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K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN THE HINDU

A collection of articles that Professor K.A. Nilakanta Sastri contributed to The Hindu between 1930 and 1961, curated and thematically arranged. These deal with a range of issues in South Indian history and provide insights into the thoughts, views and research methods of this foremost scholar in the field

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HISTORY SERIES

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN THE HINDU

3 14 HISTORY SERIES

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN the hindu

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© THG Publishing Private Limited, 2018. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of THG Publishing Private Limited. Published by N. Ravi at Kasturi Buildings, 859 & 860 Anna Salai, Chennai - 600002 and Printed by K. Balaji, Srikals Graphics Pvt. Ltd., A27, SIDCO Industrial Estate, Guindy, Chennai - 600032, on behalf of THG Publishing Private Limited, Chennai - 600002. Editor: Mukund Padmanabhan

3 14 HISTORY SERIES

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN the hindu

THG Publishing Private Limited 859 & 860 Anna Salai • Chennai 600002

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tamil sangam

Publisher’s Note The Hindu has always accorded a special place for history and archaeology. Since 1878, it has consistently reported on significant discoveries, landmark discussions and debates in these fields. Eminent historians and archaeologists have enriched the newspaper’s coverage by often writing about their work. Scholars ranging from S. Krishnaswami Iyengar, the first Head of the Department of Indian History and Archaeology at the University of Madras in 1914, to Romila Thapar, one the most accomplished historians of this country, have commented on issues in The Hindu’s columns.

On many occasions, The Hindu has had the privilege of notable archaeologists reporting their discoveries first in its columns, even before writing about them in research journals. To mention a few instances, S.K. Govindaswami, a young history lecturer in 1931, reported his findings of the Chola frescoes at the Brihadisvara temple in Thanjavur on the very next day in The Hindu. Similarly, A. Aiyappan, Superintendent of the Government Museum, Madras, gave a detailed account of the first organised excavation conducted at Arikamedu in 1941. Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s plans for the systematic archaeological survey of South India, which he outlined in 1945 during his trip to excavate Arikamedu, were reported in detail on the pages of The Hindu. Indeed, The Hindu’s archives represent a trove of valuable records and is a critical resource for any researcher on history and archaeology. We feel it is important to make some of these accessible to a wider audience. This collection of Professor Nilakanta Sastri’s writings in The Hindu, which also contains reports on his public lectures and other engagements, is an attempt in this direction. This constitutes a tribute to the scholar extraordinaire who made influential contributions to South Indian studies. Professor Nilakanta Sastri was a regular contributor to The Hindu. He wrote on various aspects of South Indian History, commented on the issues of his times and reviewed books. His articles, including the detailed account of his lectures and addresses reported in The Hindu, have been compiled for the first time and -5-

are published in this collection. Care has been taken to retain the essential features of the original text. The spellings and usage of historical and archaeological terms, including sometimes their inconsistent use, have been retained as they were. We acknowledge with gratitude the meticulous work by Dr A. Srivathsan, who worked as a Senior Deputy Editor of The Hindu, in identifying, compiling and curating the collection, and the technical, graphic and design contributions made by M.V. Bhaskar, Chief Creative Officer of TNQ Books and Journals Private Limited. This compilation would not have been possible without their expertise.

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Foreword Professor Nilakanta Sastri (1892-1975) was a great historian, not just of India but of the world. A specialist in pre-modern South Indian history, he served at the University of Madras as Professor of Indian History and Archaeology. I had the honour of meeting him on two occasions: the first time in Tokyo and the second time in Madras. On both occasions he was kind enough to answer questions and clarify doubts on Chola inscriptions, a field that I as a researcher on South Indian history was greatly interested in. My admiration and respect for him was indeed profound. He published a large number of excellent books in his area of specialisation. The Cõḷas, his seminal work published in the 1930s, is an example of the use of historical sources for an in-depth study of a specific period of history. By contrast, his broad interest in history and issues in regional history, including of South-East Asia, is attested to by the vast collection of articles he wrote, the list of which is given in his Felicitation Volume. In fact, A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar, published in 1955, is a product of the synthesis of these two excellent qualities he had as a scholar, namely, the specialist’s attention to source-driven inquiry, and the generalist’s broad brush stroke-approach to history. R. Champakalakshmi and Rajan Gurukkal have published a new version of the book with revisions. This is a collection of 34 articles that Sastri contributed to The Hindu between 1930 and 1961. They deal with a range of issues in South Indian history – interesting anecdotes, the particular significance of a source and the method of studying it, information on research trends that emerged after his books were published, and so on. Also included are articles in which he has expressed his views on widely debated ‘hot’ issues of current concern. As a whole, therefore, these articles provide us an insight into his thoughts and research methods, perhaps more clearly than purely academic monographs, revealing aspects of his personality too. For example, it is interesting to find in one of these articles his treatment of the bhakti-saint hagiology as a ‘narrative’ of that peri-9-

od. As Rajan Gurukkal has pointed out in his Epilogue to the new version of A History of South India that I referred to, Sastri seems to have foreseen the importance of the new trends current in historical research. He repeatedly emphasised the unity or harmony achieved through the ‘interaction’ of different cultures, even foreseeing the misuse of the Tamil people’s sentiment for Dravidian culture as Dravidian political nationalism. He pointed out the urgent need to develop epigraphical studies, which are currently in a crisis, and warned against the negligence of the humanities in educational administration. At the same time, however, a bias that characterises his academic writings appears in these essays too. Champakalakshmi has rightly pointed out in her Introduction to A History of South India that Sastri’s predilection for Sanskrit far outweighs the importance he assigns to the vernacular languages, including Tamil. Some of these articles collected here regrettably reveal not only his preference for Sanskrit, but also hint at his approbation of Brahmins and the caste system. This undermines the concept of ‘unity’ or ‘harmony’ he so ardently commends. We have to notice, however, that the essays were written even as the so-called Dravidian Movement (Non-Brahmin Movement) was at its zenith in the 1950s and 1960s, and therefore do reflect at one level the honest reaction of a Brahmin intellectual who felt the heat of that movement and defended himself in the crisis. Even if, in his intolerance of the Dravidian Movement, he failed to see its historical inevitability, he cannot be blamed. His response to the major political movement of the day in Tamil Nadu, however, can never take away from his contributions as an outstanding historian. Indeed, these newspaper articles themselves have become important source material for the history of the last century. Burton Stein, the well-known American historian, criticised Sastri’s description of the Chola state as having a centralised Byzantine bureaucracy. Sastri was right here. If we read a corpus of Chola inscriptions and compare them with contemporary dynasties of the Deccan, there is no doubt that the Chola administration was highly centralised. Sastri’s insights were always supported by thorough and careful examination of the sources. Despite the many trends and theories in historical studies, such as the Marxist - 10 -

approach, the segmentary state theory by Stein, and the Subaltern approach, Sastri’s work remains the most reliable and solid foundation of pre-modern South Indian history. The publication of the eminent scholar’s newspaper articles, I believe, will only strengthen that foundation. I commend The Hindu for this worthwhile initiative. Noboru Karashima Professor Emeritus University of Tokyo [This Foreword was written by the eminent Japanese historian of south India in October 2011, at the invitation of N. Ram, then Editor-in-Chief of The Hindu. Professor Karashima passed away in Tokyo on November 26, 2015.]

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Introduction In the assessment of Noboru Karashima, the eminent historian, there were two golden periods in South Indian historical studies. The first and foundational of the two began in the 1930s with the writings of K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Karashima explains.1 Starting from 1929, Sastri wrote about 22 books and published more than 150 research papers. He is well remembered for his magnum opus, The Cõḷas (first published in two volumes in 1935 and 1937), and the pioneering work, A History of South India (1955), which R. Champakalakshmi, an authority on South Indian history and urbanisation in South India, considers irreplaceable even after 50 years of its publication.2 His copious contributions apart, by means of his profound scholarship and rigorous method Sastri set a strong base for South Indian studies and changed the course of histography. Much has been added to South Indian history since his time, and some of his views have been revised, but the consensus remains among his peers that Sastri is one of India’s pre-eminent historians. He was conferred the Padma Bhushan for the year 1958. Kallidaikurichi Aiyyavaiyer Nilakanta Sastri was a regular contributor to The Hindu ever since he came to Chennai in 1929 to take up the professorship of the Department of Indian History and Archaeology of the University of Madras. He regularly wrote articles, reviewed books and even sent long letters to the editor. The Hindu extensively covered Sastri’s career and reported in detail his professional lectures. While most of his scholarly works have been published, his writings in newspapers, and other material reflecting his views on some of the important issues of his time such as the reorganisation of States, have not been accessible to many readers. In this collection, 34 of his writings published in The Hindu between 1930 and 1961, including four detailed reports of his lectures and a long letter to the editor on the library classification system, are compiled for the first time. Thematically, the articles lend themselves to being grouped into four categories. The first section is on the Tamil Sangam period, followed by writings on South Indian History and then on the Pallavas. The last section contains Sastri’s views on some of the pressing issues of his time. A separate section comprising The Hindu’s reports on Sastri’s lectures are placed at the end. Three stand-alone articles – A unique Tamil diarist (on Anandaranga Pil- 13 -

lai), A symbol of Siva, and India, Tibet and China in antiquity – are placed under the general category of History.

WRITINGS “The study of the modern history of South India touches us most intimately and is to be approached, partly for this very reason, with due caution,” Sastri emphasised in a lecture in 1930.3 This caution, demanding concrete evidence and seeking reliable resources to compile history, runs through the writings in this collection. Sastri never wanted to rely excessively on literary resources. Providing “sweeping conclusions drawn from stray facts… is a temptation that must be resisted,” he wrote.4 For instance, commenting on the Ramayana, Sastri mentioned that “it was beautiful as poetry, ennobling as the religious record, but it was not history except in the mode and extent of its influence on the life and conduct of people.” He recalled an anecdote to stress this point. When he assigned 2,000 years as the age of the Rig Veda, “a well-known statesman” asked him: why not assign 20,000 years? “Just do not have the courage…. to ignore the evidence of archaeology,” Sastri replied sarcastically.5 He felt the same with Tamil literature. While he acknowledged that Sangam poems were the earliest and represented the best phase of Tamil literature with “indigenous energy and strength,” he was not in agreement with others who assigned an earlier date for them. He criticised scholars who put “too much trust” on sources such as Sekizhar’s Periyapuranam to fix the chronology of history.6 To him, the historian can be “genuinely artistic” and could make facts clear with the help of the imagination, but he or she must first be “severely scientific” to collect facts through patient investigation and close analysis. In other words, both empiricism and speculative theorising were part of a historian’s task, but these have to be in that order.7 Sastri himself demonstrated how to go about this. As Professor Champakalakshmi points out, “Sastri’s grasp of the primary sources remains unmatched,” but he also had an “interpretive acumen.”8 Sastri strongly felt that writings on Indian history during his time ignored the contribution of the South. He agreed with his peers that this situation needed to be corrected and the study of the Cauvery and Krishna basins are as important and logical as that of the Gangetic plain.9 However, he had doubts whether this could ever be completed since not much was accomplished on the - 14 -

collection and study of various sources needed for this purpose. He was blunt in saying that the scientific study and interpretation of sources have not progressed beyond the elementary stages. On the philological aspect, he considered Caldwell’s work on comparative grammar and language to be a fair start, but things have not moved forward in the manner in which Indo-European philology improved. Archaeological evidences too were not sufficiently forthcoming, he complained. In particular, he had difficulties with dating and explaining the ancient period, and often pointed out that the evidences relating to the Sangam period were missing.10 He was also a bit disappointed with the Tamil Lexicon that was compiled during his time since it missed out on many technical terms that were mentioned in inscriptions.11 While as a historian he emphasised a distinct place for South India, he was against regionalism politically. “The stress on regionalism should not be allowed to go too far if the risk of the revival of political divisions and antagonisms of the past are to be obviated.” He strongly discouraged demands for separate states such as Dravidistan, as he called it.12 At the same time, he wrote against the imposition of Hindi in the making of the nation and insisted on using English as a link language. He pointed out that the continued use of English was necessary because of its advantages, including the widening of international contacts that it could enable, and the fact that it would help non-Hindi speakers.13 At public meetings, he spoke against the imposition of Hindi.14 He was with the Tamil revival supporters up to this point, but parted ways with them when it came to assessing the Tamil language. Sastri acknowledged Caldwell’s work as one that put the spotlight on the distinctiveness of Tamil, but he did not agree with the claim that Tamil was entirely free of Sanskrit influence. He was of the opinion that Tamil had a “friendly reception of northern culture,” and that even the Sangam phase was not independent of Sanskritic influences. In support of this, he cited the presence of anecdotes from Taittiriya Aranyaka and concepts such as Chakravartin in Sangam literature. He went a step further and stated that the Tamil language had gained new richness from its contact with Sanskrit literature.15 In the essay titled “Scapegoats,” Sastri came closer to commenting on the caste system as in the present. While he explicitly defended the actions of Brahmins in the past and opposed the hatred and hostility shown to them in the present, he did not unambiguously condemn the caste hier- 15 -

archy and the discrimination flowing from it.16 The connection between these comments and his Niyogi Brahmin background, if any, needs to be further studied critically.

