Arumuka Navalar (; 18 December 1822 – 5 December 1879) was a Sri Lankan Shaivite Tamil language scholar, polemicist, and a religious reformer who was central in reviving native Hindu Tamil traditions in Sri Lanka and India. Navalar's birth name was Nallur Arumuga Pillai. He was born in a Tamil literary family, and became one of the Jaffna Tamils notable for reviving, reforming and reasserting the Hindu Shaivism tradition during the colonial era. As an assistant working for Peter Percival – a Methodist Christian missionary, he helped translate the King James Bible into the Tamil language. With his knowledge of Christian theological premises, Navalar became influential in creating a period of intense religious rivalry with Christian missionaries, defending Tamils and their historic religious culture in India and Sri Lanka, preventing large-scale conversions to Christianity. He was one of the first natives to use the modern printing press to preserve the Tamil literary tradition. He defended Hindu Shaivism, calling it samaya (Observance, Religion) of "True Being" (sat, soul), and he used the same techniques to counter Christianity that Christian missionaries used against Hinduism. As part of his religious revivalism, in a manner similar to Christian mission schools, he built schools that taught secular and Hindu religious subjects. He is credited with finding and publishing original palm leaf manuscripts. He also attempted to reform Hindu Shaivism and customary practices in Sri Lanka, such as by showing Shaiva Agamas (scriptures) prohibit animal sacrifice and violence of any form. Biography Navalar was born in 1822 as Nallur Arumuga Pillai to a Hindu family in Sri Lanka. His family belonged to the Vellalar caste, which constitutes about 50% of the Tamil Hindus on the island nation. The Vellalars were related to farming. Historically, the Vellalars had been a part of the elites who owned lands, were literati, patrons of temples and monasteries. At the time of Navalar's birth, they were a part of the socio-political leadership in Jaffna peninsula, a strip of land (40 by 15 miles) separated from South India by the Palk Strait. Navalar grew up in a literati Tamil Shaiva family. Navalar's home was in the town of Nallur on the Jaffna peninsula. The principal town Jaffna and the peninsula (as well as the East of Sri Lanka) were predominantly Tamil Saiva in culture distinct from that of the Sinhalese Buddhists elsewhere. It was closely linked to the Saiva culture of South