Uma-maheshvara ( IAST : Umāmaheśvara), also known as Abhinava-Kālidāsa ("the new Kalidasa "), was a Sanskrit -language philosopher and grammarian from present-day southern India. He is variously dated to c. 1465 CE or c. 1750 CE.
34-596: Uma-maheshvara was born in a family belonging to the Vellala social group. He was a disciple of Akshaya-suri (or Akkaya-suri) of Mokshagundam family. According to the Rajashekhara-charita (or Shabharanjana-shataka ) of his disciple Kavi-kunjara, Uma-maheshvara "put an end to the machinations" of Durjaya, the court poet of the Vijayanagara king Raja-shekhara. P. Sriramamurti of Andhra University tentatively identifies
68-477: A Vellalar in the course of history. The Vellalar are spoken of as a group of people right from the Sangam period and are mentioned in many of the classical works of Sangam literature . The Tolkappiyam does not contain the term Vellalar but refers to a group of people called Velaan Maanthar who apart from practising agriculture had the right to carry weapons and wear garlands when they were involved in affairs of
102-580: A branch of the Chozhia Vellalars were traders and merchants. The Adi-saiva vellalar sect is a strictly vegetarian Saivite group that traditionally served as priests. The Vellalar were considered to be of high status and enjoyed a high rank during the Chola period. They helped promote and stabilize Shaivism during the Chola era and many of the cult's leaders were drawn from the ranks of the Vellalar. They were
136-554: A conflict with a ruler of the Vijayanagar empire in the 15th century. The villages and areas settled by the Saiva Velaalar even now have a small number of Jaina families and inscriptional evidence indicate that these were earlier Jaina settlements as is evident by the existence of old Jaina temples. Even though at present, the term "Vellalar" is uncertain, a number of non-cultivating landholding castes like Kaarukaatha Velaalar and
170-507: A prosperous community of farmers and landowners who had provided economic support to Shiva temples in the Tamil country. In the Tamil region, Vellalar like Mudaliyar and Pillai along with certain other non-brahmin groups enjoyed a status equal to that of the Brahmins. The Vellalar also had more authority, power and status than the Brahmins in some social and ritual contexts. They were more orthodox than
204-475: A work on the life of Krishna . Vellalar Vellalar is a group of castes in the Indian states of Tamil Nadu , Kerala and northeastern parts of Sri Lanka . The Vellalar are members of several endogamous castes such as the numerically strong Arunattu Vellalar , Chozhia Vellalar , Karkarthar Vellalar , Kongu Vellalar , Thuluva Vellalar and Sri Lankan Vellalar . The earliest occurrence of
238-510: Is also considered as a branch of Nandinatha Sampradaya , which flourished from the eight direct disciples ( Sanatkumarar , Sanakar, Sanadanar, Sananthanar , Shivayogamuni, Patanjali , Vyaghrapada , and Tirumular ) of Nandinatha . Meykandar Sampradaya is associated with the teachings of first disciple of Nandinatha – Sanatkumarar . There are totally fourteen texts of Santana Kuravar and others admired by Tamil Saivites as Meykanda Sathirangal (Shastras of Meykandar or Shastras that perceived
272-439: Is because of the acquisition of land rights that the Vellalar got their name. The Vellalars have a long cultural history that goes back to over two millennia in southern India, where once they were the ruling and land-owning community. Though the Vellalar have generally been associated with the landed gentry and agriculture, they are not a homogenous group and various people from diverse backgrounds have identified themselves as
306-602: Is described as a Velala. The Irungovels are considered to be of the same stock as the Hoysalas as in one of the Sangam poems, the ancestor of the Irungovel chieftain is said to have ruled the fortified city of Tuvarai. This city is identified with the Hoysala capital Dwarasamudra by some historians. Also, the legend of the chief killing a tiger ( Pulikadimal ) has a striking resemblance to
340-773: The Bhakti movement in south India from the seventh century CE onwards and helped revive Hinduism. Many of the Nayanmars , the Shaiva saints, were Vellalar. In the 12th century CE, saint Sekkilan Mahadevadigal Ramadeva sang the glories of these Nayanmars in his magnum opus, the Periyapuranam . Sekkizhar was born in a Vellala family in Kundrathur in Thondaimandalam and had the title Uttama Chola Pallavaraiyan. Sekkilan Mahadevadigal Ramadeva
374-593: The Kondaikatti Velaalar who served ruling dynasties in various capacities also identify themselves as Vellalar. Likewise, the Kottai Pillaimar who were traditionally land-holders and lived inside forts, neither lease land for agriculture nor do they till their own fields. They also do not supervise cultivation directly due to the stigma attached to farming and manual labor. Similarly, the Vellala Chettis,