BIOGRAPHY A brief autobiographical essay published in 1971 in a felicitation volume remains the only known source of information on Sastri’s life.17 Even a later commemorative article written by R. Tirumalai, one of his students, published in The Hindu in 1992, extensively depended on this.18 The Hindu interviewed K.N. Visweswaran, the only son of Sastri, and Sharada Sandilya, granddaughter, to update the short biography. (Visweswaran passed away in August 2010 at the age of 90.) Sastri was born on August 12, 1892 in Kallidaikurichi, Tamil Nadu. His father, Aiyyavaiyer, running a small elementary school, found it difficult to support the cost of his education. The youngest of three sons, Sastri would not have made it to college but for the insistence and support of his elder brother Kuppusami Sastri, who was working in Madras as a superintendent of Sanskrit schools. After completing his F.A. from the Hindu College19 in Tirunelveli, Sastri moved to Chennai to do his B.A. at Madras Christian College. He was able to pursue his M.A. with the help of a fellowship that provided him Rs. 20 a month. Sastri was a brilliant student and was ranked first in the Presidency in his M.A. Between 1913 and 1918, he worked at his alma mater, the Hindu College in Tirunelveli, as a lecturer. “My father had great company here. Professor V. Saranathan, K.C. Viraraghava Iyer and N. Sankara Iyer were his esteemed colleagues. Things were going well, till one day all the four fell out with the Principal and the management and left the college one after the other,” recalled Visweswaran. Tirunelveli’s loss was Banaras’ gain. Sir P.S. Sivaswamy Iyer and V.S. Srinivasa Sastri helped Sastri secure a position at the Banaras Hindu University, where he worked for two years. In 1920, he moved to Chidambaram as the first Principal of Sri Minakshi College. He worked there till 1929, when he resigned over a difference of opinion with Annamalai Chettiar, the founder Pro-Chancellor of Annamalai University, over the process of its formation. Meanwhile, in 1914, the University of Madras had started the Department of Indian History and Archaeology with the help of an Imperial statutory grant of Rs. 65,000. It was headed by S. Krishnaswami Iyengar, a historian well known for his work - 16 -

on the Vijayanagara Empire.20 In 1929, just before Krishnaswami Iyengar was to retire, a selection committee was appointed to fill the impending vacancy. Sir Jadunath Sarkar, a historian of great repute, was one of the members. Sastri applied for the post and was chosen. Later, in an obituary article he wrote in 1958, Sastri recalled his association with Sarkar from his Banaras days and fondly recalled how Sarkar chose him for the professorship.21 The period between 1929 and 1947, the year Sastri retired, was significant for the University of Madras and for Sastri himself. During this time he published his first book, The Pandyan Kingdom (1929), and followed it up with Studies in Cõḷa History and Administration (1933). One of his most popular works, The Cõḷas, was also published during this period. He edited the Madras University History Series, and guided many students who went on to become well-known historians. They include C. Minakshi and T.V. Mahalingam. “Even after retirement, till the day he died, he was always reading. His room was on the first floor, and he worked there all the time and came down only for his food or his walk. His days were precisely calibrated; his engagements were well planned. The clock could be set with his routine. If anyone came to meet him between five and six in the evening, his time for the walk, that person had to converse as he walked around the house. He never wasted his time. With his friends he spoke about various topics and used to regularly walk up to the [Marina] beach that was nearby,” Visweswaran recalled. “The kitchen was seldom quiet. We had regular visitors – students, colleagues and political personalities – to attend to. Rajendra Prasad, Rajaji and Radhakrishnan often visited him. Rajaji even urged him to join politics, but he refused,” Ms. Sharada remembered her father telling her. Sastri was close to Rajendra Prasad and the Maharaja of Mysore. “He stayed with the Maharaja at the palace to teach him Sanskrit,” Ms. Sharada added. Sastri continued to hold many positions even after his retirement from the University of Madras. Between 1952 and 1956, he headed the Department of Indology in Mysore University. He came back to Chennai in 1957 to take charge as the Director of the Institute of Traditional Cultures of South East Asia set up by UNESCO and the University of Madras and worked there till 1971. It was during this time that he visited Chicago University as a Visiting Professor, served as a member of the Central Advisory Board of - 17 -

Archaeology and was part of the Indian Historical Records Commission. He died at his residence ‘Nileswar’, off Edward Elliots Road (renamed as Dr Radhakrishnan Salai) in Mylapore, on June 16, 1975.22 “My parents doted on me. I was their precious child and was always amidst great personalities. I hardly spoke with my father about his work. It was only when I went to Oxford many years after his death and listened to people fondly speaking to me and in awe of my father, that I realised his importance in full measure,” Visweswaran, reclining on his easy chair, recalled. Next to the chair was the decorated cradle that Sastri got specially made when his only child was born. It had been remodelled as a divan and greeted visitors as they entered the living room. Professor Champakalakshmi categorises Sastri’s works as traditional/conventional, in the light of recent developments in history-writing that emphasises a critical approach. However, she quickly adds that this does not take away anything from it or make it less important. Sastri provided a firm chronological base that stood the test of in-depth research on dynastic history, she concludes.23 Probably anticipating such future assessments, Sastri had remarked as early as in 1930 that “any picture of social life, if it is to be of real significance, must have a firmly established framework of chronology to fit into. And this framework, which alone could support and hold together the reconstruction of social and religious history, cannot be built up except by fixing the details of political history.” He knew well that his focus on dynastic history, or political history as he called it, may not be well appreciated at a later time, but he was clear that it was “yet too soon to turn away from it.”24 As a good historian, he had a good sense of the cultural-academic context in which he worked, and the need to build a strong foundation for South Indian historical studies, which he successfully accomplished. A. Srivathsan

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Notes Noboru Karashima, “New preface to South Indian History and Society for the Omnibus Edition,” History and Society in South India : The Cholas to Vijayanagar, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2001, p. vii. 2 R. Champakalakshmi’s introduction in K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Illustrated History of South India, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009, p. xxxii. 3 Chapter 30 in this collection, “Study of South Indian History,” The Hindu, August 12, 1930. 4 Ibid. 5 Chapter 8 in this collection, “Beginnings of South Indian Civilisation,” The Hindu, February 21, 1960. 6 Chapters 1, 7 and 18 in this collection. 7 Chapter 30 in this collection. 8 R. Champakalakshmi’s introduction in K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Illustrated History of South India, p. xxvii. 9 Chapter 7 in this collection. 10 Chapters 2, 7 and 30. 11 Chapter 30. 12 Chapter 26 in this collection. Unity of the Sub-Continent, The Hindu, February 23, 1958. 13 Ibid. 14 The Hindu, August 7, 1963. 15 Chapters 1, 2 and 3 in this collection. Sastri did not favourably comment on the suitability of Tamil language for the writing of history. Subramania Bharathi, the nationalist poet, strongly disagreed with him on this. This public spat is well documented in A.R. Venkatachalapathy’s book. Sastri, who was only 24 years old when he made the comment, seems to have reconsidered his position later. In 1932, he wrote an essay on a historical topic – the Mamallapuram relief sculptures – in the first issue of Kalaimagal, a Tamil magazine (this essay was republished in 1957). A.R. Venkatachalapathy, In Those Days There was No Coffee, Yoda Press, New Delhi, 2008, pp. 1-8. Kalaimagal, May 1957. 16 Chapter 25 in this collection, “Scapegoats,” The Hindu, December 8, 1957. 17 Although the autobiographical essay as it appeared in the felicitation volume does not carry Sastri’s name as its author, his family members mention that it was written by him. 1

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Professor K. A. Nilakanta Sastri felicitation volume [in commemoration of his 80th birthday, editorial committee: Sa. Ganesan, chairman, and others], Professor K. A. Nilakanta Sastri Felicitation Committee, Madras, 1971. 18 R. Tirumalai, “Historian of South India,” The Hindu, August 30, 1992. 19 Professor V. Saranathan, S. Vaiyapuri Pillai and P.N. Appuswami were his classmates. 20 The Hindu Illustrated Weekly, December 15, 1929. 21 Chapter 27 in this collection, “Portrait of a Historian,” The Hindu, July 27, 1958. 22 He had suffered a paralytic stroke. 23 R. Champakalakshmi’s introduction in K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Illustrated History of South India, p. xxvii. 24 Chapter 30 in this collection.

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Editorials from the hindu 1878-1978

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CONTENTS contents

TA M I L SA N G A M 1. Beginnings of Tamil literature.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2. Tamil culture of the Sangam Age. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 3. Social structure in the Sangam era. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 4. Karikala Chola. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 5. Karikala Chola. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 6. Sea power in Tamil history. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

S O U T H I N D I A N H I S T O RY 7. Study of South Indian history. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 8. Beginnings of South Indian civilisation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 9. Pre-history of peninsular India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 10. South India and the sea. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 11. Maritime history of South India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 12. Chola ‘Thalassocracy’.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 13. Dekkan in the early historical period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 14. South India after Satavahanas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 15. Pulakesin II, the royal warrior. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 16. Later campaigns of Pulakesin II. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

PA L L AVA S 17. Mahendravarman, a royal genius. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 18. Hindu Renaissance of the Pallava period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 19. State of Saivism in the Pallava period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 20. Some Pallava inscriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 21. Somaskanda in Pallava sculptures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 22. Chronology of the Hindu revival. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

H I S T O RY 23. A symbol of Siva. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 24. India, Tibet and China in antiquity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 25. A unique Tamil diarist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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The First Hundred

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CONTENTS contents ISSUES 26. Scapegoats.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 27. Unity of the sub-continent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 28. Portrait of a historian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 29. Use of Roman Script (Letter to the Editor).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 30. Research in the humanities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

LECTURE REP ORTS 31. Study of South Indian history. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 32. Ywan Chwang’s account of India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 33. Spread of Ramayana outside India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 34. The human factor in industrial arts,

trade and craft guilds in ancient India. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

INDEX

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207

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TA M I L SANGAM

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25/5/1958

This article traces the hoary beginnings of the literature in the Tamil language, sifting historical evidence from traditions.

