During the Sangam age, Tamil society was casteless and the ancestors of the Dalits were respected warriors, priests and bards and were considered auspicious, said S. Palaniyappan, an engineer turned Tamil scholar, in Madurai recently.
He was addressing historians and archaeologists at a special lecture on ‘Early Social History – A Multi Disciplinary Approach’ at Pandya Nadu Centre for Historical Research .
In his lecture, Palaniappan said the word ‘Pulaiya’ was misinterpreted as untouchables or low-caste people. But it is related to the word ‘Polivu’, meaning flourishing and auspiciousness .
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“They were not considered untouchables. In other words, untouchability was not part of the indigenous Tamil tradition,” he said. The caste system in Tamil Nadu was a borrowed factor that established itself after the Sangam period. One particular verse in ‘Puranaanuru’, sung by a Pandya king, Arya Padai Kadantha Nedunchezhiyan (he who conquered the Aryan Northern Army), the use of the phrase ‘vetrumai therintha naarpaal’ (four varnas) indicates that caste system was imported from the northern part of the country.
Arguing from his paper titled ‘On the unintended influence of Jainism on the development of caste in post-classical Tamil society’, he said that people often fail to explain terms like ‘izhipirappinon’ while taking about casteless Tamil society.
“Without explaining the word, we cannot prove that Tamil society is a casteless society,” he said. “My contribution is an explanation for that factor.”
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According to the Jain concept, he explained, people who practise violence such as hunting or sacrificing animals are believed to be reborn as beings of a lower world. An alternate word for hell in Tamil is ‘izhikati’. People who will be born in hell are said to be ‘izhikati’ – an alternate word for ‘izhipirappinon’. “This talks not about the present birth but a birth after. Moreover, status of human being is given by the moralistic attitude of the people and not by birth.”
Dr.Palaniappan also explained various ‘misinterpreted’ terms like ‘Pulaiyan’ and ‘ilicinan’ and hoped that his research article published in International Journal of Jaina Studies would help Dalits recover their lost history.