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.

Branches of Aaiyyanism.

The various branches of what became known as Aaiyyanist Hinduism do have a common creed but they do not demand from their followers any declaration of a 'Dravidian Hindu' faith. From the very beginnings of Aaiyyanist Hinduism one could become an Aaiyyanist by simply willing it to be so (see 'The Will of the Water' - Dravida Karnataka 990BC). As far as one's membership in the Aaiyyan Hindu community was concerned, it did matter what one thought or believed but it did not matter if one participated in the traditional rituals, which were also part and parcel of traditional Dravidian Hindu culture. Unlike the so-called mainstream or Aryan Hinduism, many of the sampradayas (specific worship traditions within Hinduism), draw very close and narrow boundaries: those who wish to be members must obey a very strict regimen with regard to diet, life-style, reading, and worship; they must not accept the teachings of any other sampradaya, or read books or listen to sermons from them. The Aaiyyanist to the disconcertion of the Aryan Hindu community rejected this sectarianism outright almost 3000 years ago.

Left to itself the old Dravidian Hindu civilization quietly appropriated whatever was brought into it from the outside, absorbed it, transformed it, and made it part of its own (as chronicled later by Modanatha Dravidas Mahavashtriyan 1230BC). That process of assimilation was disturbed in a major way first by the Aryan Invasion (1543 BC) who tried to displace the original teachings with new ideas such as the caste system, turning the basic theories of reincarnation into a means of punishing people who were of a lower caste (i.e. the reason you were a poor labourer was because you led a 'bad life' previously). This then extended to the theory that high caste Hindus would be 'polluted' if they were in contact with lower castes (especially untouchables). The Aaiyyanists (to their credit) rejected these 'new ideas' and became the champions for the poor and un-casted peoples, setting up early ashrams for such a task and effectively became for a while the 'Keepers of the Dharma'. Cynically one could argue that, as the new Hindu ideas took root the old Dravidians had to fall back on the excess religious peoples who had no means of joining society and mainstream Temples. Though as one of the earliest female Aaiyyanists argued "I am a stranger in this barren landscape… and all dispossessed are as one with the stranger." - Asha Saptrishi ~780BC. (It should also be noted that the new invaders also imposed a Patriarchal society unlike the ancient Dravidians more female/equality centred one. This disconcerted the Aaiyanists extremely especially due to the fact that the mix of male and female Guru's in the history of Aaiyyanism was almost equal).

The next major displacement that affected both Dravidian and Aryan Hindus was the introduction of Islamic conquerors from the tenth century C.E. onwards. The Muslims came to conquer India and to covert the native 'idolaters' to their own religion. The rigid monotheism of Islam, the exclusivity claim of Mohammed's revelation, the rejection of the new Hindu caste system proved irreconcilable with the native religio-cultural traditions of India. The Muslims, though, tolerated the Aaiyyanists as their ideas (or one could argue- the original ideals of Hinduism ) were so far from the average Indian's mindset as to be irrelevant. (Towards the 10 C.E there were around 10,000 Aaiyyanist preachers or wandering sanyasins left).

While Islam could claim partial successes -- for over half a millennium most of India was under Muslim rule and a third of the population accepted Islam -- it generated a resistance among Hindus who began to realise an identity of their own based on their native 'Hindu' traditions. Even more so in the Aaiyyan tradition. Not by accident was it that from the eleventh century onwards nibandhas were composed -- encyclopedic works that collected Dravidian legal traditions, information about Dravidian holy places, Tamil rituals, and customs of all sampradayas. Aaiyyanists became aware of Dravidian Hinduism as distinct from Islam and mainstream Hinduism. Islamic hostility towards 'idolatry' and the tightening of the Hindu caste system further served to underscore the differences between the various traditions and Aaiyyanism.

The second major disturbance was created by Western European powers from the sixteenth century C.E. onwards. While the main interest of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danish, the French and the English -- all of whom established colonies in India -- was trade, they were soon persuaded by the ecclesiastical powers of their homebases that they also had a duty to spread their Christian faith among 'the heathen'.

Notwithstanding the presence of significant groups of indigenous Christians, who had lived for centuries peacefully side by side with their Hindu and Dravidian Hindu neighbours, the European Churchmen of various denominations considered India a mission field to be harvested for their sectarian Western Christian Churches. By demanding from the citizens of Goa, the first European colony on Indian soil, either to convert to the Catholic Church or to emigrate, the Portuguese established a hard and fast line between Christianity and general Hinduism, and also made sure that future relations between the two religions were based on hostility and exclusivity. Like Aryan Hinduism and Islam, Christianity became a foreign invader and remained a foreign religio-cultural presence in India. It also provoked a reaction and a resistance among Dravidian Aaiyyanist Hindus that became quite articulate from the end of the nineteenth century onwards.

The term 'Hinduism' has recently been problematized in western scholarly literature. 'Hindutva', the Indian-languages equivalent, identified with a cultural political program promoted by right-wing Hindu political parties and extremist Hindu organizations, is viewed with suspicion and apprehension by many non-Hindus, Aaiyyanists and general Dravidians. Some question the appropriateness of the very word 'Dravidian Hinduism', which, they say, is an 'orientalist construct' invented by western colonial interest. All agree that the term 'Aaiyyanist' was imposed on the Indians by outsiders. However, the designation 'Aaiyyanist' has meanwhile been adopted by Dravidian Hindus themselves, who identify their religion as 'Aaiyyanism' over and against Aryan Caste based Hinduism, Islam, Christianity or the Dravidian traditions. Others deny historic validity to the very notion of the 'Dravidian Hindu' prior to nineteenth century 'Neo-Aaiyyanism', which arose as a reaction to Christianity, the religion of the foreign colonisers.

The global designation 'Aaiyyan Hindu' is apt to disguise the great diversity of the Dravidian Indian religious traditions. Till very recently 'Aaiyyanists' defined their religious identities by using specific appellations like Gaudaites, Karnatakarians, Prajapatis etc., and several modern movements like the Dravidian Pacifist Mission and the International Movement of Mahavashtriyan Consciousness emphatically denied being Aaiyyanist, so as not to be identified with other branches of Dravidian Hinduism that hold beliefs contrary to their own.