Post 13/?
The previous 2 posts were on Agastiar Malai / Podigai Malai / Potiyil (Potiyam) in the Sahyadris, where the Vedic Rishi/Shaiva Siddha Agastyar still appears to sincere Hindu devotees, and
that post compared these features and the location with the hearsay accounts that Hsuan-Tsang documented of a sacred place in the south where "Ishwara" "PAshupata Yogi" manifested (the last can simply mean a Shaiva Yogi rather than Shiva).
If one were to take it that his hearsay account referred to Potiyil, then:
Hsuan-Tsang's version therefore confirms the Hindu claims that the Vedic Rishi/Shaiva Siddhar at times manifests to Hindu bhaktas hoping to see him at his sacred abode in Agastyarkoodam of Agastya Malai=Podigai Hills.
What is Not confirmed is Japanese scholar Shu's theorising about the etymological origins of Podigai/Potiyil. Shu wanted to derive it from a Buddhism (anything Buddhist), in order to therewith argue some Buddhism into his choice of Potiyil for the physical place in India that Hsuan-Tsang described (and which is not the Buddhist Potalaka, since that exists only in Buddhist theology and is supernatural if at all real).
Had already repeatedly mentioned that Podigai/Potiyil use short-o and not long-o (makes a difference to Tamil Hindus), whereas bOdhi - being Shu's guess for Potiyil/Podigai's etymology - is long O. Further, supposing Potalaka had been derived from Tamil, and if they didn't know what it meant in order to translate it, then why on earth would they transfer it as "Potalaka" into Skt, when neither Potalaka nor Potiyil is meaningful in Skt? May as well have stuck as close to the original sounds as possible and transcribe it instead (e.g. as pOdiyil, since the short-o doesn't exist in Skt).
But here are some of the meanings of Potiyil and Podigai in Tamil:
1. Material from 1713, BOOK:
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalgs "Genealogie der Malabarischen Goetter" Edition der Originalfassung von 1713 mit Einleitung, Analyse und Glossar von Daniel Jeyaraj (2003)
(meaning: "Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg's Geneology of the Gods of the Malabar, edition of the original version from 1713 with Intro, Analysis and Glossary[/i] by Daniel Jeyaraj")
The last line says:
2. Material from the BOOK
Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present
by Peter Francis
Google books has marked the following entry as being from page 27:
* accent-aigu on final-e, so pronounced as Skt e (dIrgam)
** same accent-aigu on final-e, but NOTE: with circonflex on first o. I.e. pronounced as SHORT-o.
*** Possibly quoting Iravathan Mahadevan, but then I'd note how even he's not donating the name Podigai/Podiyil to Buddhism.
Note how the meaning assigned above for Potigai = "meeting place" -
sort of matches that which Ziegenbalg provided for Potiy-il = "Public hall"
in Ziegenbalg's 1713 work (from perusing a Tamil lexicon)
And again, the GrecoRomans at least transcribed the word closer to its original pronunciation (keeping the short-o, long end). Whereas if Indian Buddhists had really transferred it into Skt or even Pkt as Potalaka, then they transferred neither its meaning nor its actual sounds.
Also interesting to note perhaps, is that the GrecoRomans only know the place as Podigai - the word their transcription looks to derive from - but not as Potalaka or Potala. (The Ptolemy referred to seems to be the 2nd century CE one.)
3. In 1800+ C.E.:
And here's everyone's own dear Bishop Caldwell - not really that good at Tamil, but he was the first christist to heavily turn his missionary gaze onto Tamizh and is hence fondly remembered anyway by dravoodianists and other assorted christists.
archive.org/stream/apoliticalandge00caldgoog/apoliticalandge00caldgoog_djvu.txt
If Podigai did mean 'place of concealment', then perhaps it's a reference to being concealed by thick vegetation, and the sources of some of the rivers in the sahyadris in general are hard to find (hence a source of disputation by neighbouring states).
In any case, dravoodians always swear by Caldwell- and neo-Buddhists besides - so they may NOT forget to swear by what he says now.
