Treatise on the Institution of Varna: Masilamony Moodaliar and the Making of Modern Non-religion in Colonial Tamil Nadu

Abstract

This paper examines the writings of M. Masilamony Moodaliar, a prominent atheist and anti-caste thinker from the MSS, whose works gained significant popularity during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. His influential treatise represents one of the earliest published non-Brahmin critiques of Varna system in Tamil Nadu, combining modern humanist and atheist perspectives with traditional heterodox approaches to critique caste as the primary barrier to universalism and brotherhood. Following MSS’s dissolution, Masilamony was actively involved in a Dalit Buddhist movement (1908-10), regularly contributing to its magazine. His intellectual journey was profoundly shaped by the anti-Brahminism of Christian missionaries, modern philological scholarship, rediscovery of Buddhism, and the evolving ethical imperatives of atheism.