Murugan, “Aryan”-Dravidian Issues, and Divide-the-Hindus Ideologies

 

Murugan, “Aryan”-Dravidian Issues, and Divide-the-Hindus Ideologies

 Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

Apparently a controversy over the Hindu/Tamil God Murugan has erupted. A simple question on google elicited the following:

“Lord Murugan (Karthikeya) is profoundly revered in South India, particularly as the patron deity of the Tamil language and culture (Tamil Kadavul). He has recently become the center of two major controversies: [1, 2, 3]

·         The "God of War" Film Controversy: The announcement of a film featuring actor Jr. NTR and director Trivikram sparked immense outrage. The controversy stemmed from a promotional tagline that claimed the deity was "Born in the North...". Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objected, stating that Murugan is an indigenous, foundational Tamil deity born in celestial southern mythology, and accused filmmakers of erasing Tamil cultural history. [1, 2, 3, 4]

·         The DMK Government Conference: The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu faced heavy flak from opposition parties and ideological allies for hosting a grand conference dedicated to Lord Murugan. Critics from secular and leftist factions accused the conventionally rationalist, anti-caste Dravidian party of compromising its secular foundations and trying to appease religious voters. [1, 2]”

The “Aryan-Dravidian” controversy in India (apart from the blatantly political aspects) is based on the theory floated by historians that the “Aryans” (speakers of Indo-Aryan/Indo-European languages) invaded, or immigrated into, India somewhere around 1500 BCE, displaced the Dravidian language speakers then allegedly spread out over most of India (and certainly the northwest), more-or-less drove the Dravidian speakers, or at least the languages themselves, southwards and took over their space. This is the AIT or “Aryan Invasion/Immigration Theory”. supported by the academic vested interests, woke and leftist elements, “Dravidian” ideologues from the South, and casteist hate-ideologists from every caste in India.

I need hardly point out that this obnoxious theory has been completely and irrefutably demolished in my books and articles.

However, recently some prominent elements from the opposite side (i.e. the pro-OIT anti-AIT side), including prominent writers and scholars like Jijith Nadumuri Ravi and Koenraad Elst, have started vigorously propagating an opposite theory: the DIT or “Dravidian Invasion/Immigration Theory”, according to which speakers of Dravidian languages immigrated into a predominantly existing Indo-Aryan/Indo-European North India during the Vedic period and (even though they are still not being described as displacing Indo-Aryan/Indo-European speakers, since these scholars maintain a silence on the linguistic identity of the people whom they allegedly replaced in South India) passed through the Indo-Aryan/Indo-European areas of North India and colonized the South.

 

The common ideological belief shared by the AIT-supporters and the DIT-supporters is that one of the two language speaking groups (Indo-Aryan/Indo-European and Dravidian) are late entrants into an India already inhabited by the other of the two. The two groups of ideologues only differ about who are the “natives” and who are the “intruders”.

[Another ideological belief, incidentally, shared by the above AIT-supporters and DIT-supporters is that Indian civilization and culture, if not the Indian people themselves, from all parts of India originated and spread from the Harappan areas of the northwest and that the whole rest of India was cultureless or peopleless before this spread!]

 

The question is apparently: is Murugan a purely Tamil God native to Tamilnadu or is he a Northern God?

See the point of controversy: “Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objected, stating that Murugan is an indigenous, foundational Tamil deity born in celestial southern mythology”.

So far as that goes, perfectly right. In my articles and books, I have put it in very clear terms, the following for example from my article “Are Indian Tribals Hindus?”:

“But there was a big difference in the spread of Hinduism all over India and the spread of Christianity all over the world. Unlike Christianity, which demonised the Gods, beliefs and rituals of the religions which it sought to uproot, destroy and supplant, Hinduism accepted and internalised the Gods, beliefs and rituals of the tribal religions which converged into it. The result is that today the most popular Hindu deities in every single part of India are originally tribal Gods: whether Ayyappa of Kerala, Murugan of Tamilnadu, Balaji of Andhra, Vitthala (originally) of Karnataka (Vithoba of Maharashtra), Khandoba of Maharashtra, Jagannatha of Orissa, etc., etc., or the myriad forms of the Mother Goddess, with thousands of names, in every nook and corner of India: every single local (originally tribal) God and Goddess is revered by every Hindu in every corner of India, in the form of the kuladevata, the grihadevata or the gramadevata. In time, of course, myths were formed nominally associating many of these deities with one or the other of the main Gods and Goddesses of Puranic Hinduism as their manifestations, these Puranic Gods themselves being additions from different parts of India to the Hindu pantheon (or originally Vedic Gods like Vishnu and Rudra with basic characteristics adopted from the other local and tribal deities). But these associations were not an imposition “from above”, they were the result of popular local myth-making and part of the consolidation of the national popularization of the local deities: the deities retained their local names, forms, rituals and customs, and became all-India deities, objects of pilgrimages from distant areas.

