Murugan Devotion among Tamil Diaspora - Murugan Bhakti

Murugan Devotion among Tamil Diasporadistinct and prosperous communities thatcontinue to cultivate Murugan bhakti andreap the Lord’s arul despite their relativeisolation from the Tamil homeland.Philologists have observed that isolateddiaspora communities often preservetheir cultural heritage even morejealously than their brethren of themotherland. For instance, the mostarchaic Scandinavian customs andliterary traditions are preserved not inScandinavia, but in Iceland by Nordicfolk who emigrated there many centuriesago. And it is well known that JaffnaTamils preserve a dialect of Tamil that is,in many respects, closer to classicalAnnual Kavadi procession through Victoria, capital of SeychellesTamil than the Tamil spoken in anydistrict of Tamil Nadu. Likewise, as Heinz Bechert has rightly observed, "Whereas the cult of Ceyonor Murugan was fully integrated into Saivism in South India, the god of Kataragama has retainedmany archaic features…" [6] Hence it is possible that centuries from now diaspora Tamils may preservearchaic elements of Murugan worship, such as kavati, which could pass out of practice in the heartlandof the Murugan cultus where the impulse for mainstream religious innovation tends to be greater.http://murugan.org/research/diaspora.htm (6 of 8) [2/21/2002 9:51:16 PM]