Thebhaktiexperience as articulated by these singers reflected several
patterns at once: first, they used the images of early Tamil poetry to localize
the deities. The foliage and landscape of Tamil land was the god’s – the god
was “here,” he had made his home here, learned the language, and
established pilgrimage sites here. Similarly, imageries of love mirrored those
used by the can.kampoets. “Possession” and “intoxication” reflected the
images by which the god made himself known in the “pre-Hindu” context.
The poetry and the devotional experience were quintessentially Tamil.
Second, the poets selectively appropriated myths from the northern epic
setting thereby giving the local variations of the deities “sanskritic” or vaidika
sanction. S ́iva’s destruction of the three cities was localized; Vis.n.u was grafted
onto Ma ̄yo ̄n
̄
, god of the pastoral tract. Skanda was grafted onto Murukan
̄
Third, the songs were responding to a Jain and Buddhist context, at first
with some virulence (especially in the S ́aiva case) then by selectively appro-
priating elements of Jain and Buddhist ethics and ideology. There was
evidence in the early generations of poets (especially in the writings of the
S ́aiva N ̄a ̄n
̄
acampantan) of attacks on Jain or Buddhist attitudes, reflecting
the attacks of certain S ́aivite kings on Buddhist or Jain establishments
(such as that at Na ̄ga ̄rjunakonda). Yet, in time, one finds the co-opting of
Buddhist or Jain themes – hospitality, a sense of community, etc. At least one
deity, S ́a ̄sta ̄, emerged in this period as an apparent alternative to the figure
of Buddha – S ́a ̄sta ̄ was teacher; his poses emulated those in earlier Buddhist
and Jain iconography; but S ́a ̄sta ̄ was also a son of S ́iva and accessible to help
the devotee. Pilgrimage centers made the deities accessible, unlike the reclu-
sive Jain mendicants. Not least important, Buddhist sacred places (pal.l.is)
became sites for “Hindu” temples.
Thebhaktipoets, in short, expressed a form of Tamil identity that claimed
Tamil country for “Hinduism” and placed itself in contradistinction to
its religious rivals. These patterns recurred wherever bhaktiwas popular;
the vernacular language became the medium of religious expression,
albeit enhanced by forms of Sanskritic culture and there was selective
appropriation of and distancing from the ideology of “others.”
The emergence of temples
A second major illustration of “Hindu” culture in the south was the
emergence of the temple as a cultic and social center. Under the Pallavas
(seventh to ninth centuries CE) temple construction received a significant
impetus, first in the form of monolithic structures carved from rocks –
such was the form of the shrines carved at Maha ̄balipuram, the Pallava
seaport, in honor of the Pa ̄n.d.ava brothers, those heroes of the Maha ̄bha ̄rata.
The Post-classical Period 93