Tamilism

Proper noun

Tamilism (countable and uncountable, plural Tamilisms)

1. A religion, philosophy and/or culture native to Tamil Nadu, characterized by the worship of ancestors and nature
   • The modern Shaivism shows clear vestiges of difference from the original Tamilism; for the cause of which we need not go far to look, its corruption being chiefly due to the intermixture of Aryanism so widely given birth to in their works of the Puranic period by the Brahmans who had an excessive...1992, Sumathi Ramaswamy, En/gendering Language, page 75
   • The fusion of 'Tamilism' and Buddhism is completed here: the genuine way of being a Tamil is to be Buddhist, that is, casteless, in every sense of the term.1998, G. Aloysius, Religion as Emancipatory Identity, page 176
2. Tamil nationalism.
   • It is symptomatic of inward alienation and militant Tamilism.1969, Govind Sadashiv Ghurye, Caste and Race in India, page 364
   • But when we consider the following Sarvakar statement we see the essential tension between Hindu nationalism and Tamilism: By an admirable process of assimilation, elimination and consolidation, political, racial and cultural, they welded all other non-Aryan peoples whom they came in contact with...1998, Andrew Clinton Willford, Cage of Freedom: The Politics of Tamil and Hindu Identity in Malaysia and Bangalore, South India, page 566