more general fracturing of the Tamil religious public sphere in the late nineteenth century, which I elucidate by examining an emergent debate over the sectarian identity of a major early-modern poet. The final substantive chapter analyzes the postcolonial afterlife of Śaiva sectarianism as it is expressed in the recorded discourses of the twentieth-century monastic Cantiracēkarēntira Carasvati Cuvāmikaḷ. By investigating these diverse attempts to claim the right to speak for Tamil Śaivism, the thesis contributes to current scholarly debates about the emergence of modern South Asian religion, while also mapping out important but neglected aspects of South Indian religion and religious historiography. iii Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the help of many people. I was fortunate to find in Srilata Raman the ideal supervisor for my doctoral studies. Over the years Srilata has fostered my intellectual and professional growth in countless ways. What insights this thesis may be said to possess owe much to her contributions; its defects are of course my own. Thanks to Christoph Emmrich for pushing me to think harder about the big questions, Ajay Rao for always taking an interest in my work, and Anne Monius, who has been an important guide since I was a master’s student. I owe a great deal to my friends and teachers in India. Dr. S. Gangadharan was always willing to discuss Śaiva Siddhānta with me, while Thilakavathi Amma served up cup after cup of unbeatable coffee. Dr. K. Srinivasan patiently answered my questions about Advaita Vedānta. Dr. P. R. Subramanian tutored me in the ways of nineteenth-century Tamil prose and made his substantial library available to me. Dr. Ramanathan and Usha Amma were a father and mother away from home. Thanks also to Kombai S. Anwar, Dr. C. Murugan, and Dr. N. Veezhinathan. Research for this thesis was generously funded by a Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellowship for 2012-2013. I would like to thank the staff at the U. Vē. Cāminātaiyar Library, the Maṟaimalai Aṭikaḷ Library, and the Rōjā Muttaiyā Research Library for helping me navigate their collections. I am grateful to the friends who made my time in Toronto so pleasant, especially Arun Brahmbhatt; Devanathan Jagannathan, who left us too soon; Alena Drieschova; Cuauhtémoc Salazar; Fereshteh Hashemi; and Jennifer Harris. Finally, thanks to my family: to Mitchell Steinschneider, my father, and Judith Lustig, my mother, for believing in me and supporting me in every way possible; to Alfred Steinschneider, my grandfather, for freely sharing his stories, his wisdom and his love; to Scott and Michael for being the best brothers anyone could ever ask for; to Rassil, my wonderful new sister-in-law; and to my in-laws in South Africa. Thanks especially to my wife, Badshavellie Naicker, who has been an unshakeable source of strength all these years. And thanks as well to our new child, whose immanent arrival kept me motivated to the end. iv Notes on Transliteration and Translation Tamil and Sanskrit words used in this dissertation have been transliterated according to the scheme employed in the University of Madras’ (1982) Tamil Lexicon. The names of towns and cities have been given without diacritics, except if they occur in a name; thus Tirupporur but Tiruppōrūr Citampara Cuvāmikaḷ. There is good reason to transliterate the names of the sectarian traditions discussed in this dissertation according to their Tamil rather than their Sanskrit form, e.g. Caiva Cittāntam rather than Śaiva Siddhānta, Attuvita Vētāntam rather than Advaita Vedānta. Nevertheless, I utilize the Sanskritized forms here for two reasons. First, all of the traditions mentioned herein are linguistically of a hybrid nature, and it might generate confusion for some readers were I to repeatedly switch back and forth between Tamil and Sanskrit forms. Second, I have opted for the Sanskrit forms because these are more widely recognized outside the field of Tamil Studies. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. v in loving memory of Rosalind Steinschneider vi Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iv Notes on Transliteration and Translation v Introduction 1 1. The Song of Non-Contradiction 19 2. Arguing the Taste of Fresh Butter 47 3. The Fierce Wind of Vedic Śaiva Siddhānta 68 4. The Dispersion of Tāyumāṉavar 92 5. The Religion Without a Name 122 Conclusion 150 Bibliography 157 vii Introduction Vernacular Hindu Universalisms The present study examines how several regionally rooted and distinctly vernacular Śaiva traditions in Tamil South India were transformed through the impact of the colonial encounter. This transformation can be understood, I will suggest, to have resulted in the consolidation of “Tamil Śaivism” as a monolithic Tamil religion in the late nineteenth century. I will also argue that this synthesis was neither unidirectional nor uncontested, but rather accompanied by a general fracturing of the vernacular religious public sphere into several locally defined neo- sectarian1 traditions and a post-sectarian neo-Vedānta. The dissertation thus seeks to chart the emergence of several distinct but mutually imbricated and characteristically vernacular forms of modern Hindu universalism in Southern India. In attempting to trace this trajectory the thesis inevitably engages with the work of other scholars who have analyzed the formation of modern religion in Southern Asia. Two recent bodies of scholarship have provided particularly important methodological insights. The first highlights the relevance of precolonial forms of self-reflection and self-representation for the production of colonial religion. The second calls attention to the vernacular religious public sphere in colonial modernity. 1 The terms “sect”, “sectarian”, “sectarianism”, “pan-sectarianism”, etc. are used often throughout this study. The application of the word “sect” to the Indian context is not without controversy, especially given the term’s connection to the history of Protestantism (McLeod 1978). See Michael (1992) for a discussion of the application of this term with respect to the Kannada Vīraśaivas, and Raman (2007: 180, n. 2) with reference to Śrīvaiṣṇavism. Michaels ([1998] 2004: 319) suggests that, in the absence of a centralized ecclesiastical authority, the term “sect” should not be understood to denote “a split or excluded community, but rather an organized tradition, usually established by a founder, with ascetic practices.” It is for this reason that the Tamil word camayam, often translated as “sect”, may arguably be better rendered in certain contexts by the word “religion”, as in the case of camaṇa camayam (“Jain religion”, “Jainism”). In this study, I interpret Tamil Śaivism to be a “current” (see below) of religious thought and practice within which can be distinguished several identifiable “streams”, including Vīraśaivism, Śaiva Siddhānta, and Smārtism. The latter may be considered as “sects” in Michaels’ sense, and always while bearing in mind the ambiguity referred to above. “Sectarianism” is here defined as the expression of an attachment to or partiality for a particular sectarian perspective or tradition. As we shall see, a tension between the affirmation of specific sectarian doctrine and the assertion of a pan-sectarian universality has long been central to Tamil Śaiva theological discourse. In emic terms, this tension is often