Beginnings of Tamil literature

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he Sinnananur copperplates (A.D. 10th century) mention the translation of the Mahabharata into Tamil and the foundation of a Sangam in Madurapuri as prominent achievements of the early Pandyas. It is a long traditional list; it includes earlier, among others, the complete mastery of southern Tamil and the attainment of supreme scholarship by flawless research in luminous Tamil and Sanskrit. About the same time or possibly a century or so earlier, we get the first literary notice of the Madura Sangam. This occurs in a commentary to the Ahapporul also called Kalaviyal (Treatise on Illicit Love), a short work on 60 aphorisms (sutras) passing under the name of Iraiyanar, i.e., God Siva himself. The commentary is said to be the work of Nakkirar, the son of a teacher of Madurai (Maduraik-Kanakkayanar). He says that the Pandyas established three Sangams. The first of these counted 549 members, including Agastya, Siva, Muruga, Mudinagarayar of Murinijiyur and Kubera. The number of other poets was 3,900. They composed numberless Paripadals, Mudanarai, Mudukurugus, Kalariyavriai, etc. The kings who patronised the Sangam were 89 in number beginning with Kaysina-Valudi (i.e., Pandya of Fiery Anger) and ending with Kadungon; among them seven were accredited poets. The place where they held the Sangam and cultivated Tamil was Madurai (now) submerged by the sea. Their grammar (nul) was Agattiyam. The Middle Sangam had 59 members, including Agastya, Tolkappiya and six others. The number of poets was 3,700, including the 59 members. They composed Kali, Kuruku, Vendali, Viyazhamalaiyahaval, etc. Their grammars were Agattiyam, Tolkappiyam, Mapuranam, Isainunukkam and Butapuranam. Their Sangam lasted 3,700 years; their patrons were 59 kings from Venderccezhiyan (i.e., Pandya of the white Chariot) to Mudattiru- 29 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

maran (i.e. Tirumaran the Lame); five of these Pandya Kings were poets. Kapatapuram was their seat of learning. It was apparently at this time that the sea engulfed the Pandya country. The last Sangam comprised 49 members, including Sirumedaviyar, Sendampudanar, Arivudaiyaran, Perungunrurkizhar, Ilandirumaran, Maduraiyasiriyan (Teacher of Madurai) Nallanduvanar, Marudan llanaganar, Kanakkayanar, Maganar, Nakkiranar (i.e. the author of the commentary himself ). The poets, including the members, were 449 in number. They composed Nedundogai-nanuru, Kurundogai-nanuru, Narrinai-nanuru, Ainguru-nuru, Padirruppattu, 150 Kali, 70 Paripadals, Kootu, Vari, Perisai, Sirrisai and so on. Their grammars were Agattiyam and Tolkappiam. The duration of their Sangam was 1,850 (1,950 according to some) years. Their patrons were 49 Pandyan kings beginning with Mudattirumaran who ruled when the sea-erosion occurred and coming down to Ugarapperu Valudi; three of these kings were poets themselves. They had their seat in Uttaramadurai (northern Madurai). This palpable legend was perhaps current for some time before it was recorded. It became an article of faith with many later writers who are never tired of proudly recalling the Three Sangams. We have other legends on the origin of Tamil. One of them says that when Nataraja danced His Cosmic Dance in the Golden Hall of Chidambaram, the sounds emitted by the two sides of his drum were those of the Sanskrit and Tamil alphabets, picked up respectively by Panini and Agastya. A pretty legend meant to stress that Tamil was coeval with Sanskrit and independent of it. Again, it is said by the Buddhists that Agastya learnt Tamil from Avalokitesvara who takes the place of Siva in later Buddhist ideology. Extremely valuable for the way they illuminate the beliefs and the outlook cherished by Tamils in relatively recent times, the legends do not enable the historian to trace the actual stages in the evolution of the Tamil language or its literature. For this he has to turn to the results of modern philological studies and to archaeology. The second half of the last century was a great epoch in the scientific study of the languages of the world, and from our point of view the labours in South India of Caldwell, who was Bishop of Tinnevelly for many years, and of Gundert, Kittel and Brown were very important. Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages (1856) was a landmark. It demonstrated the affinities in grammar and vocabulary among the languages of South India and their distinctness as a group from the - 30 -

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languages of the rest of India which had a Sanskritic base. Since then many efforts have been made to identify the original habitat of the Dravidian speaking people. Linguistic analysis of the names of places and peoples, and of some other vocables have pointed to the Mediterranean lands, particularly south-west of Asia Minor and to the highlands of northern Iran as places where Dravidian speech must have once prevailed. But there has been no unanimity on the conclusions to be drawn from the admitted facts. While the majority of scholars are inclined to postulate a migration by sea rather than by land to South India, there are some who reverse the process and think that South India was the original home from which the speech was carried elsewhere. This latter view would appear to lean strongly on the pseudohistory in the legend of the three Sangams summarised above, which locate the Tamils for about 10,000 years before their time in lands beyond the extreme south of India as known to us and attribute to them a considerable body of literature even in those remote times. Likewise, the islet of Brahui speech in Baluchistan, which shows affinities to Dravidian, has been taken to be rather a relic of a migration into India or of a colony established during a phase of expansion of Dravidian from the south of India. In the early decades of this century the view prevailed that Dravidian at one time overlay a pre-Dravidian stratum over the whole of India and was submerged everywhere except in South India by the supervening Indo-Aryan idioms. This view has, however, been called into question recently, and the thesis advanced that at no time in the past did the area of effective Dravidian speech extend much beyond the region where we find it localised today. Connected with this view is the hypothesis that the Dravidian speakers entered the South of India by sea more or less contemporaneously with the Indo-Aryans who came by land into north-west India, and that the Dravidian speakers were most probably the carriers of the megalithic culture of which we find numerous centres in South India, but none in North India proper though it is found also on the coast of Baluchistan and Sind, and in the extreme north-east of India (Assam) and beyond. It is also suggested that rice cultivation by artificial irrigation was part of this megalithic culture. Some writers, particularly Father Heras, are convinced that the Indus-Valley cultures were reared by Dravidian speakers; but others are equally strongly convinced that they were the expression of phases of Vedic culture, or at any rate, of some aspect of Indo-European. These - 31 -

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rival hypotheses cancel out and leave us with the true position that until the Mohenjo Daro script is satisfactorily deciphered, which it has not yet been, the most prudent course is to keep a reserve on the affinities of the authors of those cultures. But all these interesting speculations have as little direct bearing on the actual beginnings of Tamil literature as the legends on the seismic disturbances at the end of the second Sangam so called. In fact, it is by no means easy to explain how the idea of three Sangams at all arose. Only the data relating to the third Sangam, such as the number of poets, their names, and the names of the works produced under its aegis, are verifiable from accessible data which go a long way to confirm them. We can only recall the analogy of the myth of several Buddhas preceding the historical Gautama Buddha of the Sakyas, and that of the 24 Tirthankaras of Jainism, and suppose that somehow they managed to evolve three Sangams out of the one historical reality. The age of this historical Sangam is no longer a matter for doubt or speculation. Many lines of evidence converge to place it in the early centuries of the Christian era. Hoards of the gold and silver coins of the Roman Empire, mainly of the A.D. first and second centuries, have been found in several places in South India, including many inland centres; the presumption of close contact by channels of trade with the Roman Empire suggested by these finds has been strikingly confirmed by the recent excavations which have revealed tangible evidence of Roman settlements or emporia at Pondicherry in South India and at Oc-Eo in Cochin China; both definitely datable in the same period. The poems of the Sangam period are full of references to yavana traders and ships, yavana soldiers employed as palace guards or night patrols in the streets of the capitals of Tamil States, yavana wines and lamps of yavana make. And there is also the invaluable evidence of the anonymous Greek tract, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (A.D. 60-80) which gives a concise but detailed and intimate account of the ports of South India and its shipping and maritime trade; and that of Alexandrine geographer Ptolemy (c. A.D. 150) who gives what is, for his time a remarkably correct account of the important places in India, and Indonesia. No movement in world’s history can be more securely dated than the stratum of Tamil literature assignable to the Sangam. But the poems of this literature, even the shortest pieces, cannot be the first literary efforts of a people. They are too developed - 32 -

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to be accepted as that. They are full of grammatical and literary conventions which must have had a fairly long history; and they are transparently the product of a crossing of two cultures, the complex result of the friendly mingling of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian. Tamil literature is, beyond question, the earliest, and in some ways the finest, of all Indian literature outside Sanskrit literature - a term which in this context must be taken to include not only what is usually called classical Sanskrit literature, but Vedic and Epic literature as well. If we ask ourselves how much earlier than the beginning of the Christian era can the commencement of this literary movement in Tamil be carried, we find that we lack the means of providing a confident answer. We know that this Aryo-Dravidian civilisation – to use a convenient designation coined by Risley – had more or less fully formed itself in third century B.C. when Tamil kingdoms entered into diplomatic relations with the Mauryan Emperor Asoka. Then we have short inscriptions on stone in natural caverns in hills only slightly worked up by art which served as residences of recluses, most probably Buddhist and Jain, not far from towns and villages. These inscriptions are written generally in Brahmi characters of the second and first centuries B.C.; not only do the letters belong to the southern variety of the script, but some new letters have been employed which are unknown to Northern Brahmi and which were obviously coined to represent the sounds peculiar to the Tamil language. Linguistic and literary progress must have been remarkably rapid in the couple of centuries that followed for the Tamil idiom to develop from such tentative beginnings to the superb finish it has attained in the Sangam poems. The steps by which this sensational progress was made, and the part played by writing in its promotion, still remain subjects for future study and research.

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17/4/1960

The Sangam Age constitutes a glorious period in Tamil culture, but there are no significant archaeological data that can definitely be linked with this age.

Tamil culture of the Sangam Age

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he Asoka inscriptions name four kingdoms of the Tamil country among those of the independent neighbours of the Mauryan empire; to these kingdoms that great emperor sent his dutas for preaching the Gospel of the Buddhist Dharma and for setting up hospitals and planting gardens of medicinal herbs for the benefit of the men and animals in these lands. A little earlier, Megasthenes makes a brief record of a legendary nature about the Pandyan kingdom. After these tantalising glimpses, the steady light of history may be said to fall on Tamil land from the earliest stratum of its extant literature of the Sangam period as it is styled, particularly the collections known as Ettutogai and Pattuppaattu. Scholars are generally agreed that the period in which these poems were composed, but not yet edited and collected in the schematic anthologies in which we find them arranged now, may be taken to be the first three or four centuries of the Christian era. The Tolkaappiyam is the earliest extant grammar of the language which incidentally furnishes social data of much interest to the historian: but its chronological position is disputed. Legend bestows a fabulous antiquity on the work and some modern scholars have no hesitation in accepting it to the extent of giving it a date earlier than what we have suggested for the Sangam poems. But the better opinion seems to be that the grammar pre-supposes practically all the known Sangam literature and for this and other reasons too complicated to be set forth in a general article like this, the date of the Tolkaappiyam must be placed towards the end of the Sangam period if not still later. But the Sangam poems naturally anticipate many of the literary and social conventions systematised and recorded in the sutras of the Tolkaappiyam. Archaeology, still in its infancy in South India, has not yet - 34 -

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brought up any significant data that can be definitely linked with Sangam literature with the exception of the numerous hoards of Roman coins whose evidence has been corroborated by the Roman ‘factory’ at Arikamedu near Pondicherry, but these belong to the chapter of the external contacts of South India which must be reserved for separate consideration. We cannot yet trace the transition from the ‘megalithic period’ to the literate culture of the Sangam. Geography has favoured the relatively small State in the Tamil country, and large political units and the unity of the entire country under one rule have been exceptional. The Sahyadri range in its southernmost extension divides the western coast strip from the rest of the land, though this has not been so decisive a factor as it may appear at first sight and as it has perhaps become after the formation of the new Kerala State of our day. The river valleys have had a more pronounced influence on the formation of States and the smaller hillocks scattered over the country have encouraged the growth and persistence of local chieftaincies which managed to retain their individuality even when they were subjugated and made parts of a larger political entity like the Chola or the Vijayanagar empire. The Tamils believed that the three monarchies of their country were of immemorial antiquity. Of these the Pandya country occupied the extreme south and comprised the modern districts of Kanyakumari (often called Naanjilnad or plough land in ancient records), Tirunelveli, Madurai and Ramnad. Its capital was Madurai, a large city on the Vaigai river, and Korkai on the east coast at the mouth of the Tamraparni river was its main seaport, though another port further north by name Saaliyur, is also mentioned: there must have been other port or ports on the west coast also round about modern Trivandrum. The Chola country comprised the lower Kaveri valley, the coastal plain between two rivers both bearing the name Vellaar, the northern Vellaar entering the sea near Porto Novo and the smaller southern stream passing through Pudukottai territory. The Chola kingdom thus roughly corresponded to modern Tanjore and Trichinopoly districts and the southern part of South Arcot; its inland capital was Uraiyur, now suburb of Trichinopoly and Puhaar or Kaaveripattanam (the Khaberis of Ptolemy) at the mouth of the Kaveri was its main port. The Chera or Kerala kingdom was the western coastal strip above the northern limit of the Pandyan kingdom. It had a number of - 35 -

