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Maṭhas and Medieval Religious Movements in Tamil Nadu

This is a continuation and the concluding part of our epigraphical study on maṭhas and medieval religious movements in Tamil Nadu published in Indian Historical Review’s 2010 issue, in which we examined the inscriptions referring to maṭhas in order to learn about their activities during the four hundred years up to 1300 CE, covering the Chola period. In this study, we have examined the inscriptions for the next four centuries covering the Pandyan and Vijayanagar periods. Our purpose was to clarify the medieval religious movements that might have occurred, but about which nothing is known from religious texts of the period. The inscriptions, however, reveal many facts: an influx of North Indian Brāhmaṇa ascetics into the Chola country in the eleventh century; participation by various people, including low-ranked jātis, in maṭha activities from the twelfth century; the recitation of Dēvāram hymns and Tirumuṟai in maṭhas, including Gōḷaki ones, in the thirteenth century; and references to the Meykaṇḍār lineage from the fifteenth century. The chronological distribution of the inscriptions clearly shows that some religious movements did occur through the maṭhas during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They all show that the religious movement was closely related to contemporary social change, through which various non-Brāhmaṇa communities increased their power greatly. This brought about the establishment of Tamil Saivasiddhantism in Tamil Nadu in the thirteenth century.