HINDUISM is more ancient than the earliest Veda that dates back to about 5000 BC. The sacred texts include the Vedas, Epics and Puranas, apart from other philosophical treatises. Hinduism is a way of life and is based on the principle of Sanathana Dharma.

The term ‘Hindu’ denotes the faith of the yogi, the purely ceremonial Hindus of various castes and the hill tribes of Western Ghats. While the yogi remained entranced in meditation, the ceremonial Hindus, especially the Namboothiris were influenced by Vedantism.

Vedanta, the end or the essence of the veda, refers to the abstract religious idea of the existence of only one spirit or Atman, the only reality, outside of which, everything is mere illusion. Oppressed by the magnitude of the mountainous surroundings, the hill tribes followed primitive animism and spirit worship to propitiate the Gods.

With time, the religion of the Namboothiris too, had been influenced by the animistic and ancestor worship of the early Dravidians. The Aryan settlers from the north too formed a religious community by assimilating the forms of worship of the Dravidian inhabitants.

The Nayars or the Shatriyas, who formed an important community in the Malabar and Travancore regions, had the Dravidian religion, modified by the contacts with the Aryan forms of worship.

The Hindus thus worshipped the Supreme Being under three forms, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva representing the creative, preservative, and the destructive forces. Rama, Krishna and other divinities are the avataras reflecting the later developments of Pauranic Hinduism.

However there was no sharp demarcation of sects in Kerala, unlike the sects in North India. If any preferential adoration was shown by any person, the reason was that, it was the presiding deity in the village temple or his/her Ishta Devata or Kula Daivam (family deity).

The religion of the common people too became an elevated form of the earlier Dravidian religion. The refined gods replaced the rude divinities that once occupied the highest echelons. Later, the various castes like Ezhavas, Nadars, Uralis were formed on the basis of their occupation.