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#1732851219366408-783: The Nigamanagātha of Vinayavinicchaya , verse 3179) to his patron Achyuta Vikranta who was then (fifth century CE) ruling the Chola kingdom as Kalamba-kula nandane meaning the favourite of the Kalamba family . In Pali language as in Tamil , the word Kalamba or Kalambam (in Tamil) means the Kadamba tree , the sacred totemic symbol that is associated with Tamil god Murugan . The Velir were an ancient group of Tamil chieftains who claimed Yadava (Yadu) descent. The Ay Vels were one such Velir group that ruled
442-561: The Shaiva Siddhanta school of Shaivism . His literary work known as Śiva Jñāna Bodham (in Tamil ) on Shaiva Siddhanta has enjoyed great vogue and prestige among Tamils comparable to other works of Hindu philosophy from the Advaita of Adi Shankara and Vishishtadvaita of Ramanuja . Saiddhantika Non - Saiddhantika Meykandar was born to Achyuta Kalappālar and Mangalambikai , ardent devotees of Lord Shiva who lived in
476-495: The Tirupennākadam village of present-day Cuddalore District , Tamil Nadu . It is said that they were troubled over their childless state which led them to be counselled by their family guru , Sakalāgama Panditar , who advised them to do a penance at Thiruvenkadu Siva Temple. As a result, conceived and gave birth to a boy. They named him "Swethavana Perumāl", after the name of the deity at Thiruvenkadu. Swetavana Perumal
510-503: The 78-nadus of Chola-mandalam and the 48000-bhumi of Jayangonda-cholamandalam (the northern districts of Tamil Nadu that is Tondaimandalam ) conquered and colonized southern Karnataka ( Kolar district) by the grace of Rajendrachola (Kulottunga I). Historian Burton Stein who has done a detailed analysis of this inscription equates the Valangai military forces and the Velaikkara troops of
544-647: The Brahmins in their religious practices. The Vellalar nobles had marriage alliances with Chola royal families. The Smarta Brahmins have always competed with the Tamil Shaivites for religious influence in the temples in the Kaveri delta region. The Smarta adopted the worship of Hindu deities and combined their Sanskritic background with Tamil Saiva and Vaishnava devotionalism and eventually identified themselves as Shaivites and started worshipping in Shiva temples. From
578-524: The Cholas with the Vellalas and notes that the contents of the above inscription confirm this identification. The Velaikkara troops were special units of armed forces drawn from the right-hand castes that were close to the king. The units were generally named after the king like Rajaraja-terinda-valangai-velaikkarar , that is the known (terinda) forces of king Rajaraja Chola I . The Chola inscriptions state that
612-452: The Huzur plates of king Karunandakkan, the predecessor of Vikramaditya Varaguna. The Irunkovel or Irukkuvel chieftains were another ancient Velir clan who ruled from their capital Kodumbalur (near Pudukottai district). They were related to the Cholas by marriage. In an inscription of Rajadhiraja Chola an Irukkuvel feudatory who was a high-ranking military officer ( Dandanayaka ) of the king
646-736: The Kalabhras belonged to the Vellalar community of warriors who were possibly once the feudatories of the Cholas and the Pallavas . Scholar and historian M. Raghava Iyengar identifies the Kalabhras with the Kalappalar section of the Vellalar and equates king Achyuta Vikranta with Achyuta Kalappala the father of Meykandar . Buddhadatta , the Pali writer who stayed in the Chola kingdom and authored Buddhist manuals refers (in
680-458: The Sangam period to the Chola period of Indian history (A.d. 600 to 1200), state-level political authority was in the hands of relatively low, Vellalar chieftains, who endowed local and nonlocal Brahmins with land and honors, and were in turn legitimized by them. Meykandar Meykandar ( Tamil : மெய்கண்டார் , Meykaṇṭār, lit. the truth seer ), also known as Meykanda Devar , was a 13th-century philosopher and theologian who contributed to
714-527: The Velaikkara forces pledged under oath to commit suicide in case they failed to defend their king or in the event of his death. The Chalukya kings were also known by the title Velpularasar , that is kings of Vel country ( pulam means region or country in Tamil ) and as Velkulattarasar , that is kings of the Vel clan ( kulam ), in epigraphs and in the old Tamil lexicon Divakaram. The Vellalar also contributed to
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#1732851219366748-526: The Vellalar social group. Also, the Saiva Velaalar sect are originally believed to have been Jainas before they embraced Hinduism . The Tamil Jains refer to the Saiva Velaalar as nīr-pūci-nayinārs or nīr-pūci-vellalars meaning the vellalars who left Jainism by smearing the sacred ash or (tiru)-nīru . While some of the Jains assign this conversion to the period of the Bhakti movement in Tamil nadu others link it to
782-663: The core treatise of Southern Siddhanta tradition. It contains twelve aphorisms ( Sutras ) running to a total of forty lines, and deals with the nature of the three components of Saivism ( Pati - Pashu - Pasam ), and the means of attaining oneness with Siva. Many researchers conclude that Śivajñānabodham might have been composed around 1223 CE. Sakalāgama Panditar, the family guru of Meykandar, once visited Meykandar and surprisingly became his disciple. He, later known as Arulnandi Sivan , composed Shiva Njana Siddiyar and Irupa irupahthu , in which he seconded Meykandar's Śiva Jñāna Bodham . Arulnandi sivan's disciple Marai njana Sampandar
