ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the central doctrine of Ramalingar’s later theology, namely “compassion towards living beings” or cīvakāruṇyam. It is the aim of this chapter to contextualize cīvakāruṇyam in two ways. First, through an investigation of its textual genealogy, through the examination of Śaivite texts that had profoundly influenced Ramalingar, by showing that cīvakāruṇyam acquired a new lease of religious life between the 16th and the 19th centuries. Second, the chapter shows that cīvakāruṇyam became the preoccupation of not just Ramalingar but of more than one of his contemporaries, particularly for those preoccupied with providing an alternative ethical framework to that of Brahmanism in general and its caste-based ethics.
