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மறைமலையம் - LOMMLDMWWILD – 31
investigation among royal families of the destiny of man and lower beings that a long line of kings who succeeded them could not set their mind at rest without earnestly interesting themselves in the solution of religious and philosophical problems to a complete exclusion of all ritualistic studies and performances.
The final stroke to Brahminism was, however, given by the princes Gautama Buddha and Mahavira who, renouncing even their royal state and taking to a mendicant life, stood firmly for the cause of dumb creatures, and devoted their whole time and energy to putting a stop to animal sacrifices, and heartless observance of caste principles, and to the indiscriminate study of the Vedas and other Aryan works. Finding it no longer possible to live in the north with ease and influence, the Brahmins of the Dravido-Aryan stock migrated to the south hoping to exercise their priestly craft over the Tamils; and as expected they were accorded a hearty reception by the Tamil kings and chiefs, by landlords and people. Their complexion, their fine Personal appearance due, as in the case of modern Eurasian type, to the blending of the Dravidian and Aryan elements, impressed the aesthetic sense of the southern people and enlisted their sympathy on behalf of the new-comers. Consequently the Brahmins were allowed to settle without any trouble all over the south; but they were not permitted to live near the habitations of the vegetarian velalas but to make their abode with the other low class Tamils who, like the Brahmins, were addicted to drinking and eating all kinds of animal flesh. Those of the Brahmins who were shrewd enough to discover how low they were considered inwardly by the Velala Tamils while they were outwardly treated with respect came by degrees to give up flesh-eating and thereby suceeded in raising themselves in the estimation of all the vegetarian and non-vegetarian Tamils. Whereas others who persisted in the habit of meat-eating, freely mixed with all sorts of low class Tamils so much so that their progeny in afterages were constrained to live in complete isolation discarded for a long time as outcast, before they too adopted the vegetarian mode of living and passed themselves under the name of Brahmins.
