A Critique of Aaiyyanist Dravidian Hinduism

By Dr D. Siddharthain

Freelance researcher and historian for the Secular Movement of India.

Dr D. Siddharthain is a prominent member for the Secular Movement of India. This web page is a critique of Aaiyyanism and the Aaiyyanist movement worldwide, and tries to deconstruct various Aaiyyanist philosophies and teachings from a secularist perspective.

The Counter Aaiyyanist Movement and the Historical Arguments.

There is an uncanny resemblance between the original Greek word historia and the Sanskrit term for history, itihasa, meaning both story and history (in the modern sense), tale, narrative, as well as the event narrated and told. Herodotus, commonly called the 'Father of History' in the West, offers in his Historiae a great variety of reports about events observed by himself, about customs of other peoples, about tales and traditions whose authority he was not able to vouchsafe. By comparison Indian itihasa, as reflected in the Aryan Epics and the Puranas as well as the Dravidian master works such as the kAraNikkam and the pArakAviyam poem, as well as the ancient Teriyums and Kadesis also consists of a rich store of historical events and legends, of myths and of moral lessons inextricably interwoven in order to tell a story, not to document 'facts'.

History writing in a more narrow sense is not unknown to India: the Buddhists chronicled the progress of their missions, and the famous Rajatarangini documents several centuries of Kashmir's history. The Upanisads maintained lists of guru-paramparas, containing scores of genealogies of teacher--disciple successions. But they give no dates and no references that allow precise dating by comparison with historic figures or events elsewhere. The Puranas contain many lists of dynasties and attempts have been made to identify these names and to relate them to datable rulers outside India and to historic events. There are Digvijayas, records of the encounters of great teachers with their opponents, temple-chronicles, like the Koil Olugu, that faithfully describes the history of Srirangam, and undoubtedly there are still many undiscovered manuscripts with historical information on many persons and places in India. The Aaiyyanist tradition however, has a well chronicled and almost pedantic detailing of its History, manuscripts and philosophy after 1540 BC (basically when the Aryan Hindus, notably Bhimashankar Dattatriya, made contact with Aaiyyan himself). As well as the countless records and Tamil and Sanskrit scripts detailing events after the Kali Yuga period (3102BC). The most widely read and extensive encyclopaedic work on Aaiyyanist history has been that of Asha Saptrishi and her volume entitled 'The Journey' (Aaiyyanist history from 1543 BC - 801 BC).

However, history in the modern sense, a chronological write-up of past events, the recording of 'facts, nothing but facts', was never popular with mainstream Hindus. The main clashes in ideology (1500 AD) came when the Aryan temple priests began to accuse the Aaiyyanists of being too involved with the details and not enough in the spirituality. (This charge was largely unfounded but it began to stick, and the Aaiyyanists were increasingly perceived by ordinary Indians as 'bookworms' and not spiritual advisors/Swamis/Gurus). Many Indians were seeking meaning in their religious texts, not resumes of past events. Mahatma Gandhi once said, when doubts about the historicity of the person of Jesus were expressed, that even if it should be proven that Jesus never lived, the Sermon on the Mount would still be true for him. Even though there are extensive records of Aaiyyanist writing about the meaning and following of the Dharma path - the propaganda at the time labelled them to be "all fact and no substance". Dravidian Gurus were increasingly being marginalized even in the South of India. Around 1743 AD there were said to be only 4323 travelling Gurus of the Aaiyyanist tradition.

In fact (and quite ironically) until recently mainstream Hindus had found it rather unnecessary to prove the historicity of avataras like Rama and Krsna. Should endeavours of recent Hindu scholarship to find such proof be successful, that would probably not change anything for those who had always considered Rama and Krsna manifestations of the divine, their teaching a revelation, and their myths profoundly symbolically meaningful. It might, however, fuel competition between Hinduism and Christianity, pitting a historical Rama and Krsna against a historical Christ, or Islam against Hinduism (as in the so-called birthplace of Rama (Ayodha)) and possibly worshipers of the one against worshipers of the other in an attempt to prove one to be the 'only true god'.

On a philosophical level (and counter to the Hindu claims) Dravidian Aaiyyanists always made a distinction between appearance and reality, rating the waking consciousness, in which we note 'facts' lower in comparison to other states of awareness, in which we note 'ideas'. Aaiyyan is a state of mind rather than an assembly of facts or a chronological sequence of events. The re-interpretations of scriptural texts, which Dravidian acaryas have undertaken throughout the ages, and the freedom with which contemporary Aaiyyan teachers modify traditional teachings and modernise ancient symbolisms, should caution us not to expect much enlightenment concerning the essentials of Aaiyyanism from a 'history of Aaiyyanist thought' - in the modern sense.

Most Aaiyyanists believe that the series of events which we call 'history' repeats itself endlessly in a never-ending cycle. It is quite significant that some major Dravidian Hindu schools of thought identify this self-repeating factual world (samsara) with maya (deception), or avidya (ignorance). A kind of 'higher ignorance' can well be assumed to be the basis of a 'history' that is content with documenting appearances and describing surface events. This 'higher ignorance' can be summed up by the last of the 12 Aaiyyan Gurus and historian Asha Saptrishi when she said "I know nothing… and the nothingness of self knows all".

One of the favourite images in South Indian Aaiyyan temples shows the mythical Deity King of lOkAntaram (King Manimaran ) resting on the 'Black Sphere of Nothingness' representing eternity. The philosophy associated with this image opens up a new horizon for the philosophy of history; there is not only one human history and one universe, there are -- in succession -- many universes and many histories rolled up underneath the deity! What would be the meaning of these, in their totality, and what would be the purpose of the many universes? The Aaiyyanists argue that the Universe itself is evolving and trying to perfect the unperfected self. All the elements of the Universe (humans, animals plants, Gods etc...) are manifestations of the Universe trying to understand itself.