Christian History Myth and Reality


Things They Don't Tell You About Christianity

by ecclesi, freetruth.50webs.org

History

Ancient Greece and Rome

The early fathers of the Church hated Greek civilisation and sought its destruction:

The philobarbarian attitude of Saint John Chrysostom [3rd-4th century]:
"The more a nation looks barbaric and is estranged from Greek culture, the more our teachings shine - this (faithful) barbarian has conquered the entire world and while all Greek culture is extinguished and destroyed, his (the barbarian's) shines brighter every day".

All over the empire, mobs of Christian monks went about destroying the many Greco-Roman works of art, libraries of antiquity, and pre-Christian temples:

The Greek called them "swinish black-cloths", because "they looked like men but lived like pigs".
A contemporary writer tells us

"armed with clubs or stones and swords they ran to the temples, some without these weapons only with their bare hands and feet"
-- (Libanios "Pro temples" 389 AD)

As soon as they had destroyed one temple, they dashed away to the next. They toppled over walls, smashed idols, statues and art-objects and altars, and stole the temples wealth for themselves.

From the time of Constantine, Rome's first Christian emperor:
from 314 CE all the way to 988 CE, the Hellenes (ancient Greeks) were persecuted and their civilisation destroyed. The Greeks were exterminated if they would not convert -

359 CE - In Skythopolis, Syria, Christians organise the first death camps for the torture and execution of arrested Gentiles [adherents of pre-Christian religions] from all around the Empire.
...
385 to 388 - Maternus Cynegius, encouraged by his fanatic wife, and bishop, "Saint" Marcellus with his gangs scour the countryside, sack and destroy hundreds of Hellenic Temples, shrines and altars. Amongst others they destroy the Temple of Edessa, the Cabeireion of Imbros, the Temple of Zeus in Apamea, the Temple of Apollo in Dydima and all the Temples of Palmyra. Thousands of innocent Gentiles from all sides of the Empire suffer martyrdom in the notorious death camps of Skythopolis.
...
950 to 988 - Violent conversion of the last Gentile Hellenes of Laconia by the Armenian "Saint" Nikon.

The oldest and most renowned Churches are actually built on sites which previously had pre-Christian temples on them - which Christians had demolished. This happened all over the Roman Empire, to Syria in the East and North Africa and Palestine in the South.
And:

The cave of the Vatican belonged to Mithra until 376 A.D., when a city prefect suppressed the cult of the rival Savior and seized the shrine in the name of Christ, on the very birthday of the pagan god, December 25.
-- Barbara G. Walker

Until Constantine's time, the most favourable estimate (which many scholars consider too optimistic) of the Christian population in the entire empire was no more than 5%. About 2/3 of these were in Armenia, and much of the remainder in Syria and Asia minor.

According to Roman sources, the Christians ...in Rome ...were considered a small, uneducated group of religious troublemakers from the lowest social classes, operating in the shadowy sides of society.

The educated Romans disliked the religion. Some of them wrote books refuting Christianity, like the Epicurean Kelsos in his Alethes Logos, the last pagan emperor Julian in his Kata Christianon, and Porphyry's Against the Christians. The Church, unable to sufficiently counter their well-reasoned arguments (which it occasionally attempted), "won" the debate by destroying these works when it finally got into power. Even so, some scanty ancient literature against Christianity remains, pieced together from the unsuccessful attempts at responding by Christian Church fathers.

The ancient Romans: persecutors or persecuted?

Facts
No Christian was put to death in the ColiseumAll stories of Christians being exposed to lions in the Roman Amphitheater are bogus.
-- Joseph McCabe, historian and former Franciscan monk

How many persecutions? And why?

Not 10, as Christians claim, but no more than 2 or at most 3:

Decius (249-251), Valerian (257), and Diocletian (303) were the only general and systematic persecutors.
There is no doubt in the mind of any historian that in trying to suppress or check Christianity -- at first in each case by the lighter penalties -- they were consulting the welfare of the state, which was then sinking.
Professor Gwatkin himself remarks that many of the Christians, so far from being willing to defend the Empire, were "half inclined to welcome the Goths and Persians as avengers." The Pope insolently and openly defied Valerian at Rome: and Diocletian's decrees were torn down by Christians in his own palace who relied on the protection of his womenfolk.
Before Diocletian the Church had had forty years of peace, and it had grown sufficiently to make its anti-patriotic teaching a matter of concern. Yet in not one of the three decrees of Diocletian is the death sentence imposed.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by historian Joseph McCabe

Facts: Historical truths vs Christian fictions
The Acta of the martyrs (records of trials and execution) are entirely from fictitious lives or are forgeries. Pagan deities were sometimes used as martyrs and were turned into Saints.
The fraud led to the birth of the profitable relic industry.Instead of a vast number martyring themselves for Christianity upon persecution, and inspiring pagans to convert, there was a vast apostasy as Christians left the faith in droves. One of these apostates was Pope Marcellinus, wrongly revered as a Saint and Martyr.
Find out the details

Did Christian virtue inspire the pagans to convert?
3rd century St. Cyprian's

letters to the pope describe how a large part of his clergy and bishops were unmitigated scoundrels: fornication, murder, embezzlement, and all the rest of it.
-- How Christianity Grew Out of Paganism, by Joseph McCabe


St. Jerome was convinced that Christian men and women, including priests and nuns, could not be trusted. According to him the only women of virtue to be seen on the streets of Rome were not Christians but pagans.
All the early bishops from all over the empire - St Augustine, Bishop Optatus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Hippolytus and others - insisted that their congregation of Christians were highly immoral and corrupt.

Why and how did the pagans of the empire convert?

The ... undisputed fact is that there was no "attraction" of the pagans at all. In the extant Theodosian Code we have ten decrees which the bishops got from the emperors suppressing all rival religions and sects under pain of fine, imprisonment, or death.
-- How Christianity Grew Out of Paganism, by Joseph McCabe

See details
The conversion of the ancient Greeks and Romans was achieved through violence and systematic destruction of the Greco-Roman civilisations

Christianity improved Rome?

Slavery

Professor Dill comes close to the facts when he says that "the slave class of antiquity really corresponded to our free labouring class." It will not do, therefore, to identify Pagan with Christian slavery.
-- Christianity, Slavery and Labour, by Chapman Cohen


By the first century the Stoics openly condemned slavery. Other Greek moralists besides the Stoics condemned it.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by historian Joseph McCabe

Such was their influence that in still-pagan Rome:

the "manumission" of slaves -- the grant or sale of freedom to them -- was a daily occurrence.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, Joseph McCabe

It is an historical fact, supported by the most positive of evidence that slavery in the Roman Empire was mitigated by the noble philosophy of the Stoics and not by the teachings of the church fathers, who never thought of recommending the abolition of slavery.
-- History of Civilization, by historian Emil Reich

Emperor Constantine wasn't the only one who undid the humane laws enacted by the Stoic emperors.

in 541 C.E. the Council of Orleans required that the descendants of slaves should be re-enslaved.
-- Faiths of Man Encyclopedia of Religions, by J.G.R. Forlong

This was but one of many laws on slavery enacted during various Church councils.

Pope Gregory was the greatest slave-owner in the world in the sixth century. ... He would not allow any slave to become a cleric, and he expressly reaffirmed (Epp. vii, 1) that no slave could marry a free Christian.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

The early Church fathers, Saints, Popes, Protestant Reformers all condoned slavery - it was Biblical, after all.

The Abbey of St Germain des Pr�s owned 80,000 slaves, and that of St. Martin de Tours 20,000.
-- Faiths of Man Encyclopedia of Religions, by J.G.R. Forlong

Find out more facts about slavery before the trade in Africans

Education
The Roman municipalities supplied free elementary instruction for the children of all workers. Practically every Roman worker could read and write by the year 380 A.D., when Christianity began to have real power. By 480 nearly every school in the Empire was destroyed. By 580, and until 1780 at least, from ninety to ninety-five percent of the people of Europe were illiterate and densely ignorant. That is the undisputed historical record of Christianity as regards education.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

Since Christianity regarded learning, mathematics and science as paganism, its followers went about the empire destroying all the schools as they had done the libraries, temples, hospitals and works of art.
Latin, taken over by the Roman Church, was ruined; even monks at the Vatican wrote in barbarous Latin, whilst most priests were illiterate. McCabe writes:

Rome under the Popes had sunk to an illiteracy that has no parallel elsewhere in the history of civilization.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by historian Joseph McCabe

So much so that by the 11th century:

The illiteracy of Europe had increased to more than ninety-nine percent.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

Facts about "monks preserving knowledge"

Where the monks did spend any part of their time in "the writing room," they were, naturally, copying the Fathers of the Church and later Christian literature.
-- The Story Of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

Most of the ancient writings had been burnt on purpose, either along with the ancient libraries or in the Medieval auto-da-fes. A few were preserved wholly by accident when monks, desperate for papyrus which was expensive, collected old manuscripts and overwrote them. Among them:

Parts of the Iliad and the 'Elements' of Euclid were covered by monkish treatises.
-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless

Ancient works were never willingly preserved:

As for "monks constantly occupied in copying the classic texts," for the preservation and diffusion of Pagan culture, it is a joke! They couldn't read Greek nor good Latin, and nobody else could read at all, -- also, Holy Church and Churchmen loathed Pagan culture and literature.
-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless

Read more about the ignorant Dark Ages brought on by Christianity

More Christian fictions about Rome

Converting the rest of Europe to the True Faith

It is estimated that Europe was Christianised at a cost of about 8 to 10 million lives.


804 CE. The last heathen resistance in Saxony is put down. In thirty years of genocide, from 774 to 804, two thirds of the Saxons have been killed.

Sami people [the indigenous people of Scandinavia] were converted to Christianity by force and shamanic practices were forbidden.

