A reader of our site recently contacted me asking about more information about Sangili Rayan and whether he was the same or similar to Sangili Karuppar. There are many warrior gods and deities in hinduism and sometimes people confuse many of them together. For example in the Vedas , the god Soma was an extremely powerful deity. He was responsible for the divine nectar Soma ,which gave the Devas their power. But as time went by he came to be associated with Chandran the Moon God. Another reason for confusion the Puranas , the era in Hinduism where many call the “Dark Ages” of hinduism. In puranic stories , its common place for stories of one God beating another God showing superiority. In puranas dedicated to Vishnu ,there will be stories showing him as superior , in those of Skanda (Muruga) he being superior and so on. It is my firm belief that if you want to get educated in hinduism, you should forego the puranas. Most of them were not written by enlightened rishis but by close minded religious extremists trying to show superiority to their own god by bringing down the name of another god. Even the divine Bhagavad Gita is not safe from this. The most popular version of the Gita is “The Bhagavad Gita As It Is” translated by Prabhupada , the founder of the Hare Krishna cult. But if one who knows sanskrit looks at those translations, you can see how Prabhupada has purposely misinterpreted much of the Gita to make Krishna superior to other deities. As a hindu in this day and age, you have to be careful where you get your information from. Moving on to Sangili Rayan. My research so far indicates that he is not Sangili Karuppar. Sangili Rayan’s true name is Sangolli Rayanna, a karnataka warrior who lived about 200 years ago. He fought against the british and was the first to use guerilla warfare against them. After many battles , he was betrayed and captured and hanged by the enemy on 26th of January 1831. This is a picture of his samadhi below. In his history,he was captured and put into chains before being hanged thus many of his shrines in india has him shown in chains. Also as shrines of his moved from Karnataka to tamilnadu states ,the name Sangoli Rayanna became Sangili Rayan and he became associated with Sangili Karuppar. They are however not the same. Sangili Karuppar was not captured and put into chains as some myths mention. Sangili Karuppansamy , is a warrior god from the Asura clan created by Aathi Parashakti herself. His weapon of choice is Sangili which is one of the most difficult to master. Whereas Sangili Rayan is respected as a freedom fighter and shown in chains because he was put in chains.
Posted on: Mon, 26 Aug 2013 10:10:21 +0000
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