 

But it is not only in respect of “Gods” and “Goddesses” that Hinduism freely and respectfully adopted from other tribes and religions: even the most basic concepts of the Hindu religion are originally elements adopted from the tribal and local religions from every part of India. The original Puru (Vedic) layer of religion which forms the pan-Indian umbrella of Hinduism was originally more or less the religion depicted in the Rigveda: the worship of Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Agni, Soma, the Maruts and Ashvins, and other specifically Vedic deities (including Vishnu and Rudra, who later become the most important Puranic Gods), and the main religious rituals were the Agni rituals (homa, yadnya, etc.) and the Soma rituals. The Soma rituals are completely defunct today (in fact, no-one knows the exact identity of Soma), the Agni rituals are still performed, but only during major ceremonies (birth, death, weddings, ritual inaugurations of houses, etc.) and on other major occasions, and the major Vedic Gods are minor figures of Puranic stories.   

 

Practically every single basic feature of Hinduism today was adopted from the religious beliefs and rituals of the other, originally tribal, religious traditions of the people from every single corner of India as they all converged into Hinduism. To begin with, Idol-worship which is absolutely the central feature of Hinduism and which includes (a) the worship of the lingam, “rude blocks of stone” with eyes painted on them, or roughly or finely carved or cast images of stone, metal or some other material, (b) treating the idols as living beings (bathing, dressing and feeding them, putting them to sleep, etc.), (c) performing puja by offering flowers, water and fruits, bananas and coconuts, clothes and ornaments to the idols, (d) performing aarti by waving lights and incense before the idols, (e) performing music and dance before the idols, (e) partaking of prasad of food offered to the idols, (f) having idol-temples with elaborate carvings and sculptures, with sacred tanks and bathing ghats, temple festivals with palanquins and chariots, etc. (g) applying sandal-paste, turmeric, vermillion, etc. on the forehead as a mark of the idols, etc. This entire system in all its variations was adopted from the various practices of the people of eastern, central and southern India, along with the Gods and idols themselves.”

 

The point is that many of the “Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objecting” are making this an issue of Tamil-versus-Hindu, and insisting that Murugan is not a Hindu God but a Tamil one! It is as if the people of Orissa were to insist that Jagannatha is not a Hindu God but an Oriya one, or the people of Maharashtra (or Karnataka) were to insist that Vitthala is not a Hindu God but a Marathi (or Kannada) one!

This controversy over Murugan is of a piece with controversies arising from the discoveries of archaeological, and technologically advanced material, evidence from the South. Indo-Aryan/Indo-European protagonists are quick to insist on a northern origin for these discoveries, and “Dravidian” protagonists are quick to paint a separatist and antagonistic-to-the-north identity for them:

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/leave-history-alone-why-an-archaeological-discovery-in-tamil-nadu-has-ruffled-feathers

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2025/01/discovery-of-oldest-iron-in-world-in.html

 

All I can emphasize, without going again and again into things written umpteen times before, is: there is no Tamil/Oriya/Marathi etc. God or religion in India: there are only Hindu Gods and Hindu religion. Whether Murugan, or any other God, is “Tamil” or “Oriya” or “Santali” or “Naga” or “Andamanese”, or ‘Northern” or “Southern”, he is always “Hindu” and always Devil Incarnate and an object of hatred for followers of Abrahamic religions. Hindus: do not fall into the trap and ignite or indulge in intra-Hindu conflicts and hate-campaigns for the benefit of the enemies of Hinduism.

[See how the anti-Hindu forces keep each other in line when any one group among them appears to be straying away even superficially from the anti-Hindu line: "The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu faced heavy flak from opposition parties and ideological allies for hosting a grand conference dedicated to Lord Murugan." They at least are well aware of what is Hindu and what is not] 

APPENDIX ADDED 13 July 2026: Imposition From Above?”:

All the local Gods and Goddesses of different parts of India were identified with the main Puranic gods and goddesses slowly acquiring each others' features.

The question can arise: was this an “imposition from ‘above’”?

But that question would be born from a typical Abrahamic and non-Pagan hate-attitude towards the Gods of “other” religions. Actually this synthesis of Gods does not indicate that one powerful culture is imposing itself on another: i.e. it was not a forceful imposition by the North on the South or by "Aryans" on others. In India this process represented the formation of “Hinduism”, the banyan-tree of all Indian Religions, and therefore a hate-target for the breaking-India Forces. But this was a universal worldwide Pagan phenomenon: the powerful Romans for example identified all their own Gods with those of the earlier classical Greece (even directly adopting, for example, Gods like Apollo, in the process) and likewise adopted the Iranian Mithra. In Central America, the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl and the Mayan God Kukulkan were identified with each other. In China the Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin, was identified with the Buddhist Avalokiteswara (despite the difference in gender).

 

Greek Name	: Roman Name
Aphrodite	Venus
Apollo	Apollo
Ares	Mars
Artemis	Diana
Athena	Minerva
Demeter	Ceres
Hades	Pluto
Hephaistos	Vulcan
Hera	Juno
Hermes	Mercury
Hestia	Vesta
Kronos	Saturn
Persephone	Proserpina
Poseidon	Neptune
Zeus	Jupiter
Erinyes	Furiae
Eris	Discordia
Eros	Cupid
Moirae	Parcae
Charites	Gratiae
Helios	Sol
Horai	Horae
Pan	Faunus
Selene	Luna
Tyche	Fortuna