4. There are OCR errors in the following, so don't know if what looks like the word in question been affected too. Also, as no accents are used to indicate whether the long or short vowels are used, so it's hard to determine relevance. But including for completion, and because I *suspect* it to be relevant.
archive.org/stream/studiesintamilli035036mbp/studiesintamilli035036mbp_djvu.txt
(The book seems to be by a Hindu Tamil, not an anti-Hindu)
"Podiyil" is mentioned twice in the document with that spelling. But not sure whether the ? is supposed to be a full stop or is an unknown character. But let's assume that unlike the previous noun ("mcwram"), this one didn't get mangled. Then the sentence reads "The assembly thus convened is called a <something> and also Podiyil". If that's the correct reading, then it's saying that a special kind of democratic assembly of elders is called Podiyil. This is not unlike the word Podiyil meaning "Open Hall" or "Public Hall" as per the lexicon Ziegenbalg perused and Podigai meaning "meeting place" as per Mohadevan. Special assembly fits right there in that meaning, both as a reference to the site and as a reference to the gathering. A bit like De Ding in NW European religion.
5. This was unexpected:
https :// www. flickr.com/photos/naseer_ommer/2199010315/
Serpent is not impossible I suppose. (I mean, if Shu is allowed to speculate... And as I don't know what the word means, I should be equally open to considering the possibility of bhujaga/pambu.)
* The Sahyadris are famous for sarpas so the region could be named for it, and Agastiar - a teacher of Kundalini Yoga - is associated with sarpam, see e.g. agatthiyarjnanam.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/37-ven-saarai-is-it-snake-what-is.html
Southern Hindu Siddha medicines are supposed to also have cures for venomous sarpa bites, and Agastiar was a Shaiva Siddhar.
* If Ain(thu)-thalai (=5 headed) podigai means 5 headed serpent, then obviously it's the "podigai" portion which the commenter above implies as meaning serpent. But Naga already means serpent, so Nagapodigai - at first sight - tends to mean serpent-serpent, which seems a redundancy.
EXCEPT that in Tamil, pambu means snake, naga means snake and yet nagapambu is still a word ("nagasarpa"). Nagapambu means hooded snake I think, often used for the Hindu Cobras.
* And if you look at the photo at flickr above, it becomes clear why it those parts of the mountain range may be considered 5-headed snake and hooded snake: because they really look like it.
The question is however whether Podigai does mean to refer to anything serpentine in Tamil or not. (I don't know.) The two above-named Podigai ranges may simply have been called the 5-headed hill of Podigai and Naga hill of Podigai, where the snake becomes implicit (since it's form is apparent to the observer), while Podigai merely indicates that it is of the Podigai range. <- I'm just submitting this suggestion, in case Podigai does not mean serpent.
Anyway, the picture shows how beautiful this sacred Hindoo site is. And impressive mountain formations.
6. If a long-O is used, then the word Podigai gets a different meaning (as people could have guessed):
aparna-a.com/uncategorized/lesser-known-temples-of-chennai-some-more/
[Not being etymologically-capable, I had somehow subconsciously assumed that the kai/gai part in River Vai-gai Amman and gai in River Podi-gai may perhaps be related. Also the Korkai river that was mentioned by Caldwell as originating in the Podigai Hills similarly ends on -kai suffix.]
In any case, what we *can* see is that long-standing meanings of the words Potiyil/Podigai in Tamil as explained by Tamils (incl. the Tamil Lexicon perused by Ziegenbalg in 1713) and which were parroted by aliens, all have nothing to do with Shu's convenient derivation of Potiyil/Podigai from any Buddhism (though his assumption did make things fit his storytelling better. It seems to me, that since Shu's so far off from the established meanings, that Shu just happened to decide that because Potiyil had 4 letters in common with Potalaka that this was a word worth etymologically massaging into something that could be made to have a counterpart that sounded Buddhist.)