And like in Greece and Rome, Christians demolished heathen shrines to build a Church over them. For instance, in

1083 CE The temple at Uppsala (Sweden) was destroyed, and construction of a church on the site is initiated.

16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing."
One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that

"the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".

Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage.
[ citing American Holocaust, by D. Stannard, 1992]

More
Eastern-Europe remained unconverted until the Crusades when pious Christian knights committed mass-murder and even complete genocide in the north-east.

Intolerance

"Unbelievers deserve not only to be separated from the Church, but also... to be exterminated from the World by death."
-- Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1271


The early Church Councils
These volatile and often violent meetings were held during the 4th and 5th centuries, when bishops voted on which doctrines would be Christian orthodoxy ("divinely inspired") and which were to be considered heresy and persecuted. Disagreements were rife and gave rise to numerous Christian sects which were inimical to each other. The Arians had been persecuted to extinction, so too the Donatists, and the Nestorians killed or driven out of the empire. In the 5th century, the Pelagianists, the Priscillianists in Spain, and the Manichaeans in the whole Roman empire, were persecuted - mostly to extinction.
Read more about the early Christian sects victimised for heresy, and how murder and threats ("divine inspiration") during the early Church Councils determined the orthodox Christian doctrines of today.

Crusades
Besides the infamous Children's Crusade, and those against the Jews and Moslems and Eastern Orthodox Church, there were also:

Crusades to convert-or-kill the pagans of Eastern-Europe and the Balkans:

among such pagans were the Obotrites, Pomeranians, Wiltzi, Serbs, Letts, Livonians, Finns, and Prussians.
-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless

The Baltic (original) Prussians were completely exterminated in a mass genocide, as were the Stedingers of Germany. Heathen Lithuania also faced routine genocides of its population by Christians, and in the end lost out:

Crusades were undertaken against Livonia, Courland, Esthonia, and Prussia. In Lithuania Christianity did not win until 1368.
...
In Hungary, during the tenth and eleventh centuries, "the new religion was spread by the sword. ..."
-- Forgery in Christianity, by Joseph Wheless

Crusades to exterminate heretical Christian sects: The Catharan, Albigensian heretics: in the Albigensian Crusade half of France was exterminated. By the end of the 13th century one million of the French heretics had been massacred. In 1487, Pope Innocent VIII called for a Crusade against the French Waldensians, who had already been declared heretics in the 1184 Council of Verona. They were hounded and killed until the 17th century. See more on the Crusades

Inquisitions and witch hunts

Then there were the three Inquisitions: the first was against heretics and witches mainly; 95% of the victims of the Second (Spanish) Inquisition were Jews; and the Third Inquisition went after Protestants and other heretics as well as witches again.
At the start of the First Inquistion, the victims were only burnt to death. But:

Torture of suspects was authorized by Pope Innocent IV in 1252, and thus inquisition chambers were turned into places of abject horror.
...Torture was not finally removed as a legal option for church officials until 1917 when the Codex Juris Canonici was put into effect.
Inquisitors were placed entirely above the law by Pope Innocent IV's bull Ad extirpanda. Most of the torturing was performed by members of the Dominican order, whilst many other inquisitors and torturers were monks of the Franciscan order. The inquisitors and the Holy Church became filthy rich from the assets of their victims.

The edicts that established the Inquisition have never been repealed. They are "officially still part of the Catholic faith, and were used as justification for certain practices as recently as 1969."

Historian Will Durant, in his History of Civilisation puts the number of fatalities of the witch hunts between 7 and 9 millions.

Entire villages and towns were depopulated of their women-folk.
For 5 centuries throughout Europe, both the Protestant and Catholic Churches went after "witches", especially those referred to as "good witches":

Even relatively permissive England killed 30,000 witches between 1542 and 1736.

More on the inquisitions and witch hunts

Reformation

The Thirty Year War (1618-48) between the Protestants and Catholics, led to the deaths of more than a quarter of Europe's population. -- Ed Babinsky In Germany alone, the war resulted in an estimated drop of its population from 18 million to 4 million. In Bohemia, its 30,000 villages were reduced to 6,000 and its 3 million citizens slaughtered down to 780,000. -- Joseph McCabe In the Netherlands, Catholic Spain murdered more than a 100,000 men and women. -- Joseph McCabe

During the many Huguenot wars ravaging France, Huguenot soldiers hunted [Catholic] priests like animals and one captain is reported to have worn a necklace of priests' ears.

The Catholics butchered 30,000 Huguenots in one day: the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre.

There was also utter intolerance and mutual persecution between the numerous Protestant sects that had sprung up all over the continent.

More on the Reformation, its intolerance and the Reformers

Women
Woman was merely man's helpmate, a function which pertains to her alone. She is not the image of God but as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God.
-- Saint Augustine (354-430)

"Wife: Be content to be insignificant. What loss would it be to God or man had you never been born."
-- John Wesley (1703-91), Reformer, founder of the Methodist movement

More of what respected Christians have said about women, firmly basing their views on the Bible.
The Biblical Curse of Eve was used by clergy to prevent physicians from administering anaesthetics to relieve pain during child birth.

Fact
584 CE Council Of Macon: bishops gathered to vote on "Are women human?" By a narrow vote (of 1), women obtained human status in Christianity.
Apparently, the decision was not final, as the question had to be reconsidered by the Protestants too:

Lutherans at Wittenberg debated whether women were really human beings at all.
-- The Dark Side of Christianity, by Helen Ellerbe
Equality in Christianity today:

"A wife should submit herself to the leadership of her husband. Leadership in the church should always be male."
-- Southern Baptist Convention (2000)


Children

Since the birth-control policy of Christianity resulted in couples having many unwanted children, many of them were mistreated in the Middle Ages. In later times (like during the Industrial Revolution) they were still seen as just another mouth to feed and sent off to do gruelling work, even in mines, and were often kept illiterate. Besides hard labour, children of Christian families have also been subjected to severe mental abuse and have also suffered from physical abuse, as sanctioned by the Bible.

Fact
Several Christian denominations have brought back child-beating to chastise their erring children. There are Christian sites selling rods for this purpose, as specified by the Bible.

Christianity in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific

Convert and kill in the Americas

When in 1530 CE the Pope finally declared that the Indians were human, the pious Christians began converting the heathens:

"The [Catholic] Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out; by this means they secured that these infants went to heaven."
-- Bertrand Russell

The Indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As

"they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell."
-- American Holocaust, by D. Stannard

The Inquisition remained active until 1834, especially in Central and South America, where "heathen" natives were tortured and burned for crimes against the true faith, such as, "not believing in it".

Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
-- American Holocaust, by D. Stannard

Christianity in the Americas: 60 million Native Americans had been exterminated by the end of the 16th century itself.
For instance, good Christians from Spain

"hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles ... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive."
-- American Holocaust, by D.Stannard

Christians went around burning down libraries of the Indians of Central America, demolishing shrines and burning books Convert or die: 19th century Christian missionaries exterminated the Californian Indians in the most gruesome manner. More on the horrendous history of Christianity in the Americas

Africa: Christian slavery and colonialism

Facts
Estimates vary, but somewhere between 20 million and 60 million people were captured, enslaved and brought to the Americas. Millions more died in the slave raids, in the dungeons and in the Middle Passage.
-- Through slavery's darkest passages - Ghana's slave dungeons - Essence, Special Travel Section, October 1992

Slave castles, with central Churches, were often built over the ancient shrines of the pagan Africans Slave ships often bore appropriate names, like those of the devout slave trader John Hawkins: Jesus, Solomon and John the Baptist. (-- Joseph McCabe)The Africans who survived the journey, were often worked to death:

"The policy of the slaveholder," says Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, "was to kill off the negroes by overwork and buy more."
-- Christianity Slavery and Labour, by Chapman Cohen

This was even more so in South America:

Brazil and the Caribbean were graveyards for Africans and their descendants.
-- American Slavery, 1619-1877, Peter Kolchin

The Bible was used to justify slavery and led to racism: the Curse of Ham, supposedly applicable to Africans, was the reason they "deserved to be slaves". Chuches also went so far as arguing that slavery was all for the best of the pagan Africans:

...the most widespread and effective religious argument was the simple suggestion that slavery was part of God's plan to expose a hitherto heathen people to the blessings of Christianity.
-- American Slavery, 1619-1877, by Peter Kolchin

As Presbyterian minister (and Georgia slave owner) Charles C. Jones argued in The Religious Instruction of the Negroes (1842), blacks "were placed under our control...not exclusively for our benefit but theirs also," so they could receive moral and religious uplift; "we cannot disregard this obligation thus divinely imposed, without forfeiting our humanity, our gratitude, our consistency, and our claim to the spirit of christianity itself."
-- American Slavery, 1619-1877, by Peter Kolchin

In 18th century France, Voltaire estimated that the [Catholic] Church held between 50,000 and 60,000 slaves.
-- Christianity, Slavery and Labour, by Chapman Cohen

The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel employed slaves on its estates in the West Indies, and there were 80,000 black slaves in London as late as 1760 (Independent Review, October 1905). The American Churches, Anglican, Methodist, and Baptist, owned 600,000 slaves, and "the authority of nearly all the leading denominations was against the abolitionists," says J. Macy in the chief and impartial recent American work (The Anti-Slavery Crusade, 1920, p. 74). The Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian authorities, he shows, expelled any minister who advocated abolition.
-- A Rationalist Encyclopaedia, Joseph McCabe

Find out who did and who (predictably) did not agitate for abolishing African slavery.

