Ayyanar is a Dravidian folk religion deity venerated in South India and Sri Lanka. His worship is prevalent amongst the rural Tamil people. Some studies suggest that Ayyanar may have also been worshipped in Southeast Asian countries in the past. He is primarily worshipped as one of the Village deities of guardian folk deities of Tamil Nadu. The temples of Ayyanar in the countryside are usually flanked by gigantic and colourful statues of him and his companions riding horses or elephants.

The early Dravidian religion constituted a non-Vedic, pre-Indo-Aryan, indigenous religion practiced by Dravidian peoples in India that they were either historically or are at present Āgamic. The Agamas are non-Vedic in origin, and have been dated either as post-Vedic texts, or as pre-Vedic compositions. The Agamas are a collection of Tamil and Sanskrit scriptures chiefly constituting the methods of temple construction and creation of murti, worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga. The worship of tutelary deities and sacred flora and fauna in Hinduism is also recognized as a survival of the pre-Vedic Dravidian religion. Dravidian linguistic influence on early Vedic religion is evident; many of these features are already present in the oldest known Indo-Aryan language, the language of the Rigveda, which also includes over a dozen words borrowed from Dravidian. The linguistic evidence for Dravidian impact grows increasingly strong as one moves from the Samhitas down through the later Vedic works and into the classical post-Vedic literature. This represents an early religious and cultural fusion or synthesis between ancient Dravidians and Indo-Aryans that went on to influence Indian civilisation.