And specifically: I observe that ALL the claims on the internet that Potiyil/Potigai would be named for Bodhi-place/Buddhaloka (anything Buddhist) is always launched by people quoting Shu for their authority. Neo-Buddhists have non-Tamil origins - originating from the Indian regions of Ambedkar's influence - but why Tamil believers in dravoodianism (=dravoodianists) should parrot Shu when he seems so obviously-wrong (I'm still pedantic on the short-o) is beyond me.
I guess they were all desperate to impute a Buddhism. Despite Buddhism/Jainism being no less a product of any alleged oryan invasion. [Not to mention how both are moreover missionary=non-ancestral religions.]
While the Japanese scholar's ignorance about the long-standing claims of Agastya's manifestations at his sacred hill site is forgiven - since I have a severe bias in favour of Japanese, plus Shu at least admitted that the "locals remained Hindus" and so did not seem anti-Hindu -
what I find telling is how many a western Buddhist writer, who parrots Shu's identification of Potiyil as the place described by HT,
tends to deliberately leave out all mention of Agastyar at the hill and how Agastyar is a Vedic Hindu and a famous Shaiva Yogi. (Agastya, who moreover authored several so-called "brahminical"* works on Kundalini Yoga. *These are exclusively Hindu works and recognised as such by Buddhists, but because Buddhists don't want to recognise the existence of a Hindu laity, they have therefore labelled these words as "brahminical". Usually only Hindu works that can't be Bauddhified are called "brahminical" by Buddhists/Jains, every other Hindoo work they call "Indian". Sort of like christianism calls all things Hindu that can be inculturated upon as "Indian".)
This silence on Agastyar by those western Buddhists authors who lend credence to Shu's reasoning for why Potiyil must be the place described by HT, is suspect IMO. And the Estonian (who wrote www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbs/10/chbs1011.htm) is a Buddhist, by the way: not only does he refer to emperor Ashoka as "the great king Aà âºoka" (compare with how many non-convert western people would refer to any Indian ruler as "great"), but he has a subtle but pointed anti-Hindu bias*, evident from his Bauddicising re-interpretation of Shu's theory, which latter admitted that Potiyil had already been sacred to the locals since ancient times and that the locals remained Hindus despite his (Shu's) supposed period of a presence of Buddhist syncretism on Hindu religion there.
* Many western converts to Buddhism - including in Buddhist research - are even severely anti-Hindu. (Possibly Thurman and Cleary are exceptions? They seem the kind to just mind their own chosen religion.)
As a result, Hindus are faced with the anti-Hindu productions of western "researchers" on Hindu religion and of western Buddhist researchers as well.
Posts 11-13, when taken together, cover the reasons for why Potiyil could be the place HT described from hearsay (11, 12), while also covering some supporting evidence for why Shu's etymological reasonings to conflate Potiyil with Potalaka are Not actually supported (13) [may explain why the Buddhist Estonian could not refer to these as being more than an "interesting theory"], so that Shu's further suppositions - based on his linguistic means of identification - fall flat and are consequently mere speculations with no grounding: he surmised a period of the presence of some Hindu-Buddhist syncretism (alongside the ancient and continuous presence of unadulterated Hindu religion) at the site. However, his etymological derivation being unsupported - and contradicted - by the actual meaning given for Potigai and Potiyil ("meeting place" and "open/public hall"), means there is no need to suppose that it was ever named for a Buddhism (as a "Buddha/Bodhi place") and that - besides Shu's speculative claims (and the inculturation tactics of Buddhists of a late century on all things Hindu including Shiva) there is nothing to actually argue for any valid Buddhist claim on the Shiva and Agastya at that site at all.
Anyway, Lokesh Chandra/Rajeev & parrots' unjustified encroachment on Shabarimalai for Buddhism via Hsuan-Tsang is a delirium. It was clearly but a theory, and a poorly researched, poorly argued and poor one in general at that. There are better fits for HT's description - though any Buddhism of the actual Podigai site has not been proved (not counting late projections, recent backprojections and other wishful thinking by Buddhist encroachment on Shaivam in the region). All Hsuan-Tsang has been able to confirm is that his hearsay supports the Hindu claims of an appearance of a *Shaiva* (i.e. pAshupata) Yogi/Siddha and Vedic Rishi, Agastyar.