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good ports, Tondi and Musiri (Tyndis and Muziris of the Greek writers) being the best known. The capital of the Chera kingdom was called Vanji; its location has been the subject of an inconclusive debate, some identifying it with some place on the Periyar river or at its mouth, others locating it inland in Karur, the centre of the westernmost taluq of the Trichinopoly district. The mention of Karu-ur in a Brahmi record of the third century B.C. from the neighbourhood, and of Karur alias Vanjimaanagaram in a much later inscription may be taken to support the inland location of the Chera capital. Ptolemy’s mention of Korura as the Chera capital and the discovery of Roman coins near Karur lend further support to this view. If it is correct, the Chera country was not confined to the western coastal strip but had a notable inward extension by way of the Palghat gap. The fourth kingdom mentioned in the Asoka inscriptions is Satiyaputa; its identity and location are uncertain. The best view, however, seems to be that first suggested by K. G. Sesha Aiyar and now supported on good philological grounds by Burrow, that it is the principality of the Adiyamaan chiefs of Tagadur (Salem district) who were quite prominent in the Sangam period and may have become important much earlier; Satiya, on this view, is not the Sanskrit Satya as was long held, but Tamil Adiya and puta becomes magan, maan in Tamil. All the country south of the Vengadam (Tirupati) latitude was counted as Tamil-nad and beyond Vengadam the speech of the people changed into Vadugu, the ancestor of Telugu. Tondaimandalam, the lower Palar basin, was ruled by the Tondaiman kings; whether the country was called after the royal line (there is a legend to account for its name) as seems likely or vice versa cannot be decided. There were other chieftains besides who belonged to the Velir group and among whom the line of the Aays and Paari are the best known. Old Tamil was the only language spoken in the whole area doubtless with dialectical variation from the literary idiom: these variations must have been slight at first, but in the course of centuries dialects developed into the separate languages of Malayalam and Kannada as we know them now. It is common knowledge that many words marked by old commentators as malai-naattu-vazhakku, usage of the mountain country, still survive in Malayalam in the same old senses though they have disappeared from modern Tamil. Also the farther back you go in Kannada (and even in Telugu) the nearer does the idiom approach the Tamil forms. The Gulf of Mannar was famous for its pearl fisheries which were shared by the Pan- 36 -

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dyas, Cholas and the rulers of Ceylon. The anthologies as they have come down to us reveal the names of scores of kings and princelings, and poets and poetesses, that is if we may trust the traditional colophons at the end of each poetical piece probably furnished by the compilers or commentators on the basis of sources accessible to them, but no longer traceable. Some glaring contradictions between different colophons such as those relating to the Chera Kanaikkaal Irumporai in the Puranaanuru and the Kalavazhi Naarpadu indicate that these should be accepted only with reservations. In any case, these poems do not yield data calculated to render possible a continuous political history of the times. They lack genealogies and without them no chronological account is possible. Of some prominent individual monarchs, we may be able to cull a biography; this, however, cannot be called a political history of the time and may be reserved for another occasion. But what we miss in the field of political history is more than made up by the vivid pen-pictures of social life with which the anthologies are replete. Before proceeding to a consideration of them, we must lay stress on the composite nature of the culture depicted in the poems. The statement sometimes made even by responsible students of history that this phase of Tamil was entirely independent of northern Sanskrit influences is wide of the mark. The fact is that we do not possess a single line of Tamil literature demonstrably ante-dating the contact between the pre-Aryan Tamil and Aryan Sanskrit cultures. The poets of the Sangam are quite at home in the entire range of the mythological, religious and philosophical notions of the Indo-Aryans and the social framework has also been considerably influenced by the same conceptions. All the Tamil monarchs are said to have fed the armies on both sides in the Mahabharata war; the overthrow of the hundred brothers by the five in battle, the heroism and liberality of Akkura (Akrura), the burning of the Khandava forest by Arjuna, the skill of Bhima in cookery are all specifically mentioned. Rama’s council (of war?), which met under a banyan tree in Dhanuskhoti, is referred to, and there is a humorous allusion to monkeys sporting with Sita’s jewels dropped by her for identification of the route by which Ravana carried her off. The sage Agastya, afterwards accepted as the purohit of the Pandyas, is said to have enchanted Ravana by his music and persuaded him to quit South India to its great relief. The Tripuradahana by Siva, the chastity of Arund- 37 -

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hati, the felicity of life in Uttarakuru, the saptapadi as evidence of friendship, Brahma arising on the lotus springing up from the navel of Vishnu, the story of the avatara of Vamana (dwarf ) and his growth into Trivikrama, are all known. The suutas, maagadhas and vaitaalikas performing their respective duties in the Pandyan palace at Madurai are mentioned in the Maduraikkaanji. The sun is described as thousand-rayed, traversing the sky every day, and setting behind the astagiri. The shoe is called adi-pudai-aranam, an obvious translation of paadarakshaa; likewise the phrase iigai-chchennu-gam-taangiya renders dana dhuram-dhara; the superior gold called Jaambunada in Sanskrit is described by the periphrasis naavalodu-peyariya-pon i.e. gold which has naaval (jambu) in its name. Avvaiyar compares the three Tamil Kings seated together to the three fires in a sacrificial hall. Porul (artha) and inbam (kaama) are said to follow aram (dharma). There are many allusions to Sibi rescuing a bird from a hawk by the sacrifice of his own flesh, and the Cholas are called Sembiyan, descendant of Sibi. A recondite idea that first appears in Taittiriya Aranyaka is known to a Tamil poet whose song is included in the Puranaanuru, viz. that the Vaalakhilya sages surround the chariot of the sun and prevent his heat from troubling the inhabitants of the earth. The gods are said to wear garlands that do not fade, not to wink, and to feed only on the flavour of the viands offered to them. A heroic warrior is recognised by his long arm reaching to his knee. Yama binding the souls of the dead with his paasa, the Chakora bird longing for rain-drops – its only food – the syena sacrifice with its garuda shaped altar, the sacrificial post called yupa and the transformation of the rain-drop into pearl are other ideas occurring in the poems and definitely traceable to Sanskrit sources. So also, the use of the mote seen in sunlight as a measure of size, and of the terms aambal (kumuda) and vellam (samudra) to indicate very large arithmetical numbers. The whole tenor of this literature thus indicates the friendly reception of northern culture in the Tamil country which led to an easy and complete mingling of the two cultures and the utmost harmony in the social relations of the representatives of both.

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22/5/1960

The author describes the organisation of society during the Sangam Age in this article dealing with Tamil culture.

Social structure in the Sangam era

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he Tamil language gained much in richness and flexibility by its contact with Sanskrit and there arose a beautiful literature which combined idealism with realism, and classic grace with indigenous energy and strength; this is what we now describe as Sangam literature, the earliest and in many ways the best phase of Tamil literature now accessible to us. We seem to have lost irretrievably the threads of the political history of the times. A careful analysis of the poems goes to show that they are the productions of five or six consecutive generations at the most; by emendations of texts and other devices some scholars have been able to postulate 10 generations. Roughly they may be placed in the first three or four centuries A.D., though the culture they reared and its influence continued for another two centuries or more which witnessed the production of many works in the same or similar genres to those of the Sangam period; many of the Eighteen Kilkkanakku and possibly the Tolkappiyam appear to belong to this twilight of the Sangam age. Land was already measured by the ma and veli, and was abundant in relation to population, and necessities of life were plentiful. The poets are proud of their respective countries and celebrate their fertility and excellences. The Chera country was noted for its buffaloes, jack fruit, and turmeric. The fertility of the Kaveri valley is a recurring theme; and one poet affirms that the small area in which a female elephant can lie down produced enough grain to feed seven tuskers – a transparent but intelligible exaggeration. The forest produce of Pari’s principality included millets, jack fruit, the valliroot, and honey. Among animals the lion is mentioned, but apparently rather as part of the literary tradition than from personal knowledge of the poets. More convincing is the description of the sounds made in the morning by the tiger, bear and other animals caged in the menagerie of the royal palace. The - 39 -

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capture of elephants by trapping them in deep pits was known. There are charming portrayals of other animals and their habits. Society was organised in castes with customs and traditions of their own, but in large cities and port towns there was much mixture of castes and races. We get excellent descriptions of all grades of society. The unlettered hunters (eyinar) spent the day in hunting for food and were aided by low caste pulaiyar who beat their drums so hard that their strong dark arms turned red. The shepherd with his curved lips wore a garland of green leaves and dust laden clothing as he tended his small-headed flock of sheep. Hunters lived in fortresses surrounded by thorny hedges in thatched sheds of grass guarded by fierce dogs; they held a good stock of bows, arrows and spears. Shepherds used beds of straw and leather, and their womenfolk engaged themselves in churning the curd early in the morning and in the sale of buttermilk and ghee for grain in the course of the day. The houses of Brahmins were marked by a small shed in front where a calf was tied to one of the posts, and the threshold was smeared with cow dung: they had idols for worship inside, and were not approached by cocks or dogs; parrots were brought up as pets and taught to repeat their Vedic chants; the women of the house cooked fine food for offering to the gods and guests. The Brahmin cultivated the Veda, performed 21 kinds of sacrifice, and wore the deer skin on such occasions. Learned Brahmins were fond of public disputations and challenged their rivals by hoisting flag indicating their purpose. The fishermen of Puhar (Kaveripattinam) had their huts on the foreshore, worshipped the fish bone as their deity, and enjoyed many pastimes in their free time. Numbers of wandering minstrels (panar) and their womenfolk (viralis) who accompanied their songs with appropriate dances moved from one royal court to another getting presents in return for the entertainment they offered; the dire poverty of these roving bands, and the musical instruments they played poems, was a constant theme in the poems, as also the presents they got. The Yavanas, Graeco-Romans and Arabs were present in considerable numbers in the port-towns and fewer in the interior. Tradition recorded in the padigams (epilogues) to the Padirrunpattu and elsewhere would indicate that literature offered lucrative careers to competent poets; but evidently the vast majority were by no means so well off as we find them often rewarded for their labours with just food, drink and raiment and small presents - 40 -

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like tiny flowers of gold. Instances are not wanting of poets kept waiting long for a present or getting a niggardly one and venting their anger against the patrons in song. One poet refuses to accept a present sent to him without the usual interview with the patron, proudly affirming that he was no mercenary poet – Vanigapparisilan. Some poets enjoyed the intimate friendship of their patrons; the most conspicuous instances recorded are the relations between Kapilar and Pari; Avvaiyar and Adigaiman Anji and Pisir Andai and Kopperunjolan. Monarchy was the norm of government, the tribal republics of the North being altogether unknown here. It was autocracy tempered by education, social tradition, and the admonition of wise and discreet courtiers. The King held a daily durbar – nalavai; his duties, necessarily heavy, are compared by one poet to the labour of the strong bull dragging salt-laden carts from the plain to the uplands. A lot of sententious theory and some mystic reverence for the king’s place in the world order are met with in the whole body of this literature; the influence of theories and legends found in Sanskrit sources is quite evident in many respects. Most notable is the reference to the ideal of the Chakravarti ruling all India, whose golden jewelled wheel rolls unhindered on its aerial route in all directions; and to the earth maiden lamenting her destiny of subjection to many masters like a harlot. The mark of a good king was to do nothing that would scandalize the feelings of Brahmins. Much stress was laid on the promotion of irrigation and the spread of agriculture to ensure abundant food supply. Justice was administered in the king’s sabha which assembled in the capital and was the highest court. Travel on the highways was not always safe and the Maravas are said to have killed travellers with one shot from their bows and heaped stones on their dead bodies along the roads of the Pandya country. Burglars were busy at night in the big cities like Madura, and special arrangements had to be made for night watching. Trade was regulated and steps taken to detect smuggling along the roads. Inter-State peace was the exception rather than the rule, as each king and chieftain sought to be the hammer to escape becoming the anvil; this was the inevitable result of the false ideal of aggrandizement being accepted as the duty of a king. Hostilities often opened with cattle raids, and sometimes a Brahmin messenger was despatched to announce the declaration of war. Fortifications and sieges are often described, and the impor- 41 -

