A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c20.4

c20.4

IN the sphere of religion, as generally in all matters of spiritual culture, South India began by being heavily indebted to the North; but in the course of centuries it more than amply repaid the debt and made signal contributions to the theory and practice of religion and to philosophic thought in its various aspects. Its saints and seers evolved a new type of bhakti, a fervid emotional surrender to God which found its supreme literary expression in the Bhāgavata-purāṇa, a bhakti very different from the calm, dignified devotion of the Bhāgavatas of the early centuries before and after Christ in Northern India. Again, from South India arose the two schools of Vedic exegesis—Mīmāṃsā—that go by the names of Kumārila-bhaṭṭa and Prabhākara. The founders of the three main systems of Vedānta—Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva—also hailed from the southern country. Yet another prominent philosophical system—the Śaiva-siddhānta—also found its exponents in the Tamil country. Lastly, the Vedas were commented on more than once in this part of the country, and the constant study of the ritual manuals of the different Vedic schools was kept up. The literature of these movements was reviewed in outline in the last chapter; here we shall seek to sketch the main stages in the history of these developments.