But there's much more to be said on the topic. Left for the final posts.
This post quotes western and Indian authors on the actual meanings of the words Podigai and Potiyil
The previous 2 posts were on Agastiar Malai / Podigai Malai / Potiyil (Potiyam) in the Sahyadris, where the Vedic Rishi/Shaiva Siddha Agastyar still appears to sincere Hindu devotees, and
that post compared these features and the location with the hearsay accounts that Hsuan-Tsang documented of a sacred place in the south where "Ishwara" "PAshupata Yogi" manifested (the last can simply mean a Shaiva Yogi rather than Shiva).
If one were to take it that his hearsay account referred to Potiyil, then:
Hsuan-Tsang's version therefore confirms the Hindu claims that the Vedic Rishi/Shaiva Siddhar at times manifests to Hindu bhaktas hoping to see him at his sacred abode in Agastyarkoodam of Agastya Malai=Podigai Hills.
What is Not confirmed is Japanese scholar Shu's theorising about the etymological origins of Podigai/Potiyil. Shu wanted to derive it from a Buddhism (anything Buddhist), in order to therewith argue some Buddhism into his choice of Potiyil for the physical place in India that Hsuan-Tsang described (and which is not the Buddhist Potalaka, since that exists only in Buddhist theology and is supernatural if at all real).
Had already repeatedly mentioned that Podigai/Potiyil use short-o and not long-o (makes a difference to Tamil Hindus), whereas bOdhi - being Shu's guess for Potiyil/Podigai's etymology - is long O. Further, supposing Potalaka had been derived from Tamil, and if they didn't know what it meant in order to translate it, then why on earth would they transfer it as "Potalaka" into Skt, when neither Potalaka nor Potiyil is meaningful in Skt? May as well have stuck as close to the original sounds as possible and transcribe it instead (e.g. as pOdiyil, since the short-o doesn't exist in Skt).
But here are some of the meanings of Potiyil and Podigai in Tamil:
1. Material from 1713, BOOK:
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalgs "Genealogie der Malabarischen Goetter" Edition der Originalfassung von 1713 mit Einleitung, Analyse und Glossar von Daniel Jeyaraj (2003)
(meaning: "Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg's Geneology of the Gods of the Malabar, edition of the original version from 1713 with Intro, Analysis and Glossary[/i] by Daniel Jeyaraj")
Quote:Bartholomäus Ziegenbalgs "Genealogie der malabarischen Götter": ... - Google Books Result
books.google.com/books?isbn=3931479455
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, Daniel Jeyaraj - ââ¬Å½2003 - Gods, Hindu
Qurrßlszmra U366)60 potikai-malai, ââ¬Å¾Berg Potikaiââ¬Å. ... 41 TL, 2920: Das Tamil-Lexikon leitet das ââ¬Å¾Potiyamââ¬Å vom ââ¬Å¾potiyilââ¬Å, ââ¬Å¾offene Halleââ¬Å, d. h. (=das heisst) ââ¬Å¾potiy-ilââ¬Å = ââ¬Å¾Public Hall"...
The last line says:
Quote:potikai-malai, "Mountain Potikai": The Tamil dictionary/lexicon derives the "Potiyam" (Mountains called Potiyam) from "potiyil", [meaning] "Open Hall", that is "potiy-il" = "Public Hall".
2. Material from the BOOK
Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present
by Peter Francis
Google books has marked the following entry as being from page 27:
Quote:ArikamEDu-Virampatnam has long been identified with Podouké* of Periplus Maris Erythraei Sea and Pôdouké** Emporion of Ptolemy, based on its location. Mahadevan*** (1970) explained the Roman name as a corruption of the Tamil potikai, "a meeting place," either indoors or outdoors, associated with the VELir dynasty at ancient VIrai.3
* accent-aigu on final-e, so pronounced as Skt e (dIrgam)
** same accent-aigu on final-e, but NOTE: with circonflex on first o. I.e. pronounced as SHORT-o.
*** Possibly quoting Iravathan Mahadevan, but then I'd note how even he's not donating the name Podigai/Podiyil to Buddhism.
