In the decades after Indian Independence — and especially after the Dravidianist Movement triumphed in the 1967 State elections and captured the seat of power in Tamilnadu and held on to it continually thereafter until the present day — the small community of “ubaya-vedaantins”, along with the entire Brahmin populace in the state, suffered traumaticContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedantin-s”: Part-47″
Tag Archives: Tenkalai
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-46
From a historian perspective it can be said that in just a short span of 50 years after Indian Independence, the small community of Sri Vaishnavas that was part of the insignificant Tamil Brahmin population in the three states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, suffered a collective trauma of grievous loss…. The lossesContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-46″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins”: Part-45
Hereditary and/or traditional rights of control over temple wealth and administration (continued) In the decades after Independence, in the democratic, socialistic and secular republic of India, successive elected governments of the State of Tamil Nadu realized the enormous potential for extracting great and steady revenue-streams and wealth — not to mention enormous leverage in electoralContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins”: Part-45″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-44
Hereditary and/or traditional rights of control over temple wealth and administration The story of how in 50 year after Independence the State in Tamil Nadu “established a system of legal plunder…. known as the “drain of wealth”… and “mercilessly imposed” it upon temples and temple-centric Brahmin communities is indeed a very long one. The storyContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-44″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-43
Hereditary and/or traditional rights of control over temple wealth and administration All through the years during the period 1970s through 2000, the community of the “ubaya-vedaantins” plunged rapidly into a social morass. The language of their ancient traditions, Sanskrit, was in its death-throes if not already dead. The ancient social-contract of “varna-ashrama-dharma” in which, onceContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-43″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-42
“Brahminical dominance“: Education, Employment, Governance and Arts and Culture Throughout the post-Independence decades, until the very end of the 20th century CE, the Dravidian Movement launched in the State of Tamil Nadu by Periyaar and later crusaded by leaders such as C.N.Annadurai and M.Karunanidhi, became a social revolution of the non-Brahmins, by the non-Brahmins andContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-42″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-41
“varna-ashrama-dharma” “Varna-ashrama-dharma” was outlawed in 1950 in the country by the Constitution of India. It created a deep and fundamental fissure inside the philosophical world-view of the “ubaya-vedaantins” of Tamil Nadu. The trauma became yet another cause for the crisis of identity into which they plunged and it beset them throughout the post-Independence decades…. andContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-41″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-40
In at least six or seven decades that immediately followed Indian Independence in 1947 CE, the deep crisis into which the “ubaya-vedaantic” identity fell was caused fundamentally by the sudden social chafing that suddenly irrupted between its centuries-old traditional Vedic value-system and those that soon came to be enshrined and championed by the new holyContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantin-s”: Part-40″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins”: Part 39
The small religious community of Sri Vaishnavas for several centuries, have always been apolitical. As priests, religious scholars, spiritual seekers, temple up-keepers, poets, litterateurs, philosophers and theologians, “ubaya-vedaantins” kept themselves away from most of the affairs of kings, kingdoms, the state and the government. Their indifference to matters of politics was the norm. Exceptions wereContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins”: Part 39″
The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins” – Part 38
Between 1925 CE and about the turn of the 21st century CE, the Sri Vaishnavas of the community of “ubaya-vedantins” suffered, in various degrees of intensity, the severe trauma, as it were, of a deep identity crisis brought about by profound social churning all around them in the larger outside world that simply overtook andContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of the “ubaya-vedaantins” – Part 38″