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tance of elephants and horses in warfare is stressed. Chariots were drawn by oxen or horses. Bodyarmour made of tiger skin and a cover of leather for the forearm for bowmen were used. The drum and the conch were sounded on the battlefield. The van, the rear, and the flanks of the fighting force were clearly distinguished. Soldiers drank hot toddy and wore garlands of flowers while fighting. Omens were studied before a battle. Wounded soldiers received prompt attention which included the stitching of wounds. Death in battle was a cherished heroic ideal. A military camp was an elaborate affair of many tents and often contained soldiers, speaking a variety of languages. Maraya and enodi were military titles conferred on soldiers of distinction, women taken in war were technically slaves employed in places of public worship where they had to bathe every evening and light the lamps besides sweeping the threshold and adorning it with flowers. The defeated King was humiliated by his guardian tree being cut down and converted into a war drum, and by his crown being turned into an anklet for the victor or being worn by him in a garland. Clothing comprised generally of two pieces of cloth. Women in high society used corsets and hair-paste. The hair was clipped with scissors and clothes stiffened with starch. Both sexes wore ornaments of gold and pearls when they could afford it. Grain, fish and flesh were the chief articles of food besides vegetables, milk and milk products. Appam soaked in milk was a luxury, as also the flesh of tortoises and pigs and aral fish. An animal roasted whole was a delicacy. Toddy kept in jars, and foreign wines imported in bottles were consumed with a bite of raw ginger for taste. A cocktail of toddy mixed with the juice of sugarcane and the water from the coconut, the munnir (triple liquid), was much appreciated. The betel leaf and nut were already well-known.

MUSIC AND DANCING Resort to shady groves and sporting in water were the means employed to escape the heat of the day in summer. Music and dancing filled a good part of the spare time of men and women, and mural paintings were widely in use as decoration. The professional dancing-girls were often a menace to the domestic harmony of the rich youth of the cities. Children played in the manram of the village either beneath a shady tree or an open shed where the village assembly met for transacting public business. Dice for old men, wrestling, hunting for younger folk figure among pastimes. - 42 -

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Royal palaces and the residences of rich merchants were built of brick and mortar and were many storeys high. Common folk lived in humble houses by no means devoid of gaiety and happiness. Beds were of hides or mats and rope cots were in use. Long sheds for poor feeding, and the feeding of crows in front of houses are mentioned. Children wore amulets of necklaces bearing small replicas of the weapons of Vishnu. Faith in omens was common, and the crow was believed to announce in advance the return of the absent husband to his wife. Women enjoyed much freedom of movement and the number of known women poets is testimony of their access to education. Sati was practised and admired in high society. A widow’s lot was rather hard; she had to abstain from all the good things of life and live an austere life. The general code of ethical conduct was high and ingratitude was counted a mortal sin. Family life was highly esteemed and the wife is called the light of the house; it was the duty of the householder to entertain guests, and omission of this duty was highly blameworthy. Agriculture was the staple industry and included the raising of sugarcane, cotton, and pepper. The production of cloth came next; the fine quality of the textiles of the Tamil country was well known to early European writers and Sanskrit sources. The slough of a snake, a cloud of steam and so on, are invoked to indicate the fineness of texture; yet the cloth was of different colours and carried much floral work. Production was generally for local consumption and trade was restricted to rare articles and luxuries, and things like salt which could not be made everywhere.

RELIGIOUS WORSHIP The blending of Aryan and pre-Aryan beliefs and practices was conspicuous in the religious sphere. Vedic sacrifices were performed by kings and chieftains, and the individual Brahmins maintained and regularly worshipped the three fires in their homes. There had already arisen a pantheon of many gods honoured with temples and public worship, Vishnu worshipped with tulasi, Siva with his Nandi as well as in his ardhanari form, Balarama, Krishna and Subrahmanya (Muruga) being the most important deities. Velan-adal, which was a constant feature of Muruga worship, may have been a survival of pre-Aryan Tamil practice. There are few references to Buddhism and Jainism, though their presence in the Tamil country in the period is known otherwise. Tri-dandi (mukkol) ascetics are mentioned. The dead were disposed of both by - 43 -

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burial with or without urns and by cremation. The poems in the Ahananuru refer to the feasting of relatives before a marriage, the bathing of the bride by four women with living husbands and children, the strewing of the marriage pandal with fresh sand, the music of the marriage drum, and the consummation of the marriage, the same night. Nothing is heard of any ritual, and the Tolkappiyam affirms that this was introduced by Brahmins (Ayyar) after some evils had grown up. The indigenous attitude to marriage and sex life in general is to be gathered from such terms as kamakkuttam (the spontaneous meeting of lovers), kalavu (their secret marriage), Karpu (marriage with the knowledge and consent of parents), kaikkilai (unilateral love), and perundinai (improper love in violation of customary rules and conventions as between a youth and a woman much older than himself ). Much ingenuity was spent in later times in fitting these ideas into the frame of the eight forms of marriage known to the Dharmasastra literature in Sanskrit. Despite the lacunae in this picture of social life drawn from casual references in the poems, the general impression left on the mind by this early literature is one of social harmony, general contentment arising from a widespread zest in life and opportunities for enjoying its good things.

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6/7/1958

King Karikala, the most celebrated of the early Chola monarchs, occupies an honoured place in the annals of ancient Tamil polity and culture.

Karikala Chola

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arly Tamil history in the creative period of the culture cherished by the Tamils as their own for well-nigh two millennia revolved round the fortunes of three royal lines – those of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. This triarchic arrangement soon came to be looked upon as divinely ordained and ‘coeval with creation’ as the learned Parimel Alagar affirms. But this belief was no bar to the particular glorification of each of these dynasties in turn by its votaries, a practice which reflected the changing facets of the political situation. Ambition, the attainment of hegemony and the pursuit of glory, was the universally accepted ideal of Indian royalty prescribed by the code, as it was the unavowed and often secret objective of monarchy in past ages everywhere. Rulers of exceptional talent who excelled in the arts of war and peace and possessed of strength of character and breadth of vision often succeeded in winning recognition from their contemporaries and left behind memories of noble deeds cherished by generations of posterity who often embellished them in the bright colours of loving legends. One such remarkable hero was Karikala, perhaps the most celebrated of the early Chola monarchs. The Telugu Cholas, in their several branches which ruled from different centres in the Telugu country, traced their descent from Karikala, included his achievements in their prasastis, and called themselves ‘lords of the noble city of Uraiyur’. Many of the inscriptions of the 10th and 11th centuries of the Cholas of the Vijayalaya line of Tanjore, particularly the copper plate charters, incorporate Karikala and his work in the legendary part of the genealogy of the dynasty. Quite a large number of minor feudatory dynasties of the Telugu country from the 11th to the 14th centuries were proud of connecting themselves with Karikala by claiming to be descended from him in some manner. Even the celebrated Kakatiyas of Warangal were no exception. The historical king Karikala Chola as he is portrayed in con- 45 -

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temporary literature, impressive as his achievements appear to be, is by no means so imperial or ubiquitous as he became in the fanciful imagination of later generations. To trace the growth of the cycle of Karikala legends is one of the fascinating aspects of South Indian history and culture, and though some work has been done in this direction, there is still much room for further study and reflection. Two long poems in the Pattupattu (Ten Idylls) and some pieces in the Aham and Puram collections are all we have of contemporary evidence. From them we learn that Karikala was the son of Illan-jet-chenni of the Many Fine Chariots (Uruvappal-ter). His birth entitled him to the Chola throne, but some jealous relations deprived him of it and kept him imprisoned, so much so that he is said to have resembled a tiger-cub brought up in a cage. But with the wisdom and enterprise of a tusker who digs into the side of the pit in which he has been caught until he makes a way out and joins his female mate, Karikala contrived to overpower the guards of his prison in a tough fight and soon after made himself master of the kingdom. A verse in a later collection, Palamoli, and its commentary imply that in this escape and assertion of his right Karikala had the co-operation of his maternal uncle Pidarttalai. A decisive victory in the battle of Venni, i.e., Kovil-venni near Tanjore is rather well attested by a number of contemporary poems; in this battle Karikala destroyed a confederacy of the Pandya, Chera and some minor chieftains (Velir) against him, and the Chera who was wounded in his back in flight from the field expiated the disgrace by starving himself to death, sword in hand. The Chera’s act is described and commended in a short poem by the ‘Potter woman of Venni’, perhaps an eyewitness. This battle doubtless secured for Karikala the hegemony of the Tamil country for the rest of his life. Another battle at Vakaipparandalai in which the ‘Cowardly’ kings who opposed Karikala ‘abandoned their nine umbrellas in broad daylight’ was necessary to consolidate the position so gained. For the rest, we have only general praise of his valour in war and the devastation of enemy countries in war – mostly in observance of prevailing poetic conventions. The concrete results of his campaigns evidently did not add up to any extensive additions to territory under his direct rule; they are summed up rather modestly in the statements that among his subjects were the many Oliyar, the ancient Aruvalar, the northerners and the westerners and the Pandya, and that the petty chieftains of the shepherd class and of the line of Irungovel were stamped - 46 -

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out by him. He renovated and fortified Uraiyur, the capital city, and the port city of Puhar or Kaveripattanam was a prosperous cosmopolitan entrepot which is described at full length in a long poem, the Pattinappalai, by Uruthirangannanar (Rudraksha) of Kadiyalur. It will be noticed that all this works up to nothing more than a slight expansion of the traditional bounds of the Chola kingdom accompanied by a hegemony that was acknowledged by all the kings and chieftains of the Tamil country.

EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATION The Sangam poets lay particular stress on the efficiency of Karikala’s administration and his singular devotion to the welfare of the people. He reclaimed forest land and extended cultivation by digging tanks and adding to the fertility of the country in other ways; he settled nomadic folk in well-laid-out colonies. His judicial administration is extolled for its impartiality and promptitude. The maritime trade of his country was considerable and the description of the port of Puhar in Pattinappalai mentions the variety of merchandise imported from Ceylon, Malaya and other lands, and the diligence of the customs officials who examined the imports and passed the exports by affixing the tiger seal on each package. He was a follower of the Vedic religion of sacrifice and the Garudaeayana once made for him is particularly mentioned. He was a patron of poets and minstrels and often entertained them to sumptuous repasts of which we have detailed accounts which must be read in the original to be appreciated fully, and are too long for reproduction here. This is about all the history we get from contemporary poems. But the king must have possessed a subtle unrecorded charm that endeared him to all, and his name and fame soon came to be embellished in the rainbow hues of legend. The happiness of the people and the prosperity they enjoyed under him were commemorated by the titles Peruvalattan and Tirumavalavan conferred on him. He came to be looked upon as an incarnation of Vishnu, and a poet imagined that the king would have, like Vishnu, measured the three worlds instead of confining his sway to this world, if only his leg had not been charred by fire. This is the first explanation of the name Karikala that we get; in later times, under increasingly forceful Sanskrit influences, the name was explained as Kala, death, to Kali – the evil age, or to Kari, enemy elephants i.e., either the elephants in enemy forces or enemies who were powerful - 47 -