Note how the meaning assigned above for Potigai = "meeting place" -
sort of matches that which Ziegenbalg provided for Potiy-il = "Public hall"
in Ziegenbalg's 1713 work (from perusing a Tamil lexicon)
And again, the GrecoRomans at least transcribed the word closer to its original pronunciation (keeping the short-o, long end). Whereas if Indian Buddhists had really transferred it into Skt or even Pkt as Potalaka, then they transferred neither its meaning nor its actual sounds.
Also interesting to note perhaps, is that the GrecoRomans only know the place as Podigai - the word their transcription looks to derive from - but not as Potalaka or Potala. (The Ptolemy referred to seems to be the 2nd century CE one.)
3. In 1800+ C.E.:
And here's everyone's own dear Bishop Caldwell - not really that good at Tamil, but he was the first christist to heavily turn his missionary gaze onto Tamizh and is hence fondly remembered anyway by dravoodianists and other assorted christists.
archive.org/stream/apoliticalandge00caldgoog/apoliticalandge00caldgoog_djvu.txt
Quote:A POLITICAL AND GENERAL HISTORY OF THE DISTRICT OP TINNEVELLY,
IN THE PRESIDENCY OF MADRAS,
FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO ITS CESSION TO THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT IN A.D. 180L
BY The Right Rbv. R. CALDWELL, D.D., LL.D., Bishop
Kai is capable also of meaning place, c.g.^ Poti-kai, place of concealment,
the name of the mountain from which the river of Korkai takes its rise.
If Podigai did mean 'place of concealment', then perhaps it's a reference to being concealed by thick vegetation, and the sources of some of the rivers in the sahyadris in general are hard to find (hence a source of disputation by neighbouring states).
In any case, dravoodians always swear by Caldwell- and neo-Buddhists besides - so they may NOT forget to swear by what he says now.
4. There are OCR errors in the following, so don't know if what looks like the word in question been affected too. Also, as no accents are used to indicate whether the long or short vowels are used, so it's hard to determine relevance. But including for completion, and because I *suspect* it to be relevant.
archive.org/stream/studiesintamilli035036mbp/studiesintamilli035036mbp_djvu.txt
(The book seems to be by a Hindu Tamil, not an anti-Hindu)
Quote:224 STUDIES IN TAMIL LITERATURE
[...]
Central Government with the internal management of the
village. Indeed the village enjoyed absolute autonomy
in the management of its internal affairs with the
help of the village elders 1 who formed themselves
into various committees for supervising particular
interests like gardens, tanks, etc. The village affairs
were settled by the unanimous decision of the elders
who generally assembled under a big tree. The
assembly thus convened is called mcwram, and also
Podiyil? Four kinds of trees are mentioned as
relating to a manmm. In fact the manmm takes its name
"Podiyil" is mentioned twice in the document with that spelling. But not sure whether the ? is supposed to be a full stop or is an unknown character. But let's assume that unlike the previous noun ("mcwram"), this one didn't get mangled. Then the sentence reads "The assembly thus convened is called a <something> and also Podiyil". If that's the correct reading, then it's saying that a special kind of democratic assembly of elders is called Podiyil. This is not unlike the word Podiyil meaning "Open Hall" or "Public Hall" as per the lexicon Ziegenbalg perused and Podigai meaning "meeting place" as per Mohadevan. Special assembly fits right there in that meaning, both as a reference to the site and as a reference to the gathering. A bit like De Ding in NW European religion.
5. This was unexpected:
https :// www. flickr.com/photos/naseer_ommer/2199010315/
Quote:[Photo:] on top of.... Agasthyakoodam_a distant view
JanvPi 78 months ago | reply
wow! I'm not sure if u already know this - the one on left is called the ain-thale podigai meaning 5-headed serpent in Tamil. I think the other one is Nagapodigai.
