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Iyengar , Mysore
Iyengars (also spelt Ayyangar or Aiyengar, pronounced ) are an ethnoreligious community of Tamil language, Tamil-speaking Hindu Brahmins, whose members follow Sri Vaishnavism and the Visishtadvaita philosophy propounded by Ramanuja. Iyengars are divided into two denominations, the Vadakalai and the Sri Vaishnavism, Tenkalai and live mostly in the Southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. The community belongs to the Pancha-Dravida, Pancha Dravida Brahmana classification of Brahmins in India. Etymology There are several opinions regarding the etymology of the term ''Iyengar'', which is the anglicized form of the Dravidian word ''Aiyaṅgār'' (, ). One is that it derives from the Proto-Tamil, Proto-Dravidian word ''ayya-gāru'' (Tamil-Brahmi, 𑀅𑀬𑀕𑀭𑀼), which became ''Ayyangāru'' (), and later ''Ayengar''. The term ''ayya'' is the Tamil language, Tamil equivalent of the Sanskrit word ''ārya,'' (Brahmi script, 𑀆𑀭𑁆𑀬/Devanagar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since 2023; and, since its independence in 1947, the world's most populous democracy. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is near Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia. Modern humans arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago., "Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations averag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmins
Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). The traditional occupation of Brahmins is that of priesthood (purohit, pandit, or pujari) at Hindu temples or at socio-religious ceremonies, and the performing of rite of passage rituals, such as solemnising a wedding with hymns and prayers.James Lochtefeld (2002), Brahmin, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing, , page 125 Traditionally, Brahmins are accorded the supreme ritual status of the four social classes, and they also served as spiritual teachers (guru or acharya). In practice, Indian texts suggest that some Brahmins historically also became agriculturalists, warriors, traders, and had also held other occupations in the Indian subcontinent.GS Ghurye (1969), Caste and Race in India, Popular Prakasha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Srivaishnavism
Sri Vaishnavism () is a denomination within the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism, predominantly practiced in South India. The name refers to goddess Lakshmi (also known as Sri), as well as a prefix that means "sacred, revered", and the god Vishnu, who are together revered in this tradition. The tradition traces its roots to the ancient Vedas and Pancharatra texts, popularised by the Alvars and their canon, the Naalayira Divya Prabandham. The founding of Sri Vaishnavism is traditionally attributed to Nathamuni of the 10th century CE; its central philosopher has been Ramanuja of the 11th century, who developed the ''Vishishtadvaita'' ("qualified non-dualism") Vedanta sub-school of Hindu philosophy. The tradition split into two denominations around the 16th century. The Vadakalai sect vested the Vedas with the greatest authority and follow the doctrine of Vedanta Desika, whereas the Tenkalai sect vested the Naalayira Divya Prabandham with the greatest authority and follow the pri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nathamuni
Nathamuni, also known as Sri Ranganathamuni, (823 CE – 951 CE), was a Vaishnava theologian who collected and compiled the ''Naalayira Divya Prabandham''.Srinivasa Chari, S. M. (1994). Vaiṣṇavism, p.22-24. Motilal Banarsidass Publishers./ref> Considered the first of the Sri Vaishnava a''charyas'', Nathamuni is also the author of the ''Yogarahasya'',Desikachar, T.K.V. (2010). The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, p.231. Inner Traditions, Bear & Co./ref> and the ''Nyayatattva''. Biography Early life Nathamuni is generally considered to have been born in 823 CE and to have died in 951 CE. His birth name was Aranganathan; however, he was known as Nathamuni, which literally means ''Saint-lord'' (''Nathan'' - lord, ''muni'' - saint).Kallidaikurichi Aiyah Nilakanta Sastri (1964). The culture and history of the Tamils, p.149Padmaja, T. (2002). Temples of Kr̥ṣṇa in South India: History, Art, and Traditions in Tamil Nadu. Abhinav Publications./ref> An altern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ramanujacharya Idol In A Temple
Ramanuja ('; Middle Tamil: Rāmāṉujam; Classical Sanskrit: Rāmānuja; 1077 – 1157), also known as Ramanujacharya, was an Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and social reformer. He is one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavism tradition in Hinduism. His philosophical foundations for devotional practice were influential in the Bhakti movement. Ramanuja's guru was Yādava Prakāśa, a scholar who, traditionally, is said to have belonged to the Advaita Vedānta tradition, but probably was a Bhedabheda scholar. Sri Vaishnava tradition holds that Ramanuja disagreed with his guru and the non-dualistic Advaita Vedānta, and instead followed in the footsteps of Tamil Alvārs tradition, the scholars Nāthamuni and Yamunāchārya. Ramanuja is famous as the chief proponent of Vishishtadvaita school of Vedānta, and his disciples were likely authors of texts such as the Shatyayaniya Upanishad. Ramanuja himself wrote influential texts, such as Sanskrit bhāsyas on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pali
Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Canon'' or ''Tripiṭaka, Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of ''Theravada, Theravāda'' Buddhism. Pali was designated as a Classical languages of India, classical language by the Government of India on 3 October 2024. Origin and development Etymology The word 'Pali' is used as a name for the language of the Theravada canon. The word seems to have its origins in commentarial traditions, wherein the (in the sense of the line of original text quoted) was distinguished from the commentary or vernacular translation that followed it in the manuscript. K. R. Norman suggests that its emergence was based on a misunderstanding of the compound , with being interpreted as the name of a particular language. The name Pali does not appear in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India, official scripts of India and Nepal. It was developed in, and was in regular use by, the 8th century CE. It had achieved its modern form by 1000 CE. The Devanāgarī script, composed of 48 primary characters, including 14 vowels and 34 consonants, is the fourth most widely List of writing systems by adoption, adopted writing system in the world, being used for over 120 languages, the most popular of which is Hindi (). The orthography of this script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Unlike the Latin alphabet, the script has no concept of letter case, meaning the script is a unicase, unicameral alphabet. It is written from left to right, has a strong preference for symmetri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmi Script
Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' or 'Lat', 'Southern Aśokan', 'Indian Pali', 'Mauryan', and so on. The application to it of the name Brahmi [''sc. lipi''], which stands at the head of the Buddhist and Jaina script lists, was first suggested by T[errien] de Lacouperie, who noted that in the Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia ''Fa yiian chu lin'' the scripts whose names corresponded to the Brahmi and Kharosthi of the ''Lalitavistara'' are described as written from left to right and from right to left, respectively. He therefore suggested that the name Brahmi should refer to the left-to-right 'Indo-Pali' script of the Aśokan pillar inscriptions, and Kharosthi to the right-to-left 'Bactro-Pali' script of the rock inscriptions from the northwest." that appeared as a fully ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil-Brahmi
Tamil-Brahmi, also known as Tamili or Damili, was a variant of the Brahmi script in southern India. It was used to write inscriptions in Old Tamil.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages'', Oxford University Press, pages 35–36 with footnote 103 The Tamil-Brahmi script has been paleographically and stratigraphically dated between the third century BCE and the first century CE, and it constitutes the earliest known writing system evidenced in many parts of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Sri Lanka. Tamil Brahmi inscriptions have been found on cave entrances, stone beds, potsherds, jar burials, coins, seals, and rings. Tamil Brahmi resembles but differs in several minor ways from the Brahmi inscriptions found elsewhere on the Indian subcontinent such as the Edicts of Ashoka found in Andhra Pradesh.Richard Salomon (1998) ''Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Tamil
Proto-Dravidian is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Dravidian languages native to the Indian subcontinent. It is thought to have differentiated into Proto-North Dravidian, Proto-Central Dravidian, and Proto-South Dravidian, although the date of diversification is still debated. History As a proto-language, Proto-Dravidian is not itself attested in historical records. Its modern conception is based solely on reconstruction. It is suggested that the language was spoken in the 4th millennium BCE, and started evolving into various branches around 3rd-millennium BCE. The origin and territory of the Proto-Dravidian speakers is uncertain, but some suggestions have been made based on the reconstructed Proto-Dravidian vocabulary. The reconstruction has been done on the basis of cognate words present in the different branches ( Northern, Central and Southern) of the Dravidian language family. According to , the botanical vocabulary of Proto-Dravidian is char ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pancha-Dravida
Pancha Dravida ( from Sanskrit: पंच ''pancha'') is one of the two major groupings of Brahmins in Hinduism, of which the other is Pancha-Gauda. In ''Rajatarangini'' Kalhana, in his ''Rajatarangini'' (c. 12th century CE), classifies the following five Brahmin communities as Pancha Dravida, stating that they reside to the south of the Vindhyas: * Karnataka ( Karnataka Brahmins) * Tailanga ( Telugu Brahmins) * Dravida (Brahmins of Tamil Nadu and Kerala) * Maharashtraka (Maharashtrian Brahmins) * Gurjara ( Gujarati Brahmins) In the ''Sahyādrikhaṇḍa'' A fragment of the '' Sahyādrikhaṇḍa'', featured in Hemadri's ''Chatur-varga-chintamani'' (13th century), quotes Shiva to name the following divisions of the Pancha Dravidas: * Drāviḍa * Tailaṅga * Karnāṭa * Madhyadeśa (identified with Mahārāṣṭra in variant readings) * Gurjara In the ''kaifiyat''s The Maratha-era '' kaifiyats'' (bureaucratic records) of Deccan, which give an account of the society i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southern India
South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry, occupying 19.31% of India's area () and 20% of India's population. It is bound by the Bay of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and the Indian Ocean in the south. The geography of the region is diverse, with two mountain ranges, the Western and Eastern Ghats, bordering the plateau heartland. The Godavari, Krishna, Kaveri, Penna, Tungabhadra and Vaigai rivers are important non-perennial sources of water. Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Coimbatore and Kochi are the largest urban areas in the region. The majority of the people in South India speak at least one of the four major Dravidian languages: Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. During its history, a number of dynastic kingdoms ruled ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
