Tamil Traditions

[Gauracandra]

I have heard from a number of people that the Vedic traditions have been best preserved in South India. In particular, it seems that Tamils have had a very strong impact in preserving these Vedic traditions. Partly this is due to the fact that the Muslim and Christian traditions had less influence in the south (compared to the north). I'd be curious in more information in relation to Tamil traditions and practices. For instance, I was told women don't cover their heads in South India, but in North India women are expected to, which appears to have been influenced by Muslim requirements. Any info would be appreciated.

 

Gauracandra

[livingentity]

Haribol,

 

I have a friend who lives in Tamil Nadu. I will ask him if he would like to register here so he can help you out.

 

Originally posted by Gauracandra:

I have heard from a number of people that the Vedic traditions have been best preserved in South India. In particular, it seems that Tamils have had a very strong impact in preserving these Vedic traditions. Partly this is due to the fact that the Muslim and Christian traditions had less influence in the south (compared to the north). I'd be curious in more information in relation to Tamil traditions and practices. For instance, I was told women don't cover their heads in South India, but in North India women are expected to, which appears to have been influenced by Muslim requirements. Any info would be appreciated.

 

Gauracandra

 

[karthik_v]

Gauracandra Prabhu,

 

What you said has also been stated by the likes of Swami Vevekananda and Sri Aurobindo. In fact, the vedic roots of ancient Tamil culture itself can be better understood, if we were to go through ancient Tamil literature, numismatic and archeological evidences. And folklore of course. Many scholars have stated that ancient Tamil traditions have started with vedic traditions and rightly so.

 

Here is an article by a very renowned scholar who has researched extensively in this area. Please note that some of the dates he attributes to anient Tamil literary works may be disputed by others. That is very natural as the ancient Tamil tradition was oral like ancient Sanskrit. So, it is very difficult to state when these works were indeed composed

 

In essense, as we go through ancient Tamil literature, we see that it is essentially vedic. There have been periods later on when Buddhism and Jainism were also patronised by the Tamil kings, but essentially the culture has been a vedic one. The following link may be very useful:

 

http://www.voi.org/michel_danino/tamil_cult01.html

 

[Gauracandra]

Thanks living entity and Karthik. I'm still going through the article, but it seems very well documented.