Naseer Ommer 78 months ago | reply
Thank you. i was told by the trackers about these, but 'm extremely happy which prevented me to note down the names. BTW..carrying de pen, ....tooooo heavy <grin>
themargi 50 months ago | reply
Ain - thalai Podigai(tamil) means five-headed serpent!! Nagapodigai!! Thanks Janvpi for the names n info!! on top of.... Agasthyakoodam_a distant view 4 ; 8 ;
Serpent is not impossible I suppose. (I mean, if Shu is allowed to speculate... And as I don't know what the word means, I should be equally open to considering the possibility of bhujaga/pambu.)
* The Sahyadris are famous for sarpas so the region could be named for it, and Agastiar - a teacher of Kundalini Yoga - is associated with sarpam, see e.g. agatthiyarjnanam.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/37-ven-saarai-is-it-snake-what-is.html
Southern Hindu Siddha medicines are supposed to also have cures for venomous sarpa bites, and Agastiar was a Shaiva Siddhar.
* If Ain(thu)-thalai (=5 headed) podigai means 5 headed serpent, then obviously it's the "podigai" portion which the commenter above implies as meaning serpent. But Naga already means serpent, so Nagapodigai - at first sight - tends to mean serpent-serpent, which seems a redundancy.
EXCEPT that in Tamil, pambu means snake, naga means snake and yet nagapambu is still a word ("nagasarpa"). Nagapambu means hooded snake I think, often used for the Hindu Cobras.
* And if you look at the photo at flickr above, it becomes clear why it those parts of the mountain range may be considered 5-headed snake and hooded snake: because they really look like it.
The question is however whether Podigai does mean to refer to anything serpentine in Tamil or not. (I don't know.) The two above-named Podigai ranges may simply have been called the 5-headed hill of Podigai and Naga hill of Podigai, where the snake becomes implicit (since it's form is apparent to the observer), while Podigai merely indicates that it is of the Podigai range. <- I'm just submitting this suggestion, in case Podigai does not mean serpent.
Anyway, the picture shows how beautiful this sacred Hindoo site is. And impressive mountain formations.
6. If a long-O is used, then the word Podigai gets a different meaning (as people could have guessed):
aparna-a.com/uncategorized/lesser-known-temples-of-chennai-some-more/
Quote:The Vijayanagara mandapam outside the temple has monolithic pillars. The pushpa pOdhigai (flower corbels) on the pillars indicate that they belong to the Vijayanagara period. The pusha podhigai here donââ¬â¢t have the banana flower hanging from them. That was how it was in the initial Vijayanagara times.
[Not being etymologically-capable, I had somehow subconsciously assumed that the kai/gai part in River Vai-gai Amman and gai in River Podi-gai may perhaps be related. Also the Korkai river that was mentioned by Caldwell as originating in the Podigai Hills similarly ends on -kai suffix.]
In any case, what we *can* see is that long-standing meanings of the words Potiyil/Podigai in Tamil as explained by Tamils (incl. the Tamil Lexicon perused by Ziegenbalg in 1713) and which were parroted by aliens, all have nothing to do with Shu's convenient derivation of Potiyil/Podigai from any Buddhism (though his assumption did make things fit his storytelling better. It seems to me, that since Shu's so far off from the established meanings, that Shu just happened to decide that because Potiyil had 4 letters in common with Potalaka that this was a word worth etymologically massaging into something that could be made to have a counterpart that sounded Buddhist.)
And specifically: I observe that ALL the claims on the internet that Potiyil/Potigai would be named for Bodhi-place/Buddhaloka (anything Buddhist) is always launched by people quoting Shu for their authority. Neo-Buddhists have non-Tamil origins - originating from the Indian regions of Ambedkar's influence - but why Tamil believers in dravoodianism (=dravoodianists) should parrot Shu when he seems so obviously-wrong (I'm still pedantic on the short-o) is beyond me.
