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Bandu de Silva's hate-mongering against Thiru Arumuka Navalar can be read here:
My rebuttal:
I am not from a Vellala lineage but I am appalled at the author's hate-mongering against Thiru Arumuka Navalar. His rants are similar to a frustrated madman spitting at the sun.
The author is parroting the usual Navalar-baiting by Christian missionaries who were frustrated that Navalar stood as a towering obstacle in their devious agenda to convert all of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Hindus to Christianity between the 1840s and 1870s.
Although it is difficult to quantify as to how many Hindus may have converted to Catholic or Protestant Christianity without Navalar’s intervention but according to Bishop Sabapathy Kulendran, who laments: "When comparing the promise Christian conversions showed in Jaffna at the beginning of the century to their disappointing results, this low rate of conversion was largely due to Navalar".
As the pioneer of Saiva Hindu revival in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu, Arumuka Navalar was way ahead of his times. Plunging headlong into a Saiva Hindu society (besieged by Christian attacks and conversions done forcibly or economically), Navalar worked as a religious reformer to remove all superstitions and ills that plagued the Saiva Hindu community, especially the Vellalas whom he understood best (because he happened to be born in their midst).
Arumuka Navalar was the first revivalist of native traditions in Sri Lanka. He along with others like him were responsible for reviving and reforming native traditions and religions such as Hinduism that had come under long period of dormancy and attack during the previous 400 years of colonial rule by various European powers. He was influential in creating a period of intense religious transformation amongst Tamils in India and Sri Lanka. He is regarded as the father of modern Tamil prose, a defender of Saivism (a sect of Hinduism) against Christian missionary activity and the first to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition. He also reformed Saiva Hinduism and focused on first reforming the superstitions of his own family’s kinship group (Vellalas) because he believed that reform, like charity, should first begin at home (i.e. amongst his own kinsmen first). His reasoning was: “How can one dream of reforming all of society if one does not start with reforming one’s own family/kinsmen first?”).
Navalar was born Arumugam Pillai in 1822 in Nallur. Arumuga Pillai’s father Kandhar was a Tamil poet and he was instrumental in providing a solid foundation in Tamil literature to Arumugam Pillai. His mother’s name was Sivakami and she was known for her devotion to Lord Shiva. Arumugam studied the Indian classical language Sanskrit as well as Tamil grammar. Arumugam studied English in a Christian mission run school as a day student. As he was recognized as a talented student, he was asked to stay on at the Jaffna Wesleyan Mission School to teach English and Tamil. The missionary school principal, the perceptive Peter Percival also requested Arumugam to help him translate the Bible and other Christian literature. Arumugam worked with Percival from 1841 - 1848 during which time he formulated his ideas as to what it meant to be a modern Hindu, specifically a Saiva under attack by Christian colonizers.
While Arumugam Pillai was still working on translating the Bible, he published a seminal letter in “The Morning Star” under a pseudonym in Sep, 1841. It was a comparative study of Christianity and Saivism and targeted the weakness in the argument Protestant missionaries had used against local Saiva practices.
Saiva veneration of the sacred “Shiva Lingam” (Aniconic symbol representing Lord Shiva as a Endless Column of Divine Light) was a constant source of derision, ridicule and distortion by Christian missionaries. Protestant missionaries relentlessly attacked the “Shiva Linga Worship” viz. Murthy Poojai (by contemptuously labeling it as “idol worship”) and dismissed the temple rituals of the local Saivas as devilish and of no value.
But Navalar found evidence that Christianity and Jesus himself were rooted in the temple and the temple rituals of the ancient Israelites. His letter admonished the missionaries for misrepresenting their own religion and concluded that in effect there was no difference between Christianity and Saivism as far as idol worship and temple rituals were concerned. Although “The Morning Star” editors tried to reply to the letter, the damage was done.
As he immerged himself in the study of Vedas, Agamas and Puranas, Arumugam Pillai came to the awareness that Saivas needed a clearer understanding of their own religion if they wanted to stem the tide of conversions. With this in mind he eventually relinquished the only paying job that he had with the Weslyan Mission, although Peter Percival offered him a higher salary to stay on. He also decided not to marry as he felt that it would curtail his freedom. He relinquished his patrimony and did not get any money from his four employed brothers. From then on till the end of his life, he and his projects were supported by those who believed in his cause.
To confront the obvious power of the Christian invaders and to use the instruments of industrialization to reform their own Saiva Hindu religion, in Sep 1842 two hundred Hindu men gathered at a Siva temple monastery. The group, led by Navalar, decided to open up a school to study Vedas and Agamas that would be open to all Tamils, irrespective of their caste, class or economic background.
The pioneer Navalar had set up two Hindu schools and two Hindu printing presses (the first of their kind) to counter the Christianisation of the Tamils; and struggled against Christian missionary activity on both sides of the Palk Straits as well as against unorthodox Hindu priests who were not performing the temple rituals correctly. He even admonished the Dikshitars (priests) of the famous Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram because they were practicing erroneous temple rituals that were not sanctioned by the scriptures (Agamas).
As an owner of a pioneering new school with the enormous need for original publications in Tamil prose to teach subjects for all grades, he felt an acute need for a printing press. He and his colleague Sadasiva Pillai went to Madras, India in 1849 to purchase a printing press. On the way they stopped at Tiruvavatuturai Aadheenam in Thanjavur, India, an important Saiva monastery. He was asked by the head of the monastery to preach. After listening to his preaching and understanding his unusual mastery of the knowledge of Agamas, the head of the monastery conferred on him the title Navalar (learned). This honorary degree from a prestigious Saiva monastery enhanced his position amongst Saivas and he was known as the Navalar since then.
Using the preaching methods popularized by the Methodist preachers, he became a circuit preacher. His first discourse was on December 31, 1847 at Vaideeswaran Temple in the suburb of Vannarpannai. It became weekly event on every Friday evening. In these discourses, he read from Saiva Hindu sacred texts and then preached in a manner that common people understood. He was helped by his friend Karthikeya Aiyar of Nallur and his students from his school. These discourses were known as Prasangams. The sermon topics were mostly ethical, liturgical, and theological and included the evils of adultery, drunkenness, the value of non-killing, the conduct of women, the worship of the Linga, the four initiations, the importance of giving alms, of protecting cows, and the unity of Iraivan (Kadavul or Bhagavan or Eeshvaran or Paramaatman).
Navalar exposed Christians and Hindus as well, specifically the trustees and priests of the reconstructed Nallur Kandaswami Temple in his home town because they had rebuilt the temple (destroyed by Catholics) not according to the Agamas a century ago as well as used Brahmin priests who were not initiated in the Agamas. He also opposed their worship of Vel or the weapon representing the main deity as it did not have Agamic sanction. In effect he formulated a theory to purify local Tamils of all practices that did not find sanction in a written document such as Vedas and Agamas. The lecture series and its circuit continued regularly for several years and produced a Saiva revival, for an informed piety developed and grew among many Jaffna Saivas. This was a direct tactical response to confront the Protestant’s Bible based arguments.
In the larger Madras Presidency, his aggressive preaching of a Saiva cultural heritage inspired Vellalas and Brahmins to take up the proper study of Saiva Hindu scriptures and contributed to the growing Tamil revival in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. Perhaps that is why the author hates Navalar, because without Navalar, the Tamil Saiva Hindu community would have become extinct, by being swallowed up and converted either into Catholic or Protestant Christianity or Buddhism.
My humble salutations to Arumuka Navalar. I pray to our beloved Murugan to send more such Tamil Saiva saints to our sacred land.