816-529: The dominant secular aristocratic caste under the Chola kings, providing the courtiers, most of the army officers, the lower ranks of the kingdom's bureaucracy, and the upper layer of the peasantry". Two identical Tamil inscriptions from Avani and Uttanur in Mulbagal Taluk dated in the 3rd year of Kulottunga I (about 1072-1073 CE) describe how the great army of the right hand class ( perumpadai valangai mahasenai ) having arrived with great weapons of war from
850-578: The major husbandmen , involved in tillage and cattle cultivation. Local Sri Lankan literature, such as the Kailiyai Malai , an account on Kalinga Magha , narrates the migration of Vellala Nattar chiefs from the Coromandel Coast to Sri Lanka. Their dominance rose under Dutch rule and they formed one of the colonial political elites of the island. At present, most of the Tamil Jains are from
884-592: The origin legend of the Hoysalas where ‘'sala'’ kills the tiger to save a sage. As per historian Arokiaswami, the Hoysala title ‘'Ballala'’ is only a variant of the Tamil word ‘'Vellala'’. The Hoysala king Veera Ballala III is even now locally known as the ‘'Vellala Maharaja'’ in Thiruvannamalai , the town that served as their capital in 14th century. According to the anthropologist Kathleen Gough , "the Vellalars were
918-521: The ruler as prince Raja-shekhara (the son of Deva Raya III ), and on this basis, dates Uma-maheshvara to c. 1465 CE. However, Harold G. Coward and K. Kunchunniraja date him to c. 1750 CE. Uma-maheshvara wrote the following works on the Advaita Vedanta philosophy: Uma-maheshvara defended Adi Shankara 's Advaita Vedanta against Ramanuja 's Vishishtadvaita . In Virodha-varudhini (or Virodha-varuthini ), he proposed to show 100 self-contradictions in
952-490: The state. The term Vellalar itself occurs in the sense of a landowner in Paripadal . The poem Pattinappaalai lists the six virtues of Vellalar as abstention from killing, abstention from stealing, propagation of religion, hospitality, justice and honesty. In the years that immediately followed the Sangam age (from third to sixth century CE), the Tamil lands were ruled by a dynasty called Kalabhras . Historians believe that
986-455: The term Velaalar (வேளாளர்) in Sangam literature is in Paripadal where it is used in the sense of a landowner. The term Velaalar (வேளாளர்) can be derived from the word Vel (வேள்), Vel being a title that was borne by the Velir chieftains of Sangam age among other things. The word Vellalar (வெள்ளாளர் ) may come from the root Vellam for flood, which gave rise to various rights of land; and it
1020-416: The territory in and around Venad during the Sangam period. The word Venad is derived from Vel -nadu, that is the country ruled by Vel chieftains. We know of a queen of Vikramaditya Varaguna, an Ay king of 9th century who is referred to as Murugan Chenthi and as Aykula Mahadevi from inscriptions. Her father, an Ay chief called Chathan Murugan is described as a Vennir Vellala that is a Vellala by birth, in
1054-511: The works of Ramanuja and other Vishishtadvaita works such as Satadushani , but fell ill after discussing 27 contradictions. Ramanuja's followers Rangacharya ( Ku-drishti-dhvanta-martanda ) and Shrinivasa-dikshita ( Virodha-varuthini-pramathini ) wrote refutations of Uma-maheshvara's criticisms. Other works attributed to him include: P. Sriramamurti identifies him with the Abhinava-Kalidasa (or Nava-Kalidasa) who wrote Bhagavata-champu ,
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1088-646: Was an elder contemporary of Kulothunga Chola II , the king who is said to have persecuted the Brahmin philosopher Ramanuja for his Vaishnavite preachings by forcing him to sign a document stating Shiva is the greatest god. The Vellalars of Sri Lanka have been chronicled in the Yalpana Vaipava Malai and other historical texts of the Jaffna kingdom . They form half of the Sri Lankan Tamil population and are
1122-411: Was brought to his maternal hometown Thiruvennainallur by his uncle. One day while he was playing in the street, he was attracted by Rishi Paranjyoti, who "descended from Kailash ". Paranjyoti initiated Swetavana Perumal as his disciple and gave him the diksha Nāmam , "Mey Kandār", the Tamil equivalent of his guru 's name, Satya njnana darshini . Meykandar composed Śiva Jñāna Bodham in Tamil ,
1156-502: Was the guru of Umapati Sivan who composed another eight texts explaining Shaiva Siddhanta. These four personages – Meykandar, Arulnandi Sivan, Marai njana Sampandar and Umapati Sivan are revered by the Tamil Siddhantins as "Santāna Kuravars" (Lineage of Gurus). Shaiva Siddhanta Sampradaya was spread by Santana Kuravars during 13th and 14th centuries in Tamil land is known as "Meykandar Sampradaya " in philosophical perspective. It
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