I guess they were all desperate to impute a Buddhism. Despite Buddhism/Jainism being no less a product of any alleged oryan invasion. [Not to mention how both are moreover missionary=non-ancestral religions.]
While the Japanese scholar's ignorance about the long-standing claims of Agastya's manifestations at his sacred hill site is forgiven - since I have a severe bias in favour of Japanese, plus Shu at least admitted that the "locals remained Hindus" and so did not seem anti-Hindu -
what I find telling is how many a western Buddhist writer, who parrots Shu's identification of Potiyil as the place described by HT,
tends to deliberately leave out all mention of Agastyar at the hill and how Agastyar is a Vedic Hindu and a famous Shaiva Yogi. (Agastya, who moreover authored several so-called "brahminical"* works on Kundalini Yoga. *These are exclusively Hindu works and recognised as such by Buddhists, but because Buddhists don't want to recognise the existence of a Hindu laity, they have therefore labelled these words as "brahminical". Usually only Hindu works that can't be Bauddhified are called "brahminical" by Buddhists/Jains, every other Hindoo work they call "Indian". Sort of like christianism calls all things Hindu that can be inculturated upon as "Indian".)
This silence on Agastyar by those western Buddhists authors who lend credence to Shu's reasoning for why Potiyil must be the place described by HT, is suspect IMO. And the Estonian (who wrote www.chibs.edu.tw/ch_html/chbs/10/chbs1011.htm) is a Buddhist, by the way: not only does he refer to emperor Ashoka as "the great king Aà âºoka" (compare with how many non-convert western people would refer to any Indian ruler as "great"), but he has a subtle but pointed anti-Hindu bias*, evident from his Bauddicising re-interpretation of Shu's theory, which latter admitted that Potiyil had already been sacred to the locals since ancient times and that the locals remained Hindus despite his (Shu's) supposed period of a presence of Buddhist syncretism on Hindu religion there.
* Many western converts to Buddhism - including in Buddhist research - are even severely anti-Hindu. (Possibly Thurman and Cleary are exceptions? They seem the kind to just mind their own chosen religion.)
As a result, Hindus are faced with the anti-Hindu productions of western "researchers" on Hindu religion and of western Buddhist researchers as well.
Posts 11-13, when taken together, cover the reasons for why Potiyil could be the place HT described from hearsay (11, 12), while also covering some supporting evidence for why Shu's etymological reasonings to conflate Potiyil with Potalaka are Not actually supported (13) [may explain why the Buddhist Estonian could not refer to these as being more than an "interesting theory"], so that Shu's further suppositions - based on his linguistic means of identification - fall flat and are consequently mere speculations with no grounding: he surmised a period of the presence of some Hindu-Buddhist syncretism (alongside the ancient and continuous presence of unadulterated Hindu religion) at the site. However, his etymological derivation being unsupported - and contradicted - by the actual meaning given for Potigai and Potiyil ("meeting place" and "open/public hall"), means there is no need to suppose that it was ever named for a Buddhism (as a "Buddha/Bodhi place") and that - besides Shu's speculative claims (and the inculturation tactics of Buddhists of a late century on all things Hindu including Shiva) there is nothing to actually argue for any valid Buddhist claim on the Shiva and Agastya at that site at all.
Anyway, Lokesh Chandra/Rajeev & parrots' unjustified encroachment on Shabarimalai for Buddhism via Hsuan-Tsang is a delirium. It was clearly but a theory, and a poorly researched, poorly argued and poor one in general at that. There are better fits for HT's description - though any Buddhism of the actual Podigai site has not been proved (not counting late projections, recent backprojections and other wishful thinking by Buddhist encroachment on Shaivam in the region). All Hsuan-Tsang has been able to confirm is that his hearsay supports the Hindu claims of an appearance of a *Shaiva* (i.e. pAshupata) Yogi/Siddha and Vedic Rishi, Agastyar.
But there's much more to be said on the topic. Left for the final posts.
This post quotes western and Indian authors on the actual meanings of the words Podigai and Potiyil
Death to traitors.