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like elephants. Was Tondaimandalam included in Karikala’s dominion? It does not seem to have been. The poet of Pattinappalai also wrote the Perumbanarruppadai, a long poem of 500 lines on the glory of Tondaiman Ilandiraiyan who held rule in Kanchipuram. There is no hint of any political relation between Karikala and Ilandiraiyan either in this poem or anywhere else. Still Kanchipuram is full of Karikala mementos and a Chola copper plate of the eleventh century asserts that Karikala renovated Kanchi with a vast expenditure of treasure – Kanchim yascha navi-chakara Kanakaih. The celebrated commentator, Naccinarkkiniyar, connects Ilandiraiyan with the Chola family by identifying Tiraiyan (the wave-man) with the prince born of the liaison between Chola Killivalavan and the Naga maiden Pilivalai who floated the child on the waves of the sea with a twig of the Tondai plant fastened on him as a pre-arranged symbol. These are obviously eponymous legends accounting for the names Tiraiyan and Tondaiman or Tondaimandalam. Yet some modern scholars of the last generation thought that they justified the assumptions that Ilandiraiyan was a grandson of Karikala who ruled Kanchi as his governor, for which there is no support except the other legends which grew in course of time and attributed to Karikala the conquest of an all-India empire. The Silappadikaram marks an important stage in the growth of the Karikala cycle. The poet affirms that Karikala marched up to the Himalayas in search of enemies to overcome and engraved his tiger emblem on the brow of the mountain; on the way back home he received a canopy (of pearls, according to the commentaries) from the king of the Vajra country as a token of his subordination; likewise, a pavilion (pattimandapam) surrendered by the king of Magadha in a battlefield; and an ornamental gateway (torana vayil) given voluntarily by the king of Avanti – all paraphernalia of exceptional workmanship made by Maya, the divine craftsman, on behalf of the ancestors of the respective kings. Again, Karikala is said to have had a ceremonial bath, attended by a great crowd, in the freshets of the Kaveri. Lastly, a daughter of Karikala is said to have brought back to life, by the power of her chastity, her husband, a Chera prince, who had been drowned in the Kaveri; the commentators identify this incident with one in the early Sangam poems in which Karikala is only the eyewitness to the occurrence in which Adi Mandi lost her husband Attan Atti and regained him; here Adi Mandi is no relation of Karikala and Attan Atti is just a dancer like - 48 -

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his wife. How a dancing girl and her husband who afforded entertainment to Karikala become metamorphosed into his daughter and her Chera spouse is one of the mysteries of the Karikala cycle! The commentaries of the great poem, but not the text, suggest that the tragedy of Kovalan and Kannagi was enacted in Karikala’s life time, and that the celebrated hetaera Madhavi of Kaveripattanam, for instance, gave her first performance (arangetral) in the court of Karikala. But this flies in the face of the clear indication in more than one context of the poem itself that Karikala’s reign lay in the past; at what distance of time is not specified. But the two most notable embellishments of the Karikala saga are those that connect him with Ceylon in the south and with the Telugu country in the north through the mythical figure of Pallava Trinetra (Three-eyed). And both these episodes meet in the most celebrated of the legendary achievements of Karikala, viz., the raising of the flood banks of Kaveri. The first mention of this occurs in the Malepadu plates of Punyakumara of the seventh century at the earliest in the phrase: ‘who was the worker of many wonders like that of controlling the daughter of Kavera (i.e. river Kaveri) overflowing her banks’. In the later Telugu epigraphy this is expanded into a jingling Sanskrit formula meaning: who had the banks of the Kaveri made by many kings headed by Trilocana who had his extra-eye (viiocana) destroyed by his (Karikala’s) lotus foot. The three-eyed king who suffered punishment by the blinding of the third eye is identified as Mukari in the Kalingattupparani, Kulottungan Pillaittamil and other works. The Telugu accounts generally adhere to the Trilocana story and also trump up a genealogy in which Karikala Chola becomes the ancestor of several branches of Telugu-Chola and other families; and a certain Tondamana is related to another Karikala as brother, both being the sons of a Mahimana Chola whose relation to Karikala the Great is not explicitly stated, though some authors have surmised that Mahimana was the son and Karikala the father. But all this is not history and of value only as reflecting the beliefs of people in later times. The connection of Karikala with Kanchi and the Telugu country, though oft-repeated in later epigraphy and literature and occasionally supported by monuments to his memory, cannot gain the status of anything more than legend or fiction in the eyes of the critical student. So also the story, unknown to the early Pali chronicles of Ceylon but making its appearance in the much later Rajavali, that - 49 -

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Karikala invaded Ceylon and brought away thousands of its inhabitants as captives whom he compelled to work on raising the floodbanks of the Kaveri; the Rajavali also says that Gajabahu of Ceylon who heard of this from an old woman who had lost her son in this raid of Karikala carried out a counter-invasion of the Chola country inflicting ample retaliation. All this is unworthy of credence, and there is no foundation for the statement made by the late Dr V. A. Smith in his Early History of India that Karikala ‘is represented by the early poets as having invaded Ceylon and carried off thence thousands of coolies to work on the embankments of the Kaveri river, a hundred miles in length, which he constructed’. The bad blood between Tamils and Sinhalese to-day is in part traceable to such false legends being accepted as genuine history. It is not possible or necessary to track all the ramifications of similar legends about the king. But when all the accretion of later legends has been swept off, and attention is centred on the historic figure of the king as it emerges from truly contemporary and eye-witness accounts, we see enough of the great monarch and his work to entitle him to an honoured place in the annals of ancient Tamil polity and culture.

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2/1/1960

Karikala Chola

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mong the many kings and chieftains who flourished in the Tamil country in the Sangam Age, the Chola monarch Karikala attained the greatest celebrity. In later times, he became the centre of many picturesque legends and several ruling princes of numerous dynasties of the Telugu country called themselves scions of the Teluguchola family and were proud of tracing their descent from Karikala, the noble lord of Uraiyur and the controller of the vagaries of the Kaveri river, the builder of the flood banks which regulated the flow of the waters and multiplied their fertilising and life-giving qualities. Fact and fancy are intertwined. Sometimes inextricably, in the life story of the great monarch and the study of Karikala in history and legend is a good exercise in realising how the loving memory of a race envelops the name and form of its heroes in the rainbow hues of legend. Modern criticism easily distinguishes three stages in the growth of Karikala literature. First, we have the strictly contemporary poems of the Sangam Age which provide a factual eye-witness account of the monarch and his deeds, of the economy and trade of his country and its relations with its neighbours. The next stage is found in the idealized account of the Silappadikaram and some stray verses belonging more or less to the same period where Karikala’s figure has already grown to great proportions and his achievements border on the miraculous. The last stage begins some time in A.D. eighth or ninth century. And lasts till the 11th or 12th, and it is at this stage that more legends make their appearance, and we see Karikala as the supreme embodiment of Tamil glory and the ultimate progenitor of many Telugu dynasties of rulers. The name Karikala has been explained in different ways. The earliest we hear of is that as a young prince Karikala got one of his feet charred in a fire accident and was thenceforth known as Karikala, man with a charred leg. Even this sounds euphemistic and one may doubt legitimately whether even if the fire accident was a historical fact, its memory would be so intimately integrated with the name of its subject unless the occasion of the accident was one to be cherished with pride; and we hear of no other name for the - 51 -

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monarch by which he was known before the accident. But an old verse, obviously belonging to the second stage of the growth of the Karikala cycle of legend, accounts for Karikala’s failure to conquer the three worlds and thus emulate Vishnu in his dwarf incarnation by alluding to his physical incapacity due to the charred leg, thereby suggesting that the defect caused by fire was a fact. rather belated explanation of the name is that Karikala’s mother made a charcoal mark on the soles of Karikala’s feet and that by this mark the weight of prince Karikala was so reduced as to enable to royal elephant, let loose in search of the proper claimant to the Chola throne, to lift the child up and carry him on his back from Karur to Uraiyur for the coronation. The late Chola inscriptions of the 11th century explain the name as a Sanskrit compound word meaning death (kala) to the enemy king’s elephants (kari) or to the evils of the Kali Age. The period of Karikala’s rule must be sought towards the end of A.D. second century. His chronology is closely bound up with that of the Sangam, and cannot be put as late as A.D. fourth or fifth century as has sometimes been done. He was the son of Ilanjetchenni, who was well-known for his many beautiful war chariots and who is reputed to have inflicted much suffering on his enemies. As a youth, Karikala was deprived of his birthright and cast into prison by his enemies. The plucky manner in which he effected his escape and occupied the Chola throne is well portrayed by Rudraksha (Ruttirangannanar) of Kadiyalur, the author of Pattinappalai: “Like the tiger cub with its sharp claws and its curved stripes growing strong within the cage, his strength came to maturity like wood in grain while he was in the bondage of his enemies. As the large-trunked elephant tears down the sides of the pit in which it has been caught and effects its escape by filling in the pit and joins its mate, even so after deep and careful consideration, he drew his sword, effected his escape by overpowering the strong guard of his prison, and attained his glorious heritage in due course.” One of the early achievements of Karikala’s reign was his victory in a great battle at Venni (modern Kovil Venni, 15 miles east of Tanjore), in which 11 Velir and kings lost their war drums, and the Pandya and the Chera lost their glory. The Chera opponent was Perunjeral Adan who expiated his being wounded on the back in fight by starving himself to death, sword in hand; a poetess of Venni, friend of Karikala, sings that the starving Chera was no way - 52 -

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inferior to the victorious Chola; she refers to Karikala as the descendant of the king who compelled the winds to obey his behests when he was sailing on the ocean, a significant reference to the maritime power of the Cholas from early times. Another victory won by Karikala was in the battle ofVahaipparandalai (not located) in which nine chieftains lost their umbrellas of State and acknowledged the suzerainty of Karikala. The results of Karikala’s campaigns summed up by the poet of the Pattinappalai do not imply anything more than a sort of hegemony among the crowned kings of the Tamil country accompanied by a slight extension of the territory under his direct rule. The description of Kavirippumpattinam and its foreshore, which takes up much of the long poem, gives a vivid idea of the state of industry and trade, internal and foreign, under Karikala, who also promoted the reclamation and settlement of forest land, and added to the prosperity of the country by multiplying irrigation tanks. That the king was a good liver and enjoyed the fine things of life, including the society of women and children, that he was a liberal patron of the moving bands of minstrels and danseuses, and that he was a follower of Vedic religion and performed sacrifices, are amply borne out by the poems. One grateful poet thus records his exhilarating reception at the hands of the great Chola king: “In his palace beautiful women wearing fine jewels and sweet smiles often poured out and filled the ever-ready goblet of gold with intoxicating liquor, unstinting like the rain; thus, drinking my fill and chasing out my fatigue and my great distress. I felt a new elation. In good time he plied me with the soft-boiled legs of sheep fed on sweet grass, and hot meat, cooked at the point of spits, in large slices which were cooled by being turned in the mouth from one side to the other; when I said I would have no more of these, he kept me on and gave me sweets to eat made in various shapes and of excellent taste. In this wise, entertained by the music of the sweet drum and the well-turned lute of the bright-faced Viralijar, I spent many pleasant days. On occasions, he entreated me to eat food prepared from rice; then I ate fine cooked rice which, with unbroken edges and erect like fingers, resembled the buds of the mullai flower, together with curries sweetened with milk in such quantity that they filled me up to the neck. So, I stayed happily with him, and by eating flesh day and night, the edges of my teeth became blunt like the ploughshare after ploughing dry land. Getting no time to rest, I began to dislike food; and one day I said: O, prosperous king, - 53 -

