Buddhism amongst Tamils

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Bodhidharma, founder of Chan Buddhism, is believed by some to have originated from Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu.

Buddhism amongst the Tamils was historically found in the Tamilakam region of India and Sri Lanka.[1]

India

Origin

The heritage of the town of Nākappaṭṭinam is found in the Burmese historical text of the 3rd century BCE and gives evidence of a Budha Vihar built by the King Ashoka. An inscription from Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka dated to 2nd century BCE records the association of Tamil merchants with Buddhist institution.[2]

For several centuries in the second millennium of the common era Buddhism among the Tamils in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka was neglected and virtually abandoned due to shifts in political patronage and the revivalism among non-Buddhist religions. According to A.J.V. Chandrakanthan who recently (2019) published an article about an 11th-century comparative work named Veerasoliyam, codifying Tamil and Sanskrit Philology and Poetics is a clear indicator of the prominence given to Buddhism in Tamil scholarship. However the pan Saiva revival in Tamilagam in the second half of the second millennium and the Vaishnava resurgence coupled with the Bhakti movement ushered in a new era of religious militancy that virtually eradicated Buddhism forever from the Tamil-speaking regions of the South of India.

Ancient ruins of a 4th-5th-century Buddhist monastery, a Buddha statue, and a Buddhapada (footprint of the Buddha) were found in another section of the ancient city, now at Pallavanesvaram.[3]

Nāgappaṭṭinam was a Buddhist centre of the 4th-5th century CE. Its

Naga Nadu
". This "nagar annam vihar" later came to be known as "Nagananavigar". Buddhism flourished until the 15th century and the buildings of the vihara survived until the 18th century.
Gautama Buddha had visited the place. It was during the reign of the Pallava dynasty from the 4th to the 9th centuries that Kanchipuram attained its limelight. The city served as the Pallava capital, and many of the known temples were built during their reign. According to Tamil tradition, the founder of Zen, Bodhidharma was born here.[5][6][note 1]

In the 8th century CE, Buddhist monk Vajrabodhi, the son of a Tamil aristocrat, travelled from Tamil Nadu to the Tang capital of Chang'an, via Sri Lanka and Srivijaya, after mastering the art of Tantric Buddhism. He took a plethora of new theological beliefs to a China that was largely following Confucianism or Daoism. Vajrabodhi's contribution to the growth of Tantric Buddhism in China has been recorded by one of his lay disciples, Lü Xiang.[9]

Thalaivetti Muniappan Buddhist Temple

The Madras High Court was hearing a plea by the Buddha Trust in Salem, which said that the idol was originally that of the Buddha, but over time it was taken over and was worshipped as that of Thalaivetti Munniappan. The Madras High Court has declared that the statue of the main deity at a temple in Salem district is that of Buddha and not a Hindu deity. The idol in the temple is currently being worshipped as Thalaivetti Muniappan. The High Court was hearing a plea by Buddha Trust, based in Salem, who had filed a petition in 2017 saying that the idol is of the Buddha. Taking cognisance of a report filed by the state archaeological department that a preliminary inspection has revealed that the statue of the Buddha, Justice N Anand Venkatesh has ruled that the idol is indeed originally that of the Buddha.

Sri Lanka

Jaffna peninsula

Kadurugoda Vihara in Kandarodai, Jaffna Peninsula
.

Nāga Tivu/ Nāga Natu was the name of the whole

The word Naga was sometimes written in early inscriptions as Nāya, as in Nāganika - this occurs in the Nanaghat inscription of 150 BCE.

The famous

King of Thailand by the then British Governor Henry Blake in 1906.[citation needed
]

Indrapala argued for a flourishing pre-Christian Buddhist civilization in Jaffna, in agreement with Paranavithana, and Mudliyar C. Rasanayakam, Ancient Jaffna in an earlier work, 1965 Archived 26 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine.

This place is similar to

Nagapatnam where all Asian vessels used it as a stopover point and the Buddhist and Hindu Stupas are just a resting and worshipping places for the sailors and international traders.[citation needed
] .

A group of

ancient Tamil country in the first few centuries of the common era before the revivalism of Hinduism amongst the population.[10]

Trincomalee

Vannimai
districts in the medieval period.

