M. S. Purnalingam Pillai

Munnirpallam Sivasubramaniam Purnalingam Pillai (25 May 1866 – 6 June 1947) was a Tamil language-writer and Dravidologist.

Quotes

• In the course of centuries the Tamil Saivas, who were vegetarians and who had looked upon the Aryas as mlecchas for their [habits of] meat-eating and drinking intoxicants and as untouchables came, by the force of juxtaposition, of aryan adaptability, and of political contingencies, to be reconciled to the ways and habits of their neighbours and to accept the authority of the Vedas, [. . .] Saivaism, accepting the Vedic rule, became metamorphosed into Vedic or Vaidika Saivaism.'
  • Quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (Princeton, N.J.). (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

• The Saiva Siddhanta is the indigenous philosophy of South India and the choicest product of the Tamilian intellect. [. . .] This high and noble system, based on the Agamas or Saiva scriptures, was corrupted by the puranic writers, whose sole object was to reconcile the Vedas and the Agamas [. . .] The Tamilar, overbourne by the political ascendancy of the Aryans, accepted the system, [. . .] Bhakti or loving piety, the root idea of the Saiva system, ennobled the persons, whatever their caste, colour or creed [. . .] Such a widely tolerant, ennobling, rationalistic faith has been made to assume the garb of a thoroughly intolerant, fictitious, and meanly selfish system. The Tamilar, therefore, are in duty, bound to throw off the puranic veil which dims their vision and to realise the old conception of Him as enshrined in the ancient Tamil poems based on the Tamilian Agamas.
  • Quoted from Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (Princeton, N.J.). (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines

Quotes about Pillai

• Even those Tamil scholars who regarded Tamil literature and civilization to be superior to Sanskrit did not demonize Sanskrit. A good example was 'Manonmaniam' Sundaram Pillai. He claimed that Tamil was superior to Sanskrit because Tamil was still used in his day as a popular language. A Tamil song by him has been recognized as the official song of Tamil Nadu. However, he never denigrated or rejected Sanskrit, and visualized Tamil and Sanskrit as two eyes of the Goddess of learning, though for him Tamil was the right eye. When Bishop Caldwell dated the seventh-century Saiva saint Thirugnana Sambandar at the end of the thirteenth century, Sundaram Pillai refuted this dating and emphatically established that Sambandar could not be dated later than seventh century CE.
  • Malhotra, R., Nīlakantan, A. (Princeton, N.J.). (2011). Breaking India: Western interventions in Dravidian and Dalit faultlines