Fact
During the brutal Christian colonisation of the Congo, which was defended by the Catholic Church,

As many as 10 million Congolese are estimated to have died as a result of executions, unfamiliar diseases and hunger.
-- Leopold reigns for a day in Kinshasa - The Guardian, February 4, 2005

This and much more on the history of Christianity in Africa

Christian colonisation of Asia

In China, Japan, Thailand: Here Christians of the Catholic Church implemented forced conversions, persecuted the followers of Buddhism and other pre-Christian religions, and attempted political take-overs of these countries. Christian converts became traitors to their own government, like those of ancient Rome had been. Fortunately, the end result in each case was that these countries expelled the Christian missionaries and closed themselves off to foreign (Christian) relations entirely.In Vietnam the situation was much the same, except that it did not succeed in expelling the missionaries, for which it paid the price later.In India and Sri Lanka, Christians from Portugal destroyed hundreds of indigenous shrines and built Churches over them (as usual). Once again, they went about violently converting the local population and exterminating any of the Hindus and Buddhists who did not convert. In India, Saint Francis Xavier got the Inquisition started in Goa which terrorised, tortured and gruesomely murdered many of the pagans. Read the details on the ruthless Christian colonisation of Asia

The Pacific

Fact

In thirty years of despicable missionary rule in Tahiti, only 6,000 of the indigenous people remained from an initial 200,000. [The Missionaries, by Norman Lewis]

The Protestant missionaries then carried out the same conversion/extermination campaign in the rest of the Pacific.
Christians in Hawaii, had massacred most of the population:

By the 1860s,

"in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'."
-- American Holocaust, by D. Stannard

More on Christian genocide in the Pacific

Missions and colonialism

Teurer Segen - Christliche Mission und Kolonialismus by Gert von Paczensky ("Costly blessing - Christian mission and colonialism"),
translation of the book summary and review at KirchenKritik:

Missions were in league with colonialism, often even gruesomely so.
They helped to destroy old cultures, to uproot people, to divide families and entire populations.
They supported and approved of a system that let countless of millions in three continents be reduced to poverty, bringing them hunger and sickness.
In the misdevelopment of Latin America, Africa and Asia - [which is] the major problem in the present - missionaries and Churches of all persuasions and confessions (denominations) were complicit.

Review from KirchenKritik:
This work lacks neither facts, nor references nor information handed down from the time of mission-work and colonialism.
It is established that the Church has to answer for the main share of the guilt of the impoverishment of the present 3rd world. Yes, one can even go so far and assert that without the Church everything would have turned out differently!
In light of this book, the numerous speeches of Pope John Paul II in impoverished countries appear hypocritical and cynical.
Moving historical literature at it's best. Parts of it are not for weak nerves.

More on this

Anti-Semitism before Nazism
The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. God always hated the Jews. It is incumbent upon all Christians to hate the Jews.
-- Saint John Chrysostom, Church Father, 4th-5th century C.E.

More of the highly anti-Semitic statements of the pious early fathers of the Church, Popes and Reformers. The centuries of Christian preaching against Jews was founded on the Bible - the New Testament in this case. Martin Luther's book On the Jews and their Lies inspired Nazis and Christian Churches in Nazi Germany. The Church invented most of the means of persecuting Jews which the Nazis later used All the early non-Jewish Christian sects, like the Marcionites, were anti-Semitic.As soon as the Greco-Roman empire was wrested from pagan hands, the Christians started persecuting the Jews. Christian Roman Emperor Justinian was the one

who legalized the burning and pillaging of Jewish synagogues by Christian bishops and monks (often canonized later).

Then in the Middle Ages, a great many extermination campaigns were enacted by Christians.In the large scale pogroms of Orthodox Christian Russia and Ukraine, at least several hundreds of thousands of Jews were exterminated.

"But we must never forget that the Jews have crucified our Master [Jesus] and have shed His precious blood."
-- Czar Alexander III, affirming the eternal Christian doctrine

Fact
The Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion, in which Jews supposedly conspired to bring down the western Christian nations, is a Russian forgery:

If The Protocols appeared outlandish, it may have been because they were a Russian forgery plagiarized from a 1869 German novel which, itself, was plagiarized from a 1864 French political satire.

The forger was Czarist agent Sergei Nilius whose work was designed to deflect the misery of Nicholas II's policies onto a scapegoat: the Jews of Russia.

This forgery is still used by many pious Christians as additional "proof" of why Jews are to be hated.

More on anti-Semitism before Nazism

Roma (Gypsies)

When Gypsies first appeared, Christianity had shaped the doctrine of war between light and dark and personified the white angels against the black devils. To the church the Gypsy culture was non-acceptable and their dark skin exemplified evil and inferiority. Hence in western Christian Europe the dark-skinned Gypsies became victims of prejudice as a result of this Christian doctrine.
-- Gypsies: a persecuted race, by William A. Duna

The persona of the Romani as non-white, non-Christian outsider became incorporated into Christian European folklore, which served to justify and encourage the prejudice against him. Like Asahuerus, the Jew doomed to wander through eternity because he refused to allow Jesus to rest on his way to Calvary, Romanies were accused of forging the nails with which Christ was crucified. And while Jews were accused of drinking the blood of Christian babies in hidden rites to which no outsider was privy, Romanies were likewise charged with stealing and even eating those babies. Parallelling even more closely the Asahuerus myth is the belief that the original sin of the Romanies was their refusal to give Mary and the baby Jesus shelter during their flight from King Herod into Egypt (Scheier, 1925, vol. II, p. 77).
-- The roots of Anti-Gypsyism: To the Holocaust and After, by Ian Hancock

Of course, the Roma were nowhere near the Middle-East in the 1st century CE, and this libel was but another Christian fiction. Like Jews, the Roma were also attacked in sermons. Monasteries in Eastern-Europe kept large numbers of Roma as slaves until the the 19th century. Roma who converted to the Christian (and Islamic) faiths were not accepted or if they were, then they were still treated as outcasts.The anti-Roma prejudice which had been created and had long been fostered by Christianity would result in their persecutions and exterminations in Germany, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and other countries during the Nazi era. In fact, the same continues today. More on Romany and anti-Gypsyism

Fascism including Nazism

Nazism in Germany

Nazi Germany was a very Christian country. Its anti-Semitism was rooted in Church teachings:

according to historian Dagobert Runes, Hitler's methods were actually modelled on the Christian one:

Everything Hitler did to the Jews, all the horrible, unspeakable misdeeds, had already been done to the smitten people before by the Christian churches ... The isolation of the Jews into ghetto camps, the wearing of the yellow spot, the burning of Jewish books and finally, the burning of the people - Hitler learned it all from the church. However, the church burned Jewish women and children alive, while Hitler granted them a quicker death, choking them first with gas.

And the anti-Semite Luther had written On the Jews and their Lies which inspired the Nazis as well as the Christian clergy.

"If I had to baptise a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone around his neck and push him over with the words 'I baptise thee in the name of Abraham'."
-- Martin Luther, "Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor" by Peter F. Weiner

Thus, it's not surprising that inspired by the the New Testament and centuries of Church tradition, Saints and Church fathers, Popes and Reformers, the clergy in Nazi Germany merely added to the existing Christian anti-Semitic literature:

Bishop Martin Sasse of Thuringia, a leading Protestant churchman ... edited a brochure for his ministers at the end of November 1938 titled, "Martin Luther and the Jews: do Away with Them!" He quoted extensively from Luther's book "On the Jews and their lies." (Wollenberg, p.73)

The Jew was created by God to act the traitor everywhere.
-- Civilta Cattolica, a Jesuit monthly publication, cited in John Cornwell's "Hitler's Pope"

All German Churches, except the Confessing Church, were in line with Nazi Germany and its policies. Many clergymen and pious Church-goers were prominent Nazis. Most Germans were members of the mainstream German Churches, whilst the Confessing Church had but small numbers of members.The Catholic and Protestant Churches and their congregations actively helped the Nazi state in hunting down Jews. Both furnished racial data about Christian members in their own congregations who had Jewish ancestry. Neither Church accepted such Christians:

After the Nazi party took over, Protestant Churches began to exclude Jews from jobs and schools and later to exclude baptized racial Jews from the Land churches and to force them to live completely by themselves.

Catholic priests across Germany became part of an anti-Semitic attestation bureaucracy, supplying details of blood purity through marriage and baptism registries in accordance with the Nazi Nuremberg laws which distinguished Jews from non-Jews

In fact, the German churches

advocated composing an "Aryan Paragraph" in church synods that would prevent non-aryans from joining the Church, which of course included Jews.

The small, dissenting Confessing Church did not oppose Hitler for his anti-Semitic policies. Many of the prominent Pastors in this Church were self-admitted anti-Semites. It turns out they opposed the "Aryan Paragraph" in order to retain Jewish converts, but

For Jews who did not convert, they held strong anti-Semitic feelings.

The Catholic and Protestant Churches helped in the murder of people with disabilities.
There is nothing new in this, as the Church had for centuries taught that people with physical disabilities were devils and those with mental disabilities were possessed by devils. Throughout the Middle-Ages, handicapped children would be brutally murdered, often by their own Christian parents.Protestant and Catholic Churches used forced labourers during the Third Reich Strangely, Christians today are surprised when faced with such facts, forgetting how, throughout Christianity's history, Churches, clergy and everyday Christians had been involved in extermination campaigns against Jews and others, murdered people with disabilities and had kept slaves for centuries.

Read more about Nazi Germany

Nazism in wartime Yugoslavia

It is a matter of historical record that the Croatian Catholic Church was closely entangled with the Ustashas. In the early years of World War II, Catholic priests oversaw forced conversions of Orthodox Serbs under the aegis of the Ustasha state; Franciscan friars distributed Ustasha propaganda. Several high Catholic officials in Yugoslavia were later indicted for war crimes.
-- A vow of silence - U.S. News and World Report, March 30, 1998
"Kill all Serbs. And when you finish come here, to the Church, and I will confess you and free you from sin."(54)
-- Father Srecko Peric of the Gorica Monastery, reassuring his fellow Ustashi prior to a massacre

The Ustashe were the Catholic Nazis of CroatiaThey ruthlessly exterminated about 750,000 people: mostly Orthodox Christian Serbs and several tens of thousands of Roma and Jews.In the Catholic Independent state of Croatia that was formed during the Nazi era, clergy took part in great numbers in the massacres.The Italian fascists and even the German Nazis were horrified at how gruesomely they murdered their victims.

