Arumuka Navalar

Arumuka Navalar (ஆறுமுக நாவலர்; 18 December 1822 – 5 December 1879) was a Sri Lankan Shaivite Tamil language scholar, polemicist, and a religious reformer who was central in reviving native Hindu Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka and India. Navalar's birth name was Nallur Arumuga Pillai. He was born in a Tamil literary family, and became one of the Jaffna Tamils notable for reviving, reforming and reasserting the Hindu Shaivism tradition during the colonial era. As an assistant working for Peter Percival – a Methodist Christian missionary, he helped translate the King James Bible into the Tamil language.he established Hindu schools and published a press in order to publish reading materials for Hindu children to educate them on Hindu religion and also practice and rituals of Hindu religion. With his knowledge of Christian theological premises, Navalar became influential in creating a period of intense religious rivalry with Christian missionaries, defending Tamils and their historic religious culture in India and Sri Lanka, preventing large-scale conversions to Christianity. He was one of the first natives to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition. He defended Hindu Shaivism, calling it samaya (Observance, Religion) of "True Being" (sat, soul), and he used the same techniques to counter Christianity that Christian missionaries used against Hinduism. As part of his religious revivalism, in a manner similar to Christian mission schools, he built schools that taught secular and Hindu religious subjects. He is credited with finding and publishing original palm leaf manuscripts. He also attempted to reform Hindu Shaivism and customary practices in Sri Lanka, such as by showing Shaiva Agamas (scriptures) prohibit animal sacrifice and violence of any form. Navalar was born in 1822 as Nallur Arumuga Pillai to a Hindu family in Sri Lanka. His family belonged to the Vellalar caste, which constitutes about 50% of the Tamil Hindus on the island nation. The Vellalars were related to farming.