In 19th century Tamil Nadu, the rivalry between the Brahmins and the upper caste non-Brahmin Vellalas, who upheld the Saiva Siddhanta, became acute. Professor P Sundram Pillai (1855-1897), a noted Tamil Vellala scholar, was among the first to express the cultural separateness and originality of the Dravidians. He wrote several articles pleading the cause of the Dravidians and held that there was a period in great antiquity, when the native Dravidian religion (read Saiva Siddhanta) was alone in vogue, and the first foreign influence brought to bear upon the Dravidian worship was that of the Vedic religion. From 1880 onwards, many Vellala scholars began to postulate that the Saiva Siddhanta philosophy was superior to the Vedic teachings. Naturally, Raavan, who was a great devotee of Shiva, caught their attention. M. S. Purnalingam Pillai brought out a book in 1928 titled Ravana the Great; King of Lanka. What sort of a king was he? Let us hear Pillai’s own words: “The ten faced and twenty-armed Ravana was apparently a very intelligent and valiant hero, a cultured and civilized ruler, knew the Vedas and was an expert musician. He took away Sita according to the Tamilian mode of warfare, had her in the Asoka woods accompanied by his own niece, and would not touch her without her consent.” According to him, Raavan was a physical and intellectual giant, a great administrator, leader of men and a man of his word. Pillai’s Ram, on the other hand, had his specks and he lacked courage and faltered in crises. He says that the various interpretations of the myth of Ram do not affect the historical character of Raavan and that the Dravidians look upon him as a mighty hero and a monarch and, importantly, a fearless ‘resister’ of the Aryan aggressions in south India.