Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism 1 1 7 



CHAPTER XII 



Fundamental Conceptions in Dravidian Worship 



No adequate knowledge of the origin of Dravidian worship 

 will perhaps ever be secured. There are no writings or other 

 records which give assistance. No monuments of any great im- 

 portance have been left. No buried cities have ever been dis- 

 covered. We can only say that at the time of the Aryan invasion 

 the Dravidians were worshipers of deities which the Aryans called 

 "mad gods." The persistence of the peculiar forms of their 

 worship to the present time, after centuries of close contact with 

 Hinduism, and while later surrounded with a fair degree of 

 modern enlightenment, indicates that the " mad gods " worshiped 

 when the Aryans came to India were very much the same as the 

 deities described in the preceding pages. 



We are interested, however, more in the meaning of these cere- 

 monies than in the date of their origin. What were the motives 

 and beliefs which originated the ritual? What were the ideas 

 behind this worship, and whence did these ideas come ? In Hin- 

 duism we are not at all left in the dark as to this question. From 

 the Vedas we learn that the great powers of nature so impressed 

 the Aryans that such powers were deified. From this august 

 nature-worship has grown the present system. In the Dravidian 

 religion, however, we are not so fortunate as to have left us any 

 ancient hymns or any systems of philosophy. No great inter- 

 preters of their religion have arisen. We are confined to one 

 source, the induction which may be made from the legends and 

 ceremonies as we now have them. 



Did the sacrifices originate in totemism ? Bishop White- 

 there can be no doubt that certain compromises now exist in Madras 

 between Hinduism and Mohammedanism. Propitiation of disease god- 

 lings, worship of patron saints and local deities, veneration of relics, prac- 

 tisings of the black art, divinations of the future, Hindu ceremonies at 

 birth and death; all practises satirized by the poet Hali, abound through- 

 out the Presidency, and render the stern simplicity of Islam more attractive 

 for its rural followers." William Crooke (Things Indian^ p. 337 sq.) gives 

 instances of the same tendencies. See also Gazetteer of Madura District, 

 I, p. 80. 



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