The Croatian clergy brought the Ustashe to power

While the Catholic Press in the country kept praising the rising Fascism in Europe:

Monasteries, parish houses, cathedrals, Franciscan high schools, seminaries, etc., throughout Croatia doubled as meeting places, recruiting centers, arms depots and staging areas for Croatian fascism and terror in the years prior to the war.
... Among the very first armed divisions of the Ustasha army were numerous Catholic priests. The military exploits of one priest, Ilija Tomas of Klepac, were hailed in the Croatian fascist publication "Hrvatski Narod" on July 25, 1941.(21) Another Catholic publication "Nedelja" praised the military exploits of dozens of priests, especially those in monastic orders such as the Franciscan Radovan Glavas, and the priest Ivan Miletic who led Croatian fascists in joint battle with Wehrmacht forces.
... The entire Catholic press in this period in Croatia was thoroughly pro-fascist, racist and supportive of the elimination of the "minorities." [the Serbs, Jews and Roma]
-- The Vatican's Holocaust, by former BBC commentator Avro Manhattan
Christian priests create racial theories again

Ustashi's leading racist theorists were Catholic clergy. ... priests were among the intellectual godfathers of Croatian fascism and racism.
... anti-Semitism in Yugoslavia was almost entirely the product of Catholic propaganda after World War I.
... The Catholic Press preached racial theories - e.g. the theory that the Croats were not of Slav descent, but were Gothic German. One of the founders of this race theory was a well-known Catholic priest, Kerubin Segvic, who as far back as 1931 wrote a book entitled, The Gothic Descendance of the Croats, with a view to creating racial odium against the Slavs, which was synonymous with "Orthodox."
-- The Vatican's Holocaust, by Avro Manhattan

The Vatican and communism united after WWII to whitewash history.

More on Nazism in Yugoslavia during WWII

, by Barry Lituchy describes how it is that the Vatican got away scott-free from its active involvement in genocide, especially in Croatia. How, through deflection and obfuscation, it has absolved itself of all crimes pertaining to genocide, restricting its "errors" merely to "not speaking out" against what was happening to the Jews. Though it is well-known that the Catholic Church was involved in tracking down Jews for Nazi Germany, and involved in Nazism in general (see ), it has carefully kept silent about its . Among other things, Pius XI and Pacelli (Pope XII) arranged the with dictator Mussolini and the with Germany. The Pope was directly responsible for the dissolution of Germany's parliamentary system which gave dictatorial powers to Hitler. Pope John Paul II's intended beatification of Pius XII was to make the public believe Pius' conduct was above board, when in fact it was wholly the opposite. on these wartime Popes, including that deal with the Papal involvement in Nazism and Fascism. Croatia's Nazi (Ustashi) leader Pavelic is another example: Much Nazi blood money made it into the Vatican, but not out. Further details

Source
http://freetruth.50webs.org/Index.htm

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Reign of Salankayana

Salankayana ruled from 3rd century AD to 5th century AD. They were known as Salankayana after the Gotra name. They were the feudatories of Ikshvakus. They Ruled near vengi area, with Vengi (Eluru) as the capital. Salankayana is another of the Phantom kingdoms of Andhra for Indologists. Their date is fixed based on Samudra Gupta inscription mention of Hastivarman of Vengi. What we are looking here is to know more about them and also fix their dates.

Let us see Salankayana rulers first.
Kings
Deva Varma (Founder)
Ruled in last quarter of 3rd Century AD.
Performed Asvamedha Yagna (320AD)
Might have killed Jayavarma of Brihatpalayanas(Speculation), Annexed territories north of krishna river from Jayavarma

Hastivarma I
Succeeded Deva Varma
Might have Established friendly relations with Pallavas.(Speculation)
Built number of Temples
Established Chaturvidyasala (centre of Vedic learning)

Nandi varma I
Known for Valour
Known for giving gifts.

Hastivarma II
Defeated by Samudragupta
Mentioned in Allahabad Pillar Inscription
To check amibitious brother Achandavarma, he appointed his son skandavarman as yuvaraja, but however his son died.

Chandavarman

chandavarman succeeded Hastivarma II and ruled for some years.
Komarti plates Ganjam Dist given in sixth year of Chandavarman, talks about his son Vijaya Nandi varman and earlier ruler Devavarman

Nandivarma II
son of Achandavarma Ruled for some years, but was put to end by Vishnukundinas.
Issued Kolleru Plates

Grants
Ellore Prakrit grant
Devavarman.

Kollair grant
Candavarman
Nandivarman, Eldest son of Candavarman

Peddavegi grant
Hastivarman
Nandivarman I, Son of Hastivarman
Candavarman, son of Nandivarman I
Nandivarman II, eldest son of Candavarman.

Kanteru grant - II
Nandivarman

Geneology
Various scholars have debated and arrived at this Genealogy.
Devavarma
Hastivarma
Nandivarma I
Candavarma
Nandivarma II

Name
Salankayana was a vedic Rishi and his gotra was adopted by this dynasty of Vengi. However they are simply called Salankayana not as Salankayana gotra. The Word Salankayana indicates Nandi, the bull of Shiva. So the crest of Salankayana was connected with name of their family not of Gotra.

Similarity in names of Pallava, Brihatphalayana, Salankayana and the epithey Pitrabhakta, which bore the emblem of bull, raise the assumpton they are of same stock. But they can all be feudatories of Chutus.

Characteristics
Salankayana's patronised vedic culture
Worshipped Sun. Also worshipped Shiva and Vishnu
During their time Hinduism spread to Neighborhood Burma and Combodia
Tolerant of Buddhism
scholars like Dignaga, Buddhapalita, Bhavaviveka propagated Buddhism without any Hurdles.

Historical Records
Panini and Patanjali
Panini and Patanjali indicates Salankayana in North West India. Panini gives Salankayana twice. Once as Gotra and another time as ruler of place called Salankayanaka.

Ptolemy
Ptolemy locates a tribe , the salakenoi somewhere about the oroudian mountains bordering the region of Maisoloi (Machulipatnam), showing presence of Salankayana in Vengi around Ist Century AD.

Kausambi
A Salankayana minister named Bhutila was either stationed or had relatives in Kousambi as per the prakrit grant found in Kausambi. Let us see the Prakrit grant.

Terracota Figure in Nagpur
A terracota seal of Salankayana has been found in Adam near Nagpur by I K Sharma who conducted excavations at Peddavegi. A Carnelian Intaglio(Pendent) near a stupa of 4th century AD.

Aparashaila Sect

Aparashaila a Buddhist sect got established in First century BC. Now the Vijaya Nandivarma or Nandivarma II establised the a vihara for the sect in his regime. So his regime has to be post this period.

Allahabad Pillar Inscription

Allahabad pillar inscription says that Salankayana king ruled from Vaingeyaka (Lord of Vengi).
Now going to Allahabad inscription, we have hastivarma of Vengi, Burnell identifies Hastivarma of Allahabad inscription with Hastivarma of Salankayana.

Ellore Plates
Devavarman Ellore plates given in 13th year talks about Asvameda. Eventhough grant talks about Asvameda sacrifice. The Inscription is in Sanskrit.

Hastivarma , Nandivarma I and Candavarma
Now Hastivarma and Nandivarma I does not give any grants. Candavarman name is found in Kollair and Peddagavi plates. So we know very little about these kings. Hastivarma is defined in peddagavi plates as winner of many battles.

Neighborhood
Let us see who are the neighbors of Salankayana

Andhra Ikshvaku Reign
Vashistaputra sri Santamula was the first important king of Andhra Ikshvakus and he seems to have asserted independence may be from Chutus. His son Virapurushadata gave his daughter to Banavasi Prince. He took his wife from Saka ruler of Ujjain. We know around 278AD, Andhra Ikshvaku regime ended. Ikshvakus ruled for 100 years. Ikshvaku followed vedic faith, but were staunch supporters of Buddhism. The Same seems to be case with Salankayana. Salankayana takes the same titles as Ikshvakus. This may indicate they are roughly of same period. May be Buddhist influence. Or they may have replaced Ikshvakus. Salankayana may be feudatory of Andhra Ikshavakus. Pallava Branch led by Bappa succeeded Ikshavakus in south of Krishna.

Brihatpalayana
Brihat (Vastness) + Palayana (Moving).
The Brihatpalayanas ruled the Krishna district with their capital as Pithunda near Machilipatnam. The Hathigumpha inscription describes that this city has been destroyed by Kharavela [180 BCE] of Kalinga. The city of Pithunda is referred to as metropolis in one of Ptolemy's work.

Jayavarma, the only king known of the dynasty ruled Krishna district with Pithunda as his capital between A.D. 270-285. A princess of his family was married to the Andhra Ikshvaku king. A copper plate grant issued by Jayavarma was discovered at Kondamudi, near Tenali at around A.D.280. The grant is in the form of an order issued by Jayavarma from his victorious camp at Kudura(Guduru near Machilipatnam) to the governor of Kuduru ahara(district). It pertains to the grant of land in favour of a number of Brahmins. The charter issued in Prakrit describes Jayavarma as the devotee of Maheswara and calls him Raja. Nothing is known about the relations of the Brihatpalayanas with the neighbouring kingdom of the Ikshvakus or Pallavas or Salankayanas.

Pallavas

Names of Pallavas and Salankayanas were similar. The Emblem of seated bull is found in both grants. Six generations of Salankayana and pallavas do not acknowledge each other and they never come in conflict with each other. Earliest grants of both dynasties are in Prakrit and later in Sanskrit. Both belong to Bharadvaj gotra. While Salankayana worshipped shiva in the form of Chitra Radhaswami, Pallavas are agni worshippers. The Same way there is no Ikshvaku- pallava conflicts. Most of the the sound Indian Dynasties are from Naga Line, so Bull is one of their emblems. So we can't read much into this symbol.

