Chapter Seven

RELIGION

I. Regional Cults

In the development of regional culture, regional religious cults and worship constituted important factors. Some of these cults and modes of worship continue even today. P. T. SRINIVASA AIYANGAK, a pioneer and erudite research worker in this field, writes about these cults in several pages of his books Pre-Aryan Tamil Culture, and History of the Tamils from the Earliest Times to 600 A.D. The following reading is taken from the History of the Tamils from the Earliest Times to 600 A.D., pages 75-83, Coomaraswamy Naidu and Sons, Madras, 1929.

No DOUBT FROM the earliest ages of the evolution of man he worshipped some god or gods. In those early days the people were divided into totem-groups, the relics of which are found in tribal names like Iru˜ar, Vanniar, etc. In Sanskrit literature we meet with such totem-names as the Vānaras, the monkey tribe, the Ajas, the goat tribes, the Garuḍas, the kite tribe, the Matsyas, the fish tribe, the Vṛṣṇis, the ram tribe, and the Nāgas, the serpent tribe, etc. Of these the Nāgas seem to have been widely prevalent, because we find them in historic times, occupying the North East, the North West, the Central and the South Indian provinces. The Nāga cult probably arose among the cave-dwellers of the hill-country. Besides the totem gods, the people worshipped numerous spirits, those inhabiting trees, rivers, hills; also local gods, guardian deities of villages, the goddesses guarding the boundaries of villages and the demons that caused diseases. Most of these ancient cults exists today in their primitive crudity among the lower classes of the popu-