I INTRODUCTION
Ever since prehistoric times worship of God has been in existence in Tamil Nadu. Some thousands of years ago, man realised the presence of a Supreme Being that transcends his powers of intellect, his capabilities and his sphere of actions. The words used in Tamil to refer to the supreme Being are connotive : they imply the attributes of God while denoting Him. God is mentioned as "Kandazhi", 'Kadavul' and Iyavul in Tamil. 'Kandu' means attachment or desire; 'Azhi' means to efface or remove: thus the term means One who has effaced all attachment or desire and One who enables His devotees to do the same. The immanence of God and His transcendence have been stressed in all religions. In Tamil both 'KADAVUL' and IYAVUL' suggest the same attributes. 'KADAUAL' means the Being existing apart from, not subject to limitations of the material universe, IYAVUL suggests His all-pervasive power that holds supreme sway over everthing on earth. Thus God is conceived by the people of Tamil Nadu as desireless; yet He reveals Himsslf as "the atom within the atom", being the life-force of all existence; at the same time He is beyond the universe.
Worship of God must have been coeval with man's knowledge of God. The Tolkappiam, an ancient Tamil classic written nearly a thousand years before the birth of Christ, refers to God and the ways of worshpping Him. It will be seen that the ways of worshipping God have differed from age to age in Tamil Nadu. They serve to suggest the different aspects of the Supreme Being. The three main forms of worship are image or [1]idol worship, [2]spirit worship and [3]worship of shapeless form. Of these image worship is of much later origin than the other two. The Sangam literature of some two thousand years ago has no reference to any idol or icon worshipped in a temple, but the 'Silappadikaram and the Manimekalai the twin epics of the second century A.D., mention quite a number of temples of Gods and Goddesses. Polytheism must have come to stay by that time in Tamil Nadu and we find an image or figure attributed to every conceivable God or Goddess and a temple devoted to every one of them. Thus the ancient Tamils of the Sangam age worshipped God as "the one invisible Being without form". This is what is meant by spirit worship or Aruva yalipadu. The third from of worship aims at a compromise and strikes a balance between the two other forms, The Aru uruva valipadu is nothing but the Siva Linga worship and we cannot positively say whether the Sivalinga is of any recognizable form. It is said that the Linga worship existed even before the dawn of history, John Marshall and other historians hold that this form of worship is unmistakably indicated in the Indus Valley Civilization. We get authentic information to believe that the same form of worship must have existed in South
