Buddhism and Jainism in South India - 5

Blogger Ravi Mundkur discusses about the Natha cult and its influence in south-west coastal India. My interest stems from the fact that it appeared to have bridged Brahmins and Buddhists in the Tantra aspect.

But even today Natha cult is alive in small pockets as an independent movement. Therefore, any argument that Buddhists turned Brahmans because of this cult in this region can not be ascertained for surety. But there are couple of things that I find rather intriguing.

There is a rather curious tradition among Malayali Brahmins. The Namboodiris who are temple priests were excluded from Vedic studies. The Vedic beginning of Tantra has always been suspect. In fact, it rather sounds like ghostistic than godistic in its worship of a deity. That is, the priest gets possessed by the deity before the ritual.

Ravi Mundkur gives the following account on origin of Matsyendranatha, a dominant figure of Natha cult(by legends),

Macchendra (Matsyendra) Natha hailed from a fisher community of probably Bengal area. (However, the sculptures show him riding on fish and the legends metaphorically describe his birth from the semen of Shiva swallowed by a fish).

Then we have Grama Paddhati account, a manuscript belonging to Tuluva Brahmins, on the dual origin of Tuluva brahmins(probably, both Tulu and Malayali Brahmins). According to legends;
-> Parashurama upgraded fishermen to Brahminhood
-> Kadamba kings brought Brahmin families from Godavari region and settled them here

If one understands the polluting character of fish and in turn fishermen in caste system then Parashurama account sounds rather strange. Why fishermen?

That, in my opinion, can be explained if those are Matsyendranatha's Brahmins.

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Temple architecture of Kerala -I

The temple architecture in Kerala shows East Asian influences. Few have speculated a population from North-East/East Asian region moving to Kerala. Others have speculated the overwhelming Buddhist presence in the region.

I don’t find much merit in the population movement. Let’s consider Buddhism. I do not have much knowledge about the area from which Buddhism spread in Kerala. Buddhism that was prevalent in Kerala might have been Tantraism. And Eastern regions are the origin of this sect. However, I don’t think the Buddhists who came to Kerala could be from Eastern regions beyond India. That leaves us with only cult that came from regions outside the boundaries of present day India. And that is Natha cult of Nepal.

Natha cult:
According to few sources, that I have read, not much is known about this cult. But it is in this cult where Buddhism met Shivaism. Buddhists became Shaivas.

According to legends in my place(Mangalore), a Natha cult guru Matsyendranatha (or Minnatha, literally Lord of fish) from Nepal visited Mangalore(and even Kerala) around 10^th century. He propagated Shaiva Tantraism among Buddhists Tanriks*. One of his disciples was a queen called Mangale from an unknown(to me) Malayala region. She followed Matsyendranatha to Tulu regions along with her husband(to be precise, she followed her husband who was a follower of Minnatha) and two children. After few crazy incidents she would die tragically. And it looks like for some unknown reasons she was made goddess and the place was named Mangala Pura after her. Later the place came to known as Mangalooru (Or Mangalore) but Malayalees still call it Mangala Puram**. Now back to original topic.

In my opinion, the East Asian influence is because of Nepal connection through Natha cult. Nepal architecture has obvious Sino-Tibetan features. Probably, sculptors, architects from Nepal followed Natha cult gurus to Tulu/Malayala regions. I am not sure how many of these temples are older than 1000 years.

*Another region where Natha cult became popular was Bengal. No wonder, both Malayala/Tulu and Bengal regions show very strong Tantrik tradition even today.

**The native Tuluvas call the region “Kudla”. Fits well with my Tala people theory with little bit stretching(tala-> kada).