35 Facts About Arumuka Navalar

Arumuka Navalar was born in a Tamil literary family, and became one of the Jaffna Tamils notable for reviving, reforming and reasserting the Hindu Shaivism tradition during the colonial era.

Arumuka Navalar established Hindu schools and published a press in order to publish reading materials for Hindu children to educate them on Hindu religion and practice and rituals of Hindu religion.

Arumuka Navalar was one of the first natives to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition.

Arumuka Navalar is credited with finding and publishing original palm leaf manuscripts.

Arumuka Navalar attempted to reform Hindu Shaivism and customary practices in Sri Lanka, such as by showing Shaiva Agamas prohibit animal sacrifice and violence of any form.

Arumuka Navalar was born in 1822 as Nallur Arumuga Pillai to a Hindu family in Sri Lanka.

Arumuka Navalar's home was in the town of Nallur on the Jaffna peninsula.

Arumuka Navalar immersed himself in the study of the Bible as well as the Vedas, Agamas and Puranas.

Arumugam Arumuka Navalar felt that Hindu Saivites needed a clearer understanding of their own ancient literature and religion.

Arumuka Navalar continued to help the Christian missionaries but resolved to challenge the theological ideas of these missionaries, as well as launch reforms and spread the original ideas of Shaivism.

Arumuka Navalar left his job under Peter Percival that he had with the Wesleyan Mission, although Percival offered him a higher salary to stay on.

Arumuka Navalar decided not to marry and relinquished his patrimony and did not get any money from his four employed brothers.

Arumuka Navalar believed that the Christian missionaries should be viewed as a gift from Shiva to help awaken his community to discover their own dharma path from "which they had departed" and away from the path of the "barbaric Europeans", states Hudson.

Arumuga Arumuka Navalar was one of the first Tamils who became adept at this information war, and to undertake as his life's career the intellectual and institutional response of Saivism to Christianity in Sri Lanka and India.

Arumugam Arumuka Navalar who was part of the organisation wrote about the meeting in The Morning Star in a sympathetic tone.

Arumuka Navalar's letter admonished the missionaries for misrepresenting their own religion and concluded that in effect there was no difference between Christianity and Hindu Saivism as far as idol worship and temple rituals were concerned.

Arumuka Navalar was helped by his friend Karttikeya Aiyar of Nallur and his students from his school.

Arumuka Navalar specifically reprimanded the trustees and priests of the Nallur Kandaswami Temple in his home town because they had built the temple not according to the Agamas a century ago as well as used priests who were not initiated in the Agamas.

Arumuka Navalar opposed their worship of Vel or the weapon representing the main deity as it did not have Agamic sanction.

Arumuka Navalar developed his teaching methods based on the exposure he had with the Missionaries.

Arumuka Navalar developed the curriculum to be able to teach 20 students at a time and included secular subject matters and English.

Arumuka Navalar wrote the basic instruction materials for different grades in Saivism.

Arumuka Navalar was asked by the head of the monastery to preach.

Arumuka Navalar's press was set up in a building that was donated by a merchant of Vannarpannai.

Arumuka Navalar published literature of controversial nature, in a manner similar to how Christian missionaries were, in what Navalar called as "mocking" the Hindus.

Arumuka Navalar started two schools, two printing presses and campaigned against Christian missionary activity in colonial-era Jaffna and Madras Presidency.

Arumuka Navalar produced approximately ninety-seven Tamil publications, twenty-three were his own creations, eleven were commentaries, and forty were his editions of those works of grammar, literature, liturgy, and theology that were not previously available in print.

Arumuka Navalar was the first person to deploy the prose style in the Tamil language and according to Tamil scholar Kamil Zvelebil in style it bridged the medieval to the modern.

Arumuka Navalar established the world's first Hindu school adapted to the modern needs that succeeded and flourished.

Arumuka Navalar who identified himself with an idealised past, worked within the traditions of Hindu Saiva culture and adhered to the Hindu Saiva doctrine.

Arumuka Navalar inspired his fellow Tamils to publish Hindu texts and their translations.

Arumuka Navalar's critics state that Navalar was an example of a "hegemonic caste" and his hidden agenda was to promote his own caste.

Arumuga Arumuka Navalar found support from the Brahmins and his own literati caste of Vellalas in the Tamil community, according to Wilson, because he accepted and recognized their caste-based status.

Arumuka Navalar's legacy has provoked negative reactions and criticism from the political left of South Asia.

Arumuka Navalar, states Schalk, was a theologian who used indirect "metonymic language" with "coded words" that metaphorically supported the traditional caste system privileges within the colonial era administration.