This work focuses on Tamil nationalism, specifically on its intellectual roots. It examines how
the nation-religion-language paradigm underwent a conceptual distortion when it migrated
from the British cultural setting to Tamil Nadu, and what this tells us about the native cultural
framework. Although the Dravidian movement has been studied extensively, there has been
minimal research into its early intellectual beginnings. Most researchers studying the Dravidian
movement focused on the birth of Justice Party and the vision of its important leader, Tamil
nationalist and separatist E. V. Ramaswami Naicker (known as ?Periyar?). While this iconoclast
and atheist envisioned a Tamil nation free of religion and caste, it was a group of Saiva Vellala
intellectuals, and among them especially Maraimalai Adigal (1876-1950), who sowed the seeds
for a Dravidian nationalist movement. Unlike Periyar, Maraimalai Adigal was a traditionalist
and a staunch follower of the Saiva Siddhanta tradition.
Adigal?s thought linked nation, religion, and language in a way which calls for analysis of the
very specific situation which led this Indian thinker to conceptualize Tamil people as a nation.
Apparently, he reacted to the British ideas about what made Dravidians (and more specifically,
Tamils) into a nation, but much more should be explained about this reaction. There are several
problems with the descriptions offered by researchers concerning Adigal?s vision of ?Shaivite
monotheism? being the original Tamil religion, and how does this vision relate to the building
of Tamil nation. A careful reading of Adigal?s writings leads the author of this thesis to a reconsideration of the idea that this Tamil scholar simply accepted the British concept of nation
and applied it to his people. Adigal?s points about purifying Tamil language seem to be of a
different nature than the British focus on language as the constituent of a nation, and also his
claims about Vellalas (his own jati) being the original Tamil nation need better explanation
than those offered so far.