The

Koneswaram temple of Trincomalee.[19]

Literature

Various scholarly works dating back to the 5th, 6th and 7th century of the common era saw the birth of classical Tamil works composed by eminent Tamil poets with Buddhist philosophical themes and insights illustrate the impact that Buddhism had in the world of Tamil scholarship. One of the classical products of that period is the ancient Tamil Buddhist epic-poem Manimekalai by the celebrated poet Chithalai Chathanar is set in the town of Kaveripattanam.[20][21]

Tamil Buddhist historical figures

Statue of Dignaga in Elista, Russia.
  • Bodhidharma - founder of Chan Buddhism, believed to have come from Kanchipuram
  • Bodhisena - Buddhist scholar notable for travelling to Japan
  • Buddhadatta - 5th-century Theravada Buddhist writer
  • Badara Tittha Vihara
  • Dignāga - 6th-century Buddhist scholar and one of the founders of the Buddhist school of logic
  • Nalanda monastery in Bihar

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend.[7] There are three principal sources for Bodhidharma's biography.[8] None of them mentions specifically Tamil Nadu, only "the western regions" and "Souther India". See Bodhidharma#Birthplace sources for an extensive overview of possible origins, and the reliability of the sources provided for these possible origins.

References

  1. .
  2. ^ Duraiswamy, Dayalan. "Role of Archaeology on Maritime Buddhism".
  3. ^ Rao, SR (2 July 1991). "Marine archaeological explorations of Tranquebar-Poompuhar region on Tamil Nadu coast" (PDF). Marine Archaeology. 2: 6. Archived from the original on 24 January 2011 – via DSpace Repository.
  4. ^ "Ancient ports and maritime trade centres in Tamilnadu and their significance" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 February 2007. Retrieved 2006-10-16.
  5. ^ Kambe 2008.
  6. ^ Zvelebil 1987, p. 125-126.
  7. ^ McRae 2003.
  8. ^ Dumoulin, Heisig & Knitter 2005, p. 85-90.
  9. ^ Sundberg, J. "The Life of the Tang Court Monk Vajrabodhi as Chronicked by Lü Xiang" (PDF). archive,org.
  10. ^ a b Schalk, Peter (2002). Buddhism among Tamils in pre-colonial Tamilakam and Īlam: Prologue. The Pre-Pallava and the Pallava period, Uppsala: Upplala Universitet; pp. 1
  11. ^ "BuddhaNet.Net: Sacred Island - A Buddhist Pilgrim's Guide to Sri Lanka: Nagadipa".
  12. .
  13. ^ Laura Smid (2003). South Asian folklore: an encyclopedia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Great Britain: Routledge. 429.
  14. ^ Chelvadurai Manogaran (1987). Ethnic conflict and reconciliation in Sri Lanka. United States of America: University of Hawaii Press. 21.
  15. ^ Ponnampalam Ragupathy. (1987). Early settlements in Jaffna: an archaeological survey. pp. 183
  16. ^ Schalk, Peter (2002). Buddhism among Tamils in pre-colonial Tamilakam and Īlam: Prologue. The Pre-Pallava and the Pallava period. pp.151
  17. ^ Schalk, Peter. "The Vallipuram Buddha Image". Tamilnation.org. Retrieved 10 January 2013. Vallipuram has very rich archaeological remains that point at an early settlement. It was probably an emporium in the first centuries AD. […] From already dated stones with which we compare this Vallipuram statue, we can conclude that it falls in the period 3-4 century AD. During that period, the typical Amaravati-Buddha sculpture was developed.
  18. ^ "Velgamvehera". Department of Archaeology. Retrieved 17 April 2017.
  19. ^ Peter Schalk, Ālvāppillai Vēluppillai. Buddhism among Tamils in pre-colonial Tamilakam and Īlam: Prologue. The Pre-Pallava and the Pallava period, Page 157-159.
  20. ^ Rao Bahadur Krishnaswāmi Aiyangar, Maṇimekhalai in its Historical Setting, London, 1928. Available at www.archive.org [1]
  21. ^ Hisselle Dhammaratana,Buddhism in South India, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, 1964. Available on Buddhist Publication Society Online Library [2] Archived 4 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

External links