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expert to collecting tribute from your angry foes, let me go hence, back to my old residence’.” Another poet laments Karikala’s death, recalling his heroism and his performance of Vedic sacrifices, particularly the garuda-chayana, and mentions that his queens shed their jewels and ornaments after the demise of their lord. So far, the Karikala of contemporary poems. With the Silappadikaram we enter the second phase, the early legendary phase, of the biography of Karikala. The epic attributes to him the conquest of the whole of India up to the Himalayas. It gives a glorious account of his northern expedition, and of the present or tribute he received from the kings of Vajra, Magadha and Avanti countries: it must, however, be added that this epic impartially attributes the conquest of the North to the other two Tamil Royal dynasties of the Pandyas and Cheras, and roundly affirms that the brow of the great mountain bore the emblems of the carps (kayal, Pandya) with the tiger (Chola) and the bow (Chera) on either side. The raising of the flood banks of the Kaveri by Karikala is first mentioned in the Malepadu plates of Punyakumara, a Telugu Choda king of A.D. seventh or eighth century. Nothing can be more typical of the manner in which legends grow than the way in which this story mingles with another stream of legend centring round Trinetra Pallava, and culminates in the celebrated and oft-repeated jingle of the late Telugu Choda copper plates: Char ana saroruha vihata vilochana pallava trilochana pramukha akhila prithivisvara karita Kaveri-tira; it is surprising how this double-dyed legend has been made the basis of conclusions of the highest importance to the chronology of early south Indian history. The choice of Karikala to the Chola throne by the device of a state elephant being let loose for the purpose from Kalumalam and the elephant discovering him at Karur whence it convened him to Uraiyur is another late story that has no support from earlier sources. So too the ideas that Karikala conquered Kanchipuram and Tondaimandalam and settled agrarian colonies in that area appear to be late inventions. From contemporary poems it is clear that Tondaimandalam was ruled at the time by Tondaiman Ilandiraiyan who is belauded by the same poet that wrote the eulogium of Karikala in the Pattinappalai: the suggestions of modern writers that Ilandiraiyan was a viceroy of Karikala or that he was his grandson derive no support from the poems and are no more than wishful fancies of scholars who want to discover a basis for - 54 -

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Karikala’s connection with Telugu families, which is indeed as yet one of the unsolved mysteries of South Indian history. With such a wild growth of legend, it is no wonder that the details of Karikala’s personal life have almost totally disappeared from view. The celebrated medieval commentator Nachchinarkkiniyar, however, records an apparently valid and precious tradition that Karikala married a Velir girl from Nangur, and Nangur is not only celebrated in the hymns of Tirumangai Alwar for the heroism of its warriors, but provided soldiers for the senamukham (cantonment) at Takuapa in the opposite coast of the Bay of Bengal in the reign of Nandi Varman III Pallava. More open to doubt is the story of Karikala’s daughter Adi Mandi which appears in its full-fledged form first in the Silappadikaram. According to this account, she lost her husband Attan Atti, a Chera prince, who was drowned in the Kaveri, but then she recalled him to life by the power of her chastity - a story which forms part of a eulogium on the power of the chastity of women which includes six other similar cases. Earlier poems, however, record facts of a different nature which seem, however, to furnish the basis of the story in its final form. We hear of an Atti whose clothing and ornaments were carried away while he was bathing in the Kaveri before the eyes of Karikala in the fort of Kazhar: elsewhere Attan Atti is himself said to have been carried away. When Marudi, the friend of his wife Adi Mandi, entered the sea to rescue him but was also drowned: there is also a lament of Adi Mandi for Attan Atti and description of her quest for him. There are other references also in one of which Atti is described as a dancer. There is a song of Adi Mandi herself in the Kurundogai in which she describes both herself and her husband as dancers. The late Dr V. Swaminatha Aiyar rightly observed that all these references are to one and the same incident; but how a dancing girl and her husband, who afforded entertainment to Karikala, became metamorphosed into his daughter and her Chera spouse is much more than history as such can explain!

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2/11/1958

In ancient times, the Tamil country was bordered on three sides by sea and the Tamils developed their sea-faring instincts. The author here gives an account of the maritime tradition of the Tamils.

Sea power in Tamil history

T

hat the ancient Tamils were great traders is borne out by many sources. Literary convention has always recognized the quest of wealth in trade as a common ground for the separation of a youth from his beloved fiancé. An old adage contains the exhortation to seek wealth even by crossing the waving seas – tirai kadal odiyum tiraviyam tedu. Indeed, in ancient times the Tamil country which included Kerala also – the linguistic separation of Kerala came much later – was bounded by sea on three sides, and it was most natural for the people to develop their sea-faring instincts. In the early years of 20th century, Hornell carried out a close study of boat-designs prevalent in the different parts of the Indian Ocean, particularly boats provided with single or double outriggers, and came to the conclusion that these common designs showed clear signs of maritime intercourse among all the lands on the littoral of the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to South Africa, and that India occupying a central position in this belt had a full share in this development. This conclusion is confirmed by the similarity of objects like beads of stone and crude glass found at prehistoric levels in the excavations of South India and the Philippines. Rice, peacocks and sandalwood were imported into Babylon from South India before the fifth century B.C. and carried their Tamil names into the languages of Western Asia. A system of inscribed coinage based on a Babylonian standard was in vogue in Southern China in the seventh century B.C., and sea trade between Babylon and China necessarily includes India within its orbit. We leave the region of inference and conjecture and reach certainty with the clear account of the trade and shipping of the South given in the anonymous little book, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. The author was a Graeco-Roman merchant of the second half of A.D. first century who must have travelled frequently between - 56 -

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the Mediterranean and South India. He mentions the great quantity of pepper exported from Malabar, and the large quantities of fine pearls, ivory, and transparent stones of all kinds, principally beryls (vaidurya) of the Coimbatore district for which there was a constant demand in Rome; the products of South-East Asia such as tortoise shell from Malaysia which reached South India to be traded for gold with the Roman merchants. He names the ports of South India both on the western and eastern coasts, and notes that the inland city of Uraiyur (Argaru) was the great mart for fine pearls and muslins called Argaritic. Above all, he says that there were three types of craft used on the east coast: ships of the country coasting along the shore, other large vessels made of single logs bound together, called Sangara, the Changadam of Malabar, and lastly those very large ships which were called Colandia and which made the voyages to Chryse i.e. Malaysia and to the Ganges. This was, in fact, the period when large ships began to be built in South India, modelled on the ships of the Persian Gulf, and these ships contributed greatly to tangible increase in the migration of Indians to the colonies in Malaysia and Indo-China. The Tamil poems of the time confirm all this and speak of large ships sailing straight without slacking sail from the Bay of Bengal up the river Kaveri at Puhar or Kaveripattinam, of the import of much merchandise into that port city, including the rich produce of Kalagam i.e. Kadaram or Kedah in Malaya and foodstuffs from Ceylon; of groups of Yavanas settled as traders in the emporia on the coasts and of Yavana guards serving in royal palaces or guarding the streets of Tamil cities at night. The Chera kings of the time are credited with naval victories both against the pirates who infested the coast and against Yavanas who infringed the trade regulations or gave other offence to the monarchs. We may note in passing that the contemporary Satavahana or Andhra kings of the Deccan were also mindful of their naval power and their subjects took a considerable part in the movement of colonization of the eastern lands; their coins marked by a double-mast ship have been found as far south as Cuddalore, and in later times the North Indian prose writer Bana described them as ‘lords of the three seas’.

PALLAVAS’ CONTACT WITH S.E. ASIAN COUNTRIES The Pallavas and the Pandyas continued the maritime tradition of the earlier epoch. They maintained a constant intercourse, generally peaceful and occasionally warlike, with the neighbouring is- 57 -

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land of Ceylon. Jaffna and the northern half of Ceylon became well developed Tamil colonies. Some Saiva shrines of Ceylon evoked hymns from the saints of the Pallava period, and Buddhism furnished many occasions of exchanges both before and after that period. The politics of the South Indian states and Ceylon became rather closely intertwined on occasions during these centuries, but this is not the place to unravel the details of these transactions. The Pallavas are known to have cultivated diplomatic relations with China and the court historians of the Celestial Empire record details bearing on at least two missions from the Pallava rulers of A.D. eighth century. Students of South-East Asian history are now agreed in recognizing strong streams of artistic and cultural influences flowing from South India and influencing the art and literature, the epigraphy, sculpture and architecture of the contemporary states in Indonesia and Indo-China. There is a Tamil inscription of A.D. ninth century. Discovered at Takua-pa on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula which provides a peep-hole into a forgotten chapter of Pallava history. Near the find spot of the inscription was a sculpture of incontestably South Indian make of highly ornate images of Vishnu and his two consorts. The inscription itself mentions a Vishnu temple, which doubtless enshrined the images just mentioned, and a tank before it named Avani-nararanam and places both under the protection of the manigiamam and the sena mukham of the place; the former is doubtless the famous merchant guild of South India which had a long and continuous history and commanded an international status, maintaining an army of its own for the protection of its trade and enjoying privileges found recorded in a number of inscriptions through the centuries; the latter was probably a contingent of royal troops stationed in the local cantonment. As Avani-Narayana was a title of Pallava Nandivarman III (c A.D. 850), there can be no doubt that the inscription is a record of his reign bearing witness to his overseas possessions of which we hear little from other sources. Tamil maritime power attained its meridian under the Chola thalassocracy which converted the Bay of Bengal into a virtual Chola lake and made itself felt far outside in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific littoral. While at first, the Cholas of the Vijayalaya line were content to follow the traditional policy of just keeping up their contacts, economic and political, with Ceylon, it was left for Rajaraja I (A.D. 985-1014) to inaugurate a bolder policy, which was rendered both possible and necessary by his success - 58 -

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in the political unification of South India. The increased strength of the Chola navy and the wider sweep of his policy are seen first in the conquest of the Maldives, described as the “Numerous old islands numbering 12,000” and perhaps also the Laccadives – conquests possibly necessitated by their having harbourhood nests of pirates inimical to the increasing trade of the Chola empire and likely to disturb the peace of its coastal cities. At the same time, there was another considerable naval power flourishing in Indonesia, that of the empire of the Sailendras which had two foci in Palembang (Sri Vijaya) and Kedah (Kadaram). This power seems to have maintained friendly relations in Rajaraja’s reign. With the permission of Rajaraja, Mara Vijayottunga Varman, the Sailendra ruler of Srivijaya, built the Chudamani Vihara named after his father at Negapatam, and Rajaraja himself made large endowments to the Vihara recorded in the large Leyden Grant. But early in the reign of Rajaraja’s son and successor, Rajendra I, the relations worsened; perhaps Sri Vijaya, which flourished on the control of the trade routes from India to China, imposed restraints on the Chola traders which were not only irksome but out of keeping with the prestige of the Chola empire to tolerate. Rajendra sent a big naval expedition about A.D. 1025, comprising many ships which crossed the ‘waving ocean’, and took the Sailendra King captive after sacking Kadaram and SriVijaya and many other places. The Nicobars were conquered perhaps on the return. There was thenceforth no one to question the naval supremacy of the Cholas which remained intact for well over a century and a half. One of the successors of Rajendra, by name Virarajendra, found occasion to intercede in the affairs of Sri Vijaya in the next generation and regulate them in the interests of a prince who had come to the Chola capital to seek his aid. The Chola mariners attained great skill and fame in this period, and in later times their opinions expressed in treatises on navigation were quoted with approval by their Arab successors in the 15th and 16th centuries. Though the empire of Vijayanagar seems at first to have made some attempt to continue the maritime activity of the Chola and at least one mission to China from Bukka I is recorded in A.D. 1374, and the empire included Ceylon and Tennaserim for some time in the 15th century, still neither this empire in its decline nor even the combined naval strength of the West Indian States and Egypt proved equal to meeting the new challenge from the Portuguese and other European nations. - 59 -

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24/1/1960

Active research is required to extend the bounds of our scientific knowledge of South Indian history, says the writer.

