Just Like That: History of Hindu civilisation demonstrates not separation but synthesis

MY rule book, Echoes of infinity: A journeying of amerindic Thought from the set up Veda to the Present, was launched recently by Shri Nitin Gadkari in Delhi. Part of the panel was also my good friend and college contemporary, Shashi Tharoor. Gadkari spoke with erudition and eloquence. So did Shashi, but one of his comments was that perhaps the book did not fully represent the contributions of South India. I hastened to disabuse him, because actually this compendium was, if anything, more representative—and legitimately so—of the remarkable role played by South India in the making of Hindu civilisation.Last week, I was invited to Chennai by the Rotary Club of the city and the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO) to speak on my books, diplomacy and politics. Dr Navin Jayakumar, top ophthalmologist, quiz master and pianist, was in conversation with me. Separately, I gave another talk at the beautiful and gracious home of Raju and Raji Venkatraman (right next to the home of Vijay, the new chief minister). Raju is a remarkably successful entrepreneur and well-known figure of Chennai. He had invited some fifty people of the literati and glitterati of the city.In contemporary political discourse, there is often a tendency to view India through simplistic binaries: North and South, Hindi and non-Hindi, Aryan and Dravidian, Sanskrit and Tamil. Such formulations may serve immediate political ends, but they do grave injustice to the civilisational unity of India. For if there is one region that has nurtured, preserved, enriched and disseminated the core values of Hindu civilisation over the centuries, it is South India.It is a matter of historical fact that the philosophical foundations of Hinduism attained some of their most sophisticated articulation in the South. The towering figure of Adi Shankaracharya, born in Kerala in the eighth century, traversed the length and breadth of India to revive the knowledge of Advaita Vedanta. At a time when India was intellectually fragmented by competing schools of thought, Shankara provided a unifying philosophical vision rooted in the Upanishadic insight of the oneness of existence. His commentaries on the Brahma Sutras, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita remain among the greatest achievements of Indian philosophy.Equally influential was Ramanujacharya, whose Vishisht Advaita philosophy brought a profound devotional dimension to Vedantic thought. Born in Tamil Nadu, Ramanuja challenged exclusivist tendencies and emphasised the accessibility of divine grace to all devotees. His teachings helped shape the Bhakti movement that transformed religious life across India.Then came Madhavacharya of Karnataka, who propounded Dvaita Vedanta. Vallabhacharya propounded Shuddha Advaita, further affirming the distinction between the individual soul and the Supreme Being. Incidentally, although Vallabh founded the Krishna sect of Vaishnavism in the Braj region of northern India, he was a Telegu Brahmin. One may also recall the seminal works of Nimbarkacharya and several others.The same is true of sacred literature. The Tirukkural of Thiruvalluvar, written about 2000 years ago, occupies a unique place in Indian civilisation. Comprising 1,330 couplets in Tamil of extraordinary wisdom, it deals with ethics, governance, social conduct and human relationships with a universality that transcends religious boundaries. So profound is its moral vision that it has often been called the “Fifth Veda.”The contribution of South India to Hindu civilisation is perhaps most visible in its temples. A visitor standing before the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur, the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, the temples of Kanchipuram, Srirangam, Belur, Halebid or Hampi cannot fail to be overwhelmed by the scale of artistic achievement they represent. These temples are not merely places of worship. They are repositories of architecture, sculpture, music, dance, literature and social organisation.South India, though not entirely untouched, escaped much of the destruction caused by the Turkic and other invaders. Consequently, it became the custodian of architectural traditions that might otherwise have vanished. This continuity reached a remarkable political expression in the Vijayanagara Empire. Established in the fourteenth century, Vijayanagara emerged as the last great Hindu kingdom of medieval India. At a time when much of the subcontinent was under the control of various Islamic dynasties, Vijayanagara became a powerful centre of Hindu political authority, cultural patronage and economic prosperity.South India’s influence extended far beyond the shores of the subcontinent. Through trade, diplomacy and occasional military expeditions, the Chola empire (9th-13th century CE) projected Indian influence across Southeast Asia. From Indonesia and Cambodia to Thailand and Malaysia, one encounters unmistakable traces of Hindu culture. Sanskrit inscriptions, temple architecture (including Angkor Wat, the largest Hindu temple in the world), royal rituals, epics such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and countless linguistic borrowings testify to a civilisational exchange of remarkable depth.To recognise these contributions is not to diminish the role of other regions of India. Hindu civilisation is a collective inheritance enriched by every part of the country. The philosophical insights of the Upanishads, the spiritual geography of the Ganga, the poetry of the Bhakti saints, the intellectual achievements of ancient universities such as Nalanda and Takshashila—all form part of the same civilisational continuum.In an age when political rhetoric often seeks to accentuate divisions between North and South, this shared heritage deserves renewed attention. The history of Hindu civilisation demonstrates not separation but synthesis; not fragmentation but interconnectedness. In this interconnectedness, South India has played a major role.