We have Pallava record Mangadur grant of simhavarman assigned to middle of fifth century donating land in vengo rastra. So that might be time that Salankayana rule has ended. But we cannot say that Pallavas ended the rule, as there is not mention of Salankayana rule being ended by Pallavas. We also cannot give a long period of Pallava occupation of Vengi, as there is none to record.

Vishnukundin
Around Same time or little later, we have vishnukundin Madhavavarman I extending kingdom to vengi. Hereagain as we have seen in Vishnukundin Article does mention Salankayana or Vishnukundin ending the reign of Salankayana There is no mention of any salankayana or their rule in the inscriptions.

Ananda Gotrikas
Looking at Gorantla and Mattepad records, experts have come to following conclusions. Ananda Kings ruled from Guntur. Known Kings were Kandara(Krishna), Attivarman(Hastivarman), Domodavarman. They have been placed in 3rd century AD. The inscriptions are written in Sanskrit with Kings names in Prakrit. Their flag is similar to Kadambas. Where they liberated with Mayurasarma wars with pallavas. They Claim their lord is Lord of Vegavati. That may indicate Salankayana. The characters of the inscriptions are similar to Salanakayana. So we can say that Salankayana is the lord of Ananda Gotrikas. Now Ananda Gotrikas is said have defeated Ikshvaku in the battle of Dhanyakataka.

Matharas Dynasty
Matharas dynasty started in the early part of 4th century AD around Mahendra region. Vishakavarman was the first king of Matharas dynasty. Umavarman extended the kingdom to whole of Kalinga around in the middle of 4th century AD and shifted capital to Simhapuram in Srikakulam district . His son Saktivarman extended the kingdom from Mahanadi to Krishna. Saktivarman shifted captial to Pistapuram. The Dynasty came to end with fight between Pitrabhaktas, Vashistas and Matharas to the close of 5th century AD.

Indonesian Records

A new Dynasty of Tarumanagara was established in Salakanagara in Indonesia in 358AD. This dyansty has its origin in Salankayana Dynasty from Vengi. Maharshi Rajadirajaguru Jayasingawarman established the kingdom after marrying the local sundanese princess.

The Name Salakanagara  means silver in sanskrit. This kingdom was established by Indian merchants settlements in western Java around 130 AD. My opinion is that the name could have been due to trading with Salankayana. Now with collapse of Salankayana the rulers find refuge with the same people who got settled.

If we take this information into view. We can say that the the Salankayana dyansty ended rule around 358 AD.

Dating discussion
Aparashaila a Buddhist sect got established in First century BC. Vijaya nandivarman established a Vihara for this sect. So definitely the king is post first century BC.

From Ptolemy accounts, it is clear that Salankayana were ruling at Vengi around 2nd century AD. They should had extensive sea trade, so as to be known to Ptolemy and also colony of traders who took the name of devavarman to Indonesia.

Around 250 AD. Chutu empire disintegrated. Pallavas inherited much of South India due to marital alliance with Chutus.

Around 350AD. Pallavas empire fractured. Kadambas, Gangas in Karnataka and others also took piece of cake. Pallavas were put out of Andhras by Ananda Gotrikas.

If you take out the Samudra Gupta Alahabad inscription. Start of Historical Salankayana is around First Century AD. Devavarma is a prominent ruler. With coming of Hastivarman the geneology become clear.

They may be worshppers of Siva and later changed to Vishnu worshippers, as evidenced by the Bull emblem and names like Nandivarman.

Vishnukundin dyansty came into being around 5th century AD. They ruled from 450AD to 615 AD. Madhavavarman I who came around 470 AD extended his kingdom to Vengi. He does not seems have encountered Salankayana there either as friend or foe. He mentions himself as the son in law of Vakatakas and nothing else about vakatakas. Last branch of Vakataka dynasty ended around his time.

We have Simhavarman Pallava donating land in Vengo rastra and around same time Madhavavarman Extended his kingdom to Vengi. So Around 450AD , there is no Salankayana in Vengi. Both don't Acknowledge Salankayana presence in the area. Salankayana is a famous local dynasty and if they have ended their rule. Both would have mentioned salankayana was defeated by them. So we have to conclude that salankayana were not there around 450AD.

Salankayana Timeline
Let us try to reconstruct the turn of events.
Around 278 AD. Andhra Ikshvakus of Krishna Valley were put to end by combined Abhiras, Salankayana, Brihatpalayas. Brihatpalyas are ruling koduru or Masulipatnam. salankyana are ruling in Vengi. Pallavas in Guntur. Each of them got a piece part of territory and ruled independently.

Aound 350 AD. Ananda Gotrikas over threw Pallavas out of Guntur. Kadambas , Gangas, Banas threw pallavas out of Karnataka. Saktivarman of Matharas dynasty in Kalinga extended his kingdom to Krishna. And If we take references from indonesian history , then we can say that Salankayana rule has ended around 360 AD.

Around 450 AD in Andhra. Pallavas occupied south of Krishna and Vishnukundin occupied North of Krishna. Vishnukundin expands to Vengi and we find no mention of Salankayana there. So Salankaya were not there around 450 AD.

Conclusion
From the accounts of Panini and Patanjali, we can say that Salankayana is an ancient dyansty. They may be Naga with saivite devotion. The settled around Vengi in the first century AD, as the feudatories of Chutu Satakarnis as the keeper of Eastern sea board as evidenced by Ptolemy. As chutus are Vaisnavite we have change in religion of Salankayana to vaishnavite. They were also feudatories of Ikshvakus. The Chutus went down in 250 AD and Ikshvakus went down around 270AD. Soon we have Salankayana ruler Devavarman proclaiming himself to be Maharaja. The Salankayana Dynasty comes to end around 350 AD and branch of the dyansty migrates to Indonesia and sets up a kingdom there.

Source
THE SUCCESSORS OF THE SATAVAHANAS BY DINESCHANDRA SIRCAR, M.A., PH.D
Buddhist Remains in Andhra and the History of Andhra Between 225 and 610 A.D. By K. R. Subramanian
Vakataka - Gupta Age Circa 200-550 A.D. edited by Ramesh Chandra Majumdar, Anant Sadashiv Altekar 


Related Posts

Is Gautama Buddha Avatar of Vishnu

Why does Purana and Buddhist Chronology does not synchronize with each other. While they seem to be saying about the same person. When Analyzing this question. It becomes apparent that we have merged two Buddhas. The Adi Buddha or Avatar Buddha of Vishnu and Shakya Buddha  or Gautama Buddha into One. Let us Analyze

Let us  summarize what we have regarding each Buddha

Adi Buddha
Adi Buddha is avatar of Vishnu was born on 1887BC to Mother Anjana in Kikata (Bodh Gaya).
The Adi Buddha Established the Philosophy of Ahimsa, Non Violence. He preached against ritual Animal Sacrifices that has crept into Vedic Hinduism. He emphasized the divine in all beings and divinity of all souls arousing compassion for all.


Gautama Buddha
Siddhartha was was born around 560BC in Royal Family of Suddhodana and Mayadevi in Lumbini in Nepal. Siddhartha received his name Gautama from his spiritual Master Gautama Muni, who belongs to Kapila dynasty(as per Sundarananda Charita). He left home his royal comforts to find enlightenment. He went to Bodh Gaya to meditate and got enlightenment.
Gautama Buddha philosophy that is Monist (the God, is inert, nonactive and without any characteristic) and that reaching the same inert and non-active state through Nirvana is the goal. For attaining freedom from all suffering and end cycle of rebirths, one should attain Nirvana. Gautama Buddha is the propagator of Bahyatmavada, Jnanatmavada and Sunyavada, three pillars of Atheism. He Went to Bodhgaya to medidate because of its spiritual potency as the birthplace of Adi Buddha.

Buddhist Texts
Threvada Texts refer to six Preceding Buddhas (Those who have been awakened) as Vipasyin, Sikin, krakuccanda, Konagamara and Kashyapa, also they say Maitreya as the Buddha of the future.

Amara Simha Buddhist scholar, who wrote Amarakosha gives eighteen names of Vishnu avatara including the name Sugato (Which Shankara calls Buddha) and seven names of Shakya Simha Buddha without any mention of Sugato. So we can even argue that Shankara talks about avatar Buddha not Shakya Buddha. Amarakosha states the Lord Buddha is also known as Samanta Bhadra, whereas Gautama Buddha is a human being.

In Lalita Vistara, it is described how Gautama Buddha medidated on the same spot as the predecessor Buddha. The original name of Bodhgaya is Kikata, after Gautama attained enlightment there, it came to be known as Buddha gaya. Even today the rituals of worship is preformed by sannyasis of Shankaracharya sect.

Lankavatara Sutra, the famous buddhist work says that Ravana King of Lanka first worshipped Vishnu incarnation Buddha then successive and future Buddha.

Analysing Buddhist texts like Prajna-Paramita sutra, Astasahastrika prajna- paramita sutra, Sata-Shastrika Prajna, Pramita Sutra, Lalita Vistara shows three categories of Buddha namely

Human Buddhas: Like Gautama, who came to be known as Buddha after enlightment.
Bodhisattva Buddhas: Personalities like Samanta Bhadraka who were born enlightened.
Adi(Original-First) Buddha: the Avatar of Vishnu.


Hindu Texts
Bhagavata Purana says "At the commencement of the Kāli-yuga will Vishnu become incarnate in Kikata, under the name of Buddha, the son of Jina, for the purpose of deluding the enemies of the gods."

Puranas say that Adi Buddha was born in Ikshvaku Dynasty.

How Two were merged.
Adi Shankara, in discussion with others treated both of them as one person and did not discriminate between the two. Shankara Sunya philosophy is similar to Buddhist Nirvana. With his Mayavadha philosophy he not only stopped rise of Buddhism in India, but also started its decline.  However acharyas who came after him did not agree and they came with corrections for clear vedic View
Vishnuswami -Suddha Advaitha
Ramanuja - Vasistadvaitha
Nimbarka - Dvaita Advaita
Madhva - Dvaitha
Chaitanya - Acintaya Bheda Bheda

Historical Accounts
Adi Buddha is contemproary of Srenika(Sunika) whose father was Hemajit or Kshemajit or Kshetroja or Ksetrauja. Son of Srenika is Kunika. His son is Dharshaka.

Gautama Buddha is contemproary of Bimbisara(Son of Bhatiya or Bhattiya), King of Magadha with Capital at Rajgirh. Bimbisara made married alliances with many kings of India. His first wife Kosaladevi was the princess of Kosala, daughter of king Mahakoshal and sister of Pasendi or Prasenjit. The marriage ended the hostility between Kosala and Magadha. Ajatsatru was Kosaladevi`s son. Bimbisara conquered Anga and send Ajatsatru as the ruler there. Champa was the capital of Anga. Bimbisara was assasinated by his son Ajathashatru. Gautama Buddha then went to sravasti, Capital of Kosala ruled by Prasenjit. Most of the teachings come from Sravasti. Buddhist, Puranic and Jain Accounts confirm Gautama Buddha to be the contemproary of Bimbisara.

Jain scriptures, described King Bimbisara as a disciple of Mahavira who frequently sought his teachings. As per Jain texts, he is referred to as King Shrenika of Rajgriha (being the possessor of a large army). Bimbisara sent Jivaka to Ujjain for medical treatment of King Pradyata, the king of Avanti.

Mahavamsa traces the Shakya dyansty to Ikshvaku dynasty and starts the dynasty with Ikshvaku.


Let us see the list of Contemproary kings as various religious texts 

Puranas List
Shishunaga(40yrs)(Desposed Pratyodya)
kakavarna(36yrs)
kshemdharman(20yrs)
Khastrojas (40yrs)
Bimbasara (28yrs)
Ajatashatru (25yrs)
Darshaka(26yrs)
Udayin (33yrs)
Nandivardhana (40rys)
Mahanandin (43yrs)

Buddhist List
Sisunaka
Kalashoka (Sons Bhadrasena, Korandavarna, Mangura, Sarvanjaha, Jalika, Ubhaka, Sanjaya, Koravya, Nandivardhana and Panchamaka)
All 10 sons ruled simultaneously.

How Reliable is Buddhist Historical sources

Indologists have been saying Puranas are not reliable, let us see how unreliable Buddhist texts are. It is from Buddhist texts that Indologists arguments come. There two schools of sources. Tibetan and Sinhala. There is Chinese source, which comes later.
Let us take the kings around Buddhas time

Lankan Tradition

Dipavamsa
Bimbisara(52yrs)
Ajatasattu (32yrs)
Udayabhadda (16yrs)
Nagadasa (24yrs)
susunaga (10yrs)
kalasoka
Ten sons of Kalasoka (22yrs)
Candagutta(24yrs)
Bindusara
Asoka (37yrs)

Mahavamsa
Bimbisara (52yrs)
Ajatasattu (32yrs)
Udayabhadda (16yrs)
Anuruddha, Munda (8yrs)
Nagadasaka (8yrs)
Susunaga (18yrs)
Kalasoka (28yrs)
ten sons of Kalasoka (22yrs)
Nine Nandas (22yrs)
Candagutta (24yrs)
Bindusara (28yrs)
Asoka (37yrs)

Burmese Tradition
Bimbisara
Ajatasattu (35yrs)
Udayabhadda (15yrs)
Aururddha, Munda (9yrs)
Nagadasaka (4yrs)
Susunaga (32yrs)
Kalasoka 28yrs
bhaddasena and 8 brothers (33yrs)
Uggasenananda and 8 brothers (21yrs)
candagutta (24yrs)
Bindusara (27yrs)
Asoka

Tibetan Tradition
Asokavardhana
Bimbisara
Ajatasatru
Ujayain or Udayibhadda
Munda
Kakavarnin
Sahalin
Tulakuel
Mahamandala
Presenjit
Nanda
Bindusara
Asoka

Jain Tradition
Srenika
Kunika
Udayin
(Total 60yrs)
Nine Nandas
Candragupta
Bindusara
Asoka

Discussion

Buddhist dates
1)Sources of Buddhist: First Where do Buddhist sources come from, they are not there from time immemorial like Purana or Jain sources. They are from definite time frame that is after Gautama Buddha. Mainly after the state patronage of Buddhism. Now how does Buddhist dates start from Ikshvaku dynasty. They should have got from some source. where else Purana. These Buddhist chronologies before Buddha are from Purana sources. If Puranas are the source of many Buddhist dates, how can Indology scholars choose to reject Puranas and take Buddhist sources.

2)Indian Dates: Dates from Purana or Buddhist or Jain are all Indian dates. Indologists are just playing one against other.

3)Not the Same Kings: Jain and Purana Chronology names does not tally with Buddhist Chronology names on contemporary kings

4) Differences within Buddhist: There are two main dates for Buddhists. One from Sinhala Buddhist and other Tibetan sources. There are two sources from Sinhala. That is Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa. There are differences between the two dates, but let us not overplay the differences.

The Tibetan Buddhist dates are more closer to Puranas date. But there are major differences. Such as when did Buddha lived. Date of Ashoka etc.

There is also Burma (Myanmar), though based on Lankan sources has a mind of its own because it has direct contact with puranic sourcse.

Chinese and Japanese follow Lankan, though they also have direct contact with puranic, so there are differences.

Indology Confusions
By Combining two Buddhas Indology scholars have discredited the Purana accounts and thus Indian History. Whenever the Puranas refers Adi Buddha they will cite Gautama Buddha to discredit and vice verse.

Colonel Kennedy, argues that the Buddha of the Purana and Buddha the founder of the Buddhist system of religion have nothing in common but the name, and that the attempted identification of these two is simply the work of European scholars, who have not been sufficiently careful to collect information, and to weigh the evidence they have had before them.

Jacobi Believes that Kakavarna(Puranas) = Kalashoka (Sinhalese Buddhist Literature) = Udyain (Jain Literature)

The Cambridge and Oxford histories of India accept 483 B.C as the date of Buddha’s nirvana. But, William Jones, on the basis of Chinese and Tibetan records infers that Buddha lived in the 11th century B.C. Historian Fleet, who makes a study of ‘Rajatarangini’, thinks that Buddha lived in the 17th century B.C. Chinese monk Fa-Hien puts Buddha’s Nirvana at 1050 B.C. These contradictory theories may confuse one altogether.

Indology scholars just pick and choose to discredit Purana sources. The history that Buddha lived in the 5th century B.C was propounded by E.J Rapson who writes that the exact date of Buddha’s Nirvana is not known and hence the popularly accepted year of Buddha’s Nirvana is imaginary. Sastry states that Western scholars arbitrarily skipped 12 centuries of Indian history because their ‘hypothesis’ about Alexander’s invasion did not match with centuries-old Indian chronology.

Conclusion
We see that Early Buddhist texts distinguishes the two Buddhas, while the later ones seem to ignored the former. The Rock Edicts of Piyadasi teachings are of Adi Buddha not Gautama Buddha. This clarification actually synchronizes the Buddhist and Purana Chronology and there seems to be no problem in merging the two once we take as two persons. The key is not play puranic , Jain, Buddhist chronology against each other, but synchronize them. The Conclusion is that : Gautama Buddha is not avatar of Vishnu. Avatar of Vishnu is Adi Buddha.

Sources
Were There Two Buddhas By Stephen Knapp
Modern Buddha and Vishnu Avatar Buddha are Different by Srila Bhakti Ballabh Tirtha Maharaja
Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Puranic, by W.J. Wilkins
Index to all Chronology Pages from Indic Studies Foundation
QUEEN CHELNA AND KING SHRENIK from Jainworld
Saisunaga Dynasty- The Third Dynasty of Magadha after the great war. from Kota Venkata Chelam - Ancient Indian History
Buddhist India
Lord Mahāvīra and His Times By Kailash Chand Jain
History of Ancient India: From 4250 BC to 637 AD By J.P. Mittal
The dates of the Buddha

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Date of Devaram (Thevaram Trio)

We are looking at the Dates of Appar, Sambandhar and Sundarar known as tevaram Trio. We are comparing the historical dates of these saints versus claims by dravidian scholars. Let us first see at the terms Thirupadiyam and Devaram.

Thirupadiyam

The earliest epigraphical reference to the recitation of Thiruppadiyam, occurs in the middle of the 9th century, in the reign of the Pallava ruler Nandivarman III circa 845 A.D. found in the Siva emple of Thiruvallam. It records the gift of a village for maintaining several services in the temple by a certain Vikramaditya Mabali Vanarayan(Bana King). It includes provisions for food offerings, the Sivabhramanas performing worship, Sribali (drummers), for makers of flower garlands, and singers of Thiruppadiyam. Four hundred kadi of paddy is prescribed as annual payment for the last two categories of services.

The word Thiruppadiyam in inscriptions is generally taken by Dravidian scholars to refer to the Tevaram hymns of Saint Appar, Sambandar and Sundarar. But Thirupadiyam Thiru(Sanskrit Sri) + Padiyam (Singing or Reading or chanting) does not translate to Devaram, it translates to singing or reading or chanting holy prayers or hymns or recitals. The Thirupadiyam is not only sung in Siva and Vaishnava temples but jain shrines too. How can Devaram a saiva work be sung in Jain temples. So the term simply means holy recitals not Devaram by the Trio.

Thirupadiyams History
When Ramanuja started spreading his philosophy, he found that most of the scholars are committed to Sankara, So Ramanuja had created 74 aharyapurushas with hereditory rights of succession to spread vishistadvaita philosophy and temple worship, in contrast to sankara's teachings. Due to paucity of scholars, non- brahmins were also given seal of authority to convert. However, Vedas were restricted to Brahmins..

"While the recitation of Vedas was the monopoly of the Brahmins the recitation of Prabandhams was made the common right of all castes and both sexes." as per Raghavacharya.



Term Devaram

The term Tevaram also occurs in a jaina context, earlier, meaning a place of worship. The term Tevaram is mentioned in Saivite context in other places.

 A 27th year record of Rajaraja I in the temple of Siva at Allur in Trichy district refers to the recitation of Thiruppadiyams by a certain Ambalattadi Thirunavukkaraiyan, at the Devara in the sthana matha of Vadakudi Mahadeva temple. The relevant portion of the text reads: (Thiru Vadakudi Mahadevar sthana mathattu Devarattukku Thiruppadiyan Vinnappam Ceyyum Ambalattadi Thiruavukkaraiyan (675 of SII VIII). The inscription is explicit in its statement that Thiruppadiyam was recited at the Devaram of the sthana matha, thereby clearly stating that the term Devaram stands for a sacred place of worship and does not refer to the devaram of the Trio.

This is further confirmed by another inscription at Tanjore, recorded in the time of Rajendra I, son of Rajaraja. Dated in the 19th year of Rajendra I, it records certain gifts made by the king while he was seated at the cloistered hall of Devara, situated in the north, of the Mudikonda cholan Palace at Gangaikondacholapuram. Obviously the Devaram mentioned here is a place of worship (domestic) within the royal palace.

Another inscription dated in the reign of Rajendra (Kullotunga I) at Manambadi-Tanjore District, a certain nangur Maraikkadan alias Patanjali Pidara, served as Devara Nayaka to Rajendra Chola. Obviously he was looking after the place of worship of the ruler. This would show that even in the 12th century the word Devaram stood for a place of worsip only and did not mean the sacred hymns of the three saints.

A record of Kiranur, Tanjore Disstrict dated in the reign of Rajaraja I, 7th year 992 A.D., states that Thiruppadiyam singer stood in front and recited, Vilakam ner Thiruppadiyami. The reciters stood in front of Devaram and sung the hymns, called Devarattu Thiruppadiyam, which during the passage of time came to be called simply Devaram, jettisioning the second member and thus the hymns themselves came to be called Devarams. The term Devaram is derived probably Devagaram i.e. place of God-worship and should have been prakritized as Devaram like Bhandagaram becoming Bhandaram and Koshtagaram becoming Kottaram.

From the examples we see that the Neither Thirupadiyam not Devaram in inscriptions refers to the hymns sung by the Trio.



Thirumurai

Thirumurai is a twelve volume compendium of hymns in the praise of Shiva by various poets in South India. Nambi Andar Nambi compiled the first seven volumes by Appar, Campantar and Cuntarar as Tevaram. During the course of time, a strong necessity was felt by scholars to compile Saiva literature to accommodate other works. Tiruvacakam and Tirukovayar by Manickavasagar is included as eighth, nine parts are compiled as ninth Tirumurai out of which most are unknown, tenth as Tirumandiram by Tirumular the famous Siddhar. Eleventh is compiled by Karaikal Ammaiyar, Cheraman Perumal and others. The contemparary Chalukya Chola king was impressed by the work of Nambi and included Nambi's work in the eleventh Tirumurai. Sekkizhar's Periya Puranam, composed a century later, contains the life depiction of all the 63 nayanmars. The response for the work was tremendous among Saiva scholars that it was included as the 12th Tirumurai. Tirumurai along with Vedas and Saiva agamas from the basis of Saiva Siddantha philosophy in Tamil Nadu. 63 Alwars and Nayanmars is a list compiled by Sekkilar in Kulothunga III court.

Periyapuranam
The Periya Puranam or Tiruttondar Puranam is a Tamil poetic account depicting the legendary lives of the sixty-three Nayanars, the poets of Tamil Shaivism. It was compiled during the 12th century by Sekkilar during the rule of Kullottonga Chola III.

Names of Saints in Inscriptions

Let us see the reciters of Thirupadiyam, whose names are recorded in inscriptions. The reciters, whose names are recorded, are seen with two names (1) the surname and (2) the diksha name (names assumed during initiation). The intiatory names show that all of them underwent Siva diksha. The diksha names include any one of the five of names of Sadasiva, as Tatpurusha Siva, Aghora Siva, Vamasiva, Isana Siva, Sadasiva, or Rudrasiva. Other names included are Netra Siva, Hrdaya Siva, Sikha, Kavaca, Jnana, Vyoma, Yoga, Dharma, Satya, Purva and Omkara all ending the honorofic Siva. Among their surnames, seven reciters bear the name Thirunavukkaraiyan, five the name Aruran. (Among the names of other 63 saints, assumed by the reciters, Sirala occurs twice and none else). The names as recorded in inscriptions are interesting. We don't come across Appar, Sundarar and sambandar in chola inscriptions.

A point of interest worthy of note is that in the temple of Tanjore, the images of 63 saints, were not consecrated. Except the images of Siruttonda with his wife and son Sirala, and the image of Miladudaiyar, other saints are not mentioned. The Period we are talking here is as early as Chalukya chola king Kulothunga.

Let us look at the Saints in Historical Context.
..

Alvars and Nayanaras
The Pantheon of Alvar came after the times of Nathamuni and Ramanuja during their time they got wide acceptance. Until then Alvar means only Nammalvar. Nammalvar Tiruvoymoli is the first prabhandhams made known to tamil world.

First Twelve Alwars

Poigai, Bhutam, Pey, Thondar-adip-podi, Tirumazhisai aka Bhaktisara, Paanan, Kulashekara, Andal, Periazhvar, Tirumangai, Nammalvar, Madhurakavi.

Natha Muni recovers these verses by yogic powers

Sriman Nathamuni happened to hear some verses of Nammalvar through some pilgrims. His desire to hear more of these songs brought him to a of the direct - disciple of Nammalvar, on whose advice Sri Nathamuni being a yogi went through yogic exercise and established direct contact with the spirit of Sri Nammalvar.

Lost works , refound
Kanda Puranam (14th century AD) says that the Devaram hyms were lost and was recovered by nambi andar nambi on the direction of Abhaya Kulasekhara from the sealed room of Chidambaram temple. However this story is exactly like the recovery of vaishnava hyms by Nathamuni(12th century AD Ancestor of Ramanuja) So it would have been most likely symbolic rather than true.

Nambi Andar Nambi.
Nambi Andar Nambi, was born in Tirunaraiyur near Chidambaram. who is said to have recovered, at the request of the Chola king, Raja Abhaya Kula-Sekhara, the Saivate canons of the three famous Devaram hymnists. It has been supposed that Nambi-Andar-Nambi was a contemporary of Rajaraja(Equating Raja Abhaya Kula sekhara). It is true his patron is said to have been a Chola king named Rajaraja Abhaya-Kulasekhara. But there is a very serious difficulty in identifying this Rajaraja with the builder of the Tanjore temple. Among the poems, which Nambi-Andar-Nambi is said to have classified, is the Tiruvisaippa, which contains a hymn on the Gangaikonda-Cholesvara temple built evidently by Rajaraja’s son Rajendra-Chola and called after his title Gangaikonda-Chola. The composer of the hymn himself must have lived after Rajaraja atleast or even Rajendra Chola; and Nambi-Andar-Nambi who classifies it along with the sacred writings of the Tamil Saivas, must certainly belong to a still later period. Since he recovers these scriptures after they are completely lost. He should at-least be a century or more later.

Manikka Vasagar Mentions Varguna
"Varagunanaam thennavan eaththum Chitrambalaththaan… " This varguna is said to be the Pandyan king who ruled in 9th century AD. But the saint does not denote any king here. Nor does he says he pandyan. But it has been equated with Varguna pandyan and his date is taken to 9th century AD. Can the king be addressed like that by his own minister?

Let us now turn our attention the aim of the article that is Date to Devaram Trio...

Appar
Appar is claimed to be contemproary of Mahendra Varman pallava based on the inscription in Tiruchi. The claims are based on these assumptions.
  1. Gundabhara and Gunadhara are same
  2. Both refer to Mahendravarman
  3. So The Gunabhara in Tiruchirapalli inscription is Mahendra pallava
  4. he moved away from evil conduct is mean to say that Jainism is evil conduct and he turned to shaiva
  5. This moving away from bad conduct is due to appar.
  6. The Same place have many jain inscriptions in earlier and subsequent periods indicating it is a Jain centre, debunking any saivite conversion.
If you see the evidence, there is nothing to suggest conversion, leave alone Appar involved in one. Let us see what other evidences contradicting them.



Mattavialasa prasanna
Mattavialasa prasanna by Mahendra Varman Pallava makes fun of Saivite and Buddhist religions.
 
Gunabhara , Gnanabhra
The Rock cut cave temple have a defaced inscription , which record King Gnanabhra, who bore the birudas purushottama, satrumalla and satyasamd ,built a temple of siva on the top of the mountain and placed in it a linga and a statue of himself. Both inscriptons mention river Kaveri.

Jain Inscriptions
Jain Inscriptions by pallavas continue after the said incident. If Mahendra Varman Pallva considered Jainism as evil way and saivite way as the correct way due to conversion by Appar. Then there should be shift inscriptions from jainism to Saivism, but there is none. Since the whole claim is that Appar and mahendra varman pallava are contemproaries, is based on this inscription. There is no evidence to suggest a conversion or subsequent inscriptions for any conversion, let alone by appar. The Jain monasteries continue to get aid from pallavas as before without any break. If evil way from which mahendra varma turned away is Jainism, there should be dip in aid to Jain Monasteries. The Aid continuous not only throughout pallava times, but also chola and Pandya times. So there is no evidence of any conversion.

Sambandar
Sambandar went to court of Koon Pandyan. He said to have defeated jains there.

Koon Pandiyan
Looking into the history of Kazimar Big Mosque of Madurai, it dates back to 13th century. Hazrat Kazi Syed Tajudin, who came from Oman, received the land where the present Masjid is situated, as donation from the then Pandya King of Madurai – Koon Pandiyan.

Jain Debate
The incident as narrated in Sekkizhar's magnum opus. As per this version,the Saivite saint Tirugnanasambandhar (TGS) debated 8,000 Jainas simultaneously. The Jainas had vowed that they would impale themselves should they lose the debate. As Per Sekkizhar they did so.

Pandyan Nedumaran also known as Koon Pandiyan was converted to Saivism by Sambandar. As per Kazimar Mosque dating Koon Pandiyan is date-able to 13th century AD.

First there is no evidence to suggest there is a debate of such large scale. And if that is true, then Sambandar should be dated to 13th century AD, not 7th century AD.
 
Thirumangai Alwar and Sambandar
Once Sambandar was staying in his mutt. Thirumangai alwar came by that side, surrounded by his followers shouting loudly the title's their leader. The followers of Sambandar asked the followers of Thirumangai alwar to maintain silence till they crossed the mutt. But Alwar became angry and went straight into the mutt. Sambandar welcomed him cordially and asked him to sing a song on the Lord Vishnu. So Alwar sang and hearing this Sambandar was spell bound and tears came running out of his eyes. He at once gave the spade (vel) which was given to him by lordess Aadhiparashakti to Alwar and requested him to continue his divine service to god. And accepted that he was apt for his titles and announcing them loudly was correct.


Thirumangai Date
Thirumangai's father was Nilam, a general under the Chola king Kochengan. Thirumangai also followed suit and became General under Chola. So His date has to be post pallava that is after 10th century AD. Thirumangai Alwar arranged for worship of Nammalvar in Sri rangam Temple. That put Thirumangai Alwar at-least a century or two Later. Thirumangai also refers to Vairamegha, the Rastrakutas. So he is definitely post 10th century AD.

Now Thirumangai Alwar cannot be dated to 7th century AD. So how can Sambandhar who is a contemporary of Thirumangai Alwar dated to such date.

Kochengan and Hiranyavarman

Kochenga's parents Subhadeva and Kamalavati prayed to Nataraja of Chidambaram temple for a male successor as per Sangam Literature. The Periyapuranam(13th Century AD) calls him the son of the Chola king Subhadeva by Kamalavati. So Kochenga is post Nataraja Temple. Earliest Historical reference to Nataraja Temple is Nandivarma pallavamalla (732-796 CE) about his father Hiranyavarma building Nataraja Temple at Chidambaram. So Chidambaram Nataraja Temple was built by Nandivarma Pallavamalla around 750 AD. Kochengan parents came to pray in this temple for male heir and thus was born Kochengan. Since Kochengan is Chola. Kochengan should be dated Post pallava. And any literature referring to Kochengan is also post pallava.


The Leyden grant calls him “a bee at the lotus feet of Sambhu (Siva).” This is shows to the fact that Sengan was considered as one of the sixty-three devotees of Siva. His name is mentioned by two of the authors of the Devaram: Sundaramurti invokes him in the Tiruttondattogai, and refers to a temple which Kochchenganan had built at Nannilam; and Tirunanasambandar mentions two other temples which the Chola king Seyyagan had built at Ambar and at Vaigal. Mr.Venkayya has found that the Nalayira-prabandham speaks of a visit of the Chola king Kochchenganan to the Vishnu temple at Tirunaraiyur.

Kalvali narpathu sung in praise of Kochengan against the battle of Kanaikal Irumporai , Chera king in the battle of Kalumalam by Poigaiyar. In the Poem poigaiyar also points out Ganesha Statue. Now According to tamil Saiva tradition Ganesh worship was introduced to tamil nadu by Siru thondar. Where do dravidian scholars date Siru thondar? , post konchengan. That is the problem, what to trust in tamil tradition as historical.

Siru Thondar -Paranjothiyar
Siru Thondar is described as Chola commander by periya purana , not pallava commander as being said by Dravidian Scholars. Paranjothi wrote Thiruvilayadal puranam. It portrays cholas, not pallavas. Paranjothi supposed to have brought the Ganesha from vatapi and introduced Ganesha worship in Tamil Nadu. But Appar and sambandar sing about Ganesha. It is in Thirupadigam. No pallava Inscription mention Parnjyothi as their general or otherwise. As per vatapi kondan or otherwise. King itself erected the victory pillar in Badami as per inscriptions. Kuram plates which give the details of pallava victory over Badami Chalukya Pulikesin II does not give the general name nor does it indicate anybody else leading the army other than king. Equating Paranjothiyar with siru Thondar and claiming him to be a pallava general is a huge scam to backdate both of them by Dravidian Scholars.

Appar and sambandar are contemproaries, Appar mentions Sambandar. Sambandar visited Siru thondar. So all three are contemporaries.

Paranjothiyar . No Inscription mention Paranjothiyar as Commandar of Pallava Army. Infact the King himself went to conquer Vatapi (Badami) against Chalukyas. There is no evidence linking Paranjyothiar and Siru thondar.

Commandar : Siru Thondar is described as Chola Commander not Pallava in Periyapuranam

Siru Thondar is later than Appar and Sambandar. If Siru Thondar brought Ganesha from Vatapi and introduced Ganesha Worship, then how come Appar and Sambandar Sing about Ganesha in Tamil nadu..

Brazen lies which contradict one another in the same paragraph.
 
Analysis

Literary Vs Archaeological and Epigraphic Evidence.

There is no match between the Literary and epigraphic and Archaeological evidence for a large scale conflict between Saiva and Jains. The inscription and archaeological sites gives a continuous Jain or saiva presence even in places where the literature talks about major conflicts. jain inscriptions continue until 8th 9th century AD and later, provides no evidence of large scale conversions including chola areas.

When we see, the monastries, which were supposed to be in conflict with Shivites. The jain Monastries have inscription dateable to pallavas and Lokaavibhaga to around 5th century. But if we see the Shivite temples, we find only inscriptions to around 10th century or later. This applies to Jain Monastry to where Appar converted to Shaivism also. We do not come across any displacement of Jains due to shivites or conflict from these structures. Many of the Monasties were destroyed after12th century AD, but no destruction is found before these times.


Names of Appar , Sundara and Sambhandar are not mentioned in the inscription. The Word Thirunavukariyar(God who calls gods name) is mentioned, which seem to be similar to Thirupadiyam. This has been equated with Appar and tales are made. Same with Sambandar and sundarar. Names in the inscription are equated with them with no apparent basis.

The Devaram Hymns are not found in inscriptions before Chalukyas took over the chola throne and formed the chalukya chola line. Devaram hymns are absolutely not found in pallava inscriptions, where they supposed to have lived.

The Periyapurana of Sekkilar and the Guruparampara are all later day Puranas, which take one or two episodes from the life of the saints and weave beautiful myths around them. While we are delighted in the divine writings, We must be careful in utilising them for reconstructing history. Episodes corroborated by epigraphical or archaeological source alone should be taken into account and the rest left out to the realm of religious faith.

Conclusion
So Thevaram Trio Appar, Sambandhar and Sundarar are much later date atleast by 1200AD or more and not 7th century AD as claimed by Dravdian Scholars

Sources
  1. Thirukkazhiseerama Vinnagaram
  2. Study uncovers interesting details of cave temple
  3. Mahendra's Inscription At Tiruchirapalli
  4. Pallava Cave Temples of Trichy
  5. Date of Appar
  6. Pandya Arikesari and Pandikkovai
  7. Dates of Nayanmars and Alvars
  8. Some Contributions Of South India To Indian Culture by Rajasevasakta Dewan Bahadur
  9. Inscriptions of Parakesarivarman Uttama-Chola
  10. Epigraphical References
  11. JOURNAL OF THE EPIGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA VOL 5 (1978)
  12. Thiru-jnana-sambandar by Swami Sivananda
  13. The Nayanmars
  14. The kings mentioned by Periaazhwar!
  15. PANDYA INSCRIPTIONS
  16. Ramanuja. Continued
  17. Some Contributions of South India to Indian Culture by Sakkottai Krishnaswami Aiyangar
  18. South Indian shrines: illustrated By P. V. Jagadisa Ayyar
  19. Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Nammalvar and A.K. Ramanujan, (tr.)
  20. Thrikodithanam Mahavishnu Kshetram
  21. Evidence of Alvars
  22. Kalayarkoil temple
  23. Siruthondar by Swami Sivananda
  24. The Holy Lives of the Azhwars or the Dravida Saints by Alkondavalli Govindacharya Ananthacharya Indological Research Institute Publication1982
  25. Philosophy and Theistic Mysticism of the Alwars by S.M.S.Chari Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Limited, Delhi 1997
  26. Srimad Bhagavatha MahaPurana GitaPress. Gorakhpur 1971.
  27. Ancient Heritage of Tamils by V.G.Ramachandran
  28. In Mythology to History through Astronomy edited by N.MahalingamN.I.A Publications, Pollachi, TamilNadu 1980.
  29. Vedic "Aryans" and the Origins of Civilization byNavaratna S.Rajaram and David Frawley
  30. A literary and Scientific perspectiveW.H.Press. Quebec 1995.
  31. South Indian Shrines: Illustrated By P. V. Jagadisa Ayya
  32. The Recovery of the Devaram Hymns BY S. R. BALASUBRAHMANYAN, M.A L.T., Chidambaram
  33. TANJAVUR Brihadhiswara TEMPLE Inscriptions from South Indian Inscriptions
  34. Temple Imagery from Early Mediaeval Peninsular India By Archana Verma
  35. Period of Azhwars

Images
  1. Wikipedia
  2. Rediff
  3. badamionline
  4. The Hindu 
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