Study of South Indian history

V

ery little was known to the general public of the ancient history of India till the publication in 1904 of the first edition of the Early History of India by V. A. Smith. That book reached its fourth edition in the next 20 years and still retains its value both to the general reader and to the scholar, who finds a good starting point for research into many unsettled questions in its beautifully arranged bibliographical notes. On that edition, says Professor Basham of the London School of Oriental and African Studies, has been ‘largely based the more condensed treatment of the subject’ in the recently published third edition of the Oxford History of India, though indeed much new material has also been used. Both in the Early History and in the Oxford History Smith gave most of his attention to the history of Northern India, and treated the history of the Deccan and the Far South in a summary and relatively cursory manner. He gave his reasons for the course he adopted. One of them was that the wide snow-fed water ways of Hindustan or Aryavarta (to give its old name) and its fertile plains with their teeming population attracted martial invaders from outside and gave frequent occasions for the formation and dissolution of powerful kingdoms. Peninsular India, on the other hand, was isolated from the rest of the world by its position; its contact with other countries was only by seaborne commerce, and. it has generally pursued its own course little noticed by foreigners and caring little for them. Therefore, he concluded, ‘the historian of India is bound by the nature of things to direct his attention primarily to the north and is able to give only a secondary place to the story of the Deccan plateau and the far south’. Another reason that weighed with Smith was that the northern record was more detailed and commenced much earlier than the southern. “Very little is known definitely,” he said, “concerning the southern kingdoms before A.D. 600, whereas the history of Hindustan may be carried back 12 centuries earlier. The - 63 -

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extreme deficiency of really ancient records concerning the peninsula leaves an immense gap in the history of India which cannot be filled.” For ‘A.D. 600’ in this sentence the new edition substitutes the beginning of the Christian era’; this is virtually the only recognition that the study of South Indian history is not now in the same position as at the beginning of the century, but somewhat in a better condition for the rest of it, the text of the chapters in Part 1 of the Oxford History have been retained more or less as Smith wrote them. The important place held by South India, particularly the large section of it where the Dravidian languages are spoken, and the contributions it has made to the formation of Indian culture in its various aspects, were not unknown even when their detailed treatment was put off for the reasons set forth by Smith as stated above and for other reasons. One of the most potent among the latter has been the relative scarcity of European studies in the Dravidian languages and literatures. Tamil, the oldest of them, has also proved the most difficult from this point of view. Caldwell’s Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages was a fair start for the time it was written in the mid-19th century, but has not been followed up in the manner in which the work of Bopp and the Grimm has been in the domain of Indo-European philology. The University of Madras with fairly long-established departments of research in all the Dravidian languages has, strangely enough, found satisfaction in reprinting the antiquated work of Caldwell just three years ago! In the domain of lexicography too, the other Dravidian languages have been better served than Tamil, for Rottler and Winslow are not a patch on Gundert, Kittel and Brown; the Tamil Lexicon in retrospect looks almost like a good opportunity heedlessly thrown away: which, in the view of the present writer, who has some knowledge of the conditions in which the work was carried out, furnishes a rather lurid commentary on the conditions of research in our country. In the field of epigraphy, Kannada was well served by Rice in the stupendous, though in many ways imperfect, compilation of Epigraphia Carnatica, and much better by J. F. Fleet in his classic editions of inscriptions in the Indian Antiquary and elsewhere. In Tamil, on the other hand, Hultzsch was able to publish only a small number of inscriptions in the first three volumes of the South Indian Inscriptions; even here a good part of volumes II and III was completed after he had left the field, and his elaborate method of commentary and trans- 64 -

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lation was abandoned summarily in the subsequent volumes of the series which give only the texts, with very inadequate summaries in English from volume nine onwards. Such are the handicaps that have hindered progress in the study of the history and culture of the South in the past and still continue to do so though perhaps not to the same degree.

IMPORTANCE OF SOUTH INDIA Smith himself made the pertinent observation that most historians of ancient India have written hitherto as if the South did not exist. Yet he as well as others did not omit to notice that the culture of India owes a great deal to her pre-Aryan inhabitants and that pre-Aryan customs and institutions still survive in some strength only in the south where they can be studied with greater chances of success than elsewhere in India. In fact, the late Professor Sundaram Pillai said: “The scientific historian of India ought to begin his study with the basin of the Krishna, of the Kaveri, of the Vaigai, rather than with the Gangetic plain, as has been now long, too long, the fashion”. This cannot, however, yet be done. It is indeed doubtful if it will ever become possible to undertake such a revolutionary, though beyond doubt, logical treatment of the subject. The historians are by no means unwilling to recognize the influence of pre-Aryan elements on the formation and growth of Indian culture; rather, now the danger with some scholars at least is that they swing too much to the opposite side. There is a very real difficulty in the way of following Mr. Sundaram Pillai’s suggestion which he himself recognized. After affirming that India south of the Vindhyas was India proper, where the bulk of the people still continue distinctly to retain their pre-Aryan features, languages and social institutions, he hastened to add: “Even here the process of Aryanization has gone indeed too far to leave it easy for the historian to distinguish the native warp from the foreign woof. But if there is anywhere any chance of such successful disentanglement, it is in the south and the farther south we go the larger does the chance grow.” What I have said so far shows clearly the need for active research to extend the bounds of our scientific knowledge of the South Indian people and their culture and the vast scope for work open to the scholars of the universities in the region. At the same time, it must be said that the isolation of South India and the lack of early source material for its history have both been much ex- 65 -

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aggerated in the attempts to rationalize the neglect of its study. A region which has been one of the oldest of human habitats and has through the long centuries striven successfully to maintain its identity and the continuity of its traditions cannot altogether be devoid of significant mementos of its endeavours. And indeed, this is not so. It will be my purpose in the succeeding contributions in this series to identify and set forth as clearly and simply as possible the contributions made by South India to different aspects of Indian culture and civilization so far as this can be done under the limitations arising from the present position of our studies.

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21/2/1960

To determine the age of an ancient civilisation is difficult and human propensity is to claim the longest possible antiquity.

Beginnings of South Indian civilisation

Q

uestions about origins of things are easy to ask, but difficult to answer. Still, it is perfectly natural for the human mind to persist in its curiosity about how it all began. The question now before us is when and how did civilisation and culture begin in South India? No simple or direct answer is possible, but there are open to us different approaches of an indirect nature that may indicate possibilities and even show the way to inferring the probable course of things. Obviously, we are concerned with the remote past, long before the time when anything was written and recorded, with pre-history as it is called. The problem may be tackled along two lines – that of tradition and literature embodying the traditions, and that of studying the material relics of the past with the aid of scientific methods developed by modern archaeology. The second line of approach is a new discipline still in the early stages of its growth and much still remains to be done by way of exploration and excavation before firm and definitive conclusions can be formulated. But its impact on the older method which depended largely on literature, traditions, and linguistic analysis is already seen to be considerable and the task of reconciling and synthesising the results of the two different approaches will take some time and effort. ‘It must be obvious’, says a close student of the subject who knows what he is talking about, ‘that the difficulty of reconciling in any reasonable way the archaeological facts with the culture setting visualised by legends and tradition, even allowing for the disappearance of many perishable objects, is quite insuperable’. All of us have a natural propensity to claim the highest possible antiquity for our own civilisation and culture, and we are apt to prefer data which favour such a view and overlook or underrate the rest of the evidence. This tendency to a partial interpretation - 67 -

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of evidence should be resisted if we must have a reasonable chance of getting to know as nearly as possible what actually happened. I recall a short conversation I had some years ago with an eminent statesman and writer of our country to whom I ventured to present one of my books. He turned cursorily over its pages and came across the statement that the Rig Veda may be dated about 2000 B.C.; he read it out to me and asked why 2000, why not 20000? After a second’s thought, I said ‘Just lack of courage!’. ‘What does it mean?’; “Just inability to ignore the evidence of archaeology Indian, Asian and European” and I added that most of the data, literary and archaeological, were found collected together in works like Schrader’s Real Encyclopaedia of Indo-Germanic Archaeology. In fact, a recent appraisal of evidence since collected in different lands has led one scholar. Dr Heine-Geldern, to place the Aryan advent into India, and ipso facto the date of the Rig Veda, nearer 1000 B.C. than 2000 B.C. Parimel Alagar, the celebrated mediaeval commentator on the Kural, records casually his belief that the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas were examples of dynasties of immemorial antiquity dating from the creation of the world. In the Silappadikaram (canto 11) we read that the ocean swallowed up some territory including the Pahruli river and several mountain ranges that lay to the south of the present Cape Comorin and belonged to the Pandya, and that the Pandyan king compensated himself for the loss by the conquest of the Ganges and the Himalayas in the North. This is obviously rhetoric and not history. But the fact of some land disappearing in the sea is mentioned also in Nakkirar’s commentary on the Kalaviyal whether that author records the tradition independently or just reproduces the Silappadikaram. Adiyarkkunallar, the commentator on that poem, adds some details of his own saying that the extent of territory lost in the sea included 49 nodus, and some mountains, rivers and towns; he does not mention the source of his information. This tradition has led some to relate it to the geologists’ postulate of Lemuria without any regard for the enormous difference between the geological scale and that of human history in chronology. The commentary on the Kalaviyal just mentioned also gives an account of the Three Tamil Sangams which lasted all together for a period of 9,990 years and counted 8,598 poets, including a few Saivite Gods as their members, and 197 Pandyan kings as their patrons. The commentary professes to be handed down through generations as Nakkirar made it, but - 68 -

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quotes profusely from Sangam works in their present form and refers to events that cannot be placed earlier than A.D. seventh and eighth centuries as seen from more or less contemporary Pandyan charters and inscriptions. How far such late works can be accepted as authentic for events said to have taken place thousands of years before their time is a question that each one must ask and answer for himself. There is another line of tradition conserved in Sanskrit sources which are better known to the world of international scholarship and have been the subject of numerous critical studies. Even here literary chronology is very unsettled especially with regard to the epics and puranas which are drawn upon too freely by some would-be historians. The Ramayana in particular has often been interpreted as a chapter in the Aryanisation of India recording the Aryan penetration of the South, and the Monkeys and Ogres (vanaras and rakshasas) who inhabit the south according to that epic have been regarded as more or less distorted representations of the pre-Aryan inhabitants of the South. It may be mentioned, however, that earnest scholars who have sought to locate Lanka, the abode of Ravana, on the basis of data gathered from the epic have come to very different conclusions, one locating it near the Vindhyas, another in Ceylon, and yet others in the heart of the Indian Ocean in Malaya and elsewhere. One of the keenest among them said, perhaps in despair, that the location of Lanka must be sought not on the map of the world but in the mind of Valmiki. It must also be remembered that not only are many versions of the story known in India, in one version that has been somewhat popular on the stage Sita becomes the daughter of Ravana, but there are as many versions of the Rama saga as races and countries that handled it in Central Asia, Indonesia, and Indo-China. Beautiful as poetry, ennobling as the religious record of an avatar, this great national epic is not history, except in the mode and extent of its influence on the life and conduct of people. But there are not wanting other and more relevant legends like those centring round Agastya which are also known to Tamil literature and epigraphy. Then there is the progressive expansion of the geographical outlook in the Vedic literature in the various stages of its growth, and in the Dharmasutras and Smritis, particularly that of Manu. From the study of such data, which are too many and too complicated for reproduction here, the late Sir R. G. Bhandarkar expressed the view that the Aryan advent to the - 69 -

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south of the Vindhyas must be placed after the seventh century B.C., the date he assigned to Panini who did not know any country south of Kalinga; and by the fourth century B.C., about the time of the establishment of the Mauryan empire, the whole country had become one in its civilisation and culture. A very highly evolved and complex material culture and a high level of prosperity have often been postulated by the students of the epics and puranas for northern India and by patriotic Tamils for their ancient pre-Aryan civilisation. The evidence of recent archaeological studies runs directly counter to such notions. There is no trace of the resplendent palaces described in the epics, and the standard of life in the Copper Age in which the great kings and warriors of the Puranic Age have to find a place must have been rather low. “Such an interpretation”, states one of the ablest of modern Indian archaeologists, “of the Puranas in the light of archaeological data would without doubt shock many of us, as it runs counter to our cherished dreams of the Puranic Age”. And with regard to South India, another equally competent archaeologist has observed that in the south of Salem and south of the Kaveri river we have found as yet little evidence of anything more than a primitive hunting economy till very late in the pre-historic period. These observations bring us to the threshold of the other line of enquiry which we shall pursue in a little detail in the next article.

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13/3/1960

The following is the second article in the series “The Beginnings of civilisation in South India.’’ The first article appeared in the issue dated February 21, 1960.

Pre-history of peninsular India

P

eninsular India has been recognised as one of the oldest sites of human habitation, but in the prehistoric period it seems to have more or less stagnated over very long periods without achieving any notable cultural progress. In any event, the influences that flowed into India from the ancient civilisations of Western Asia – Sumer, Akkad, Elam and Iran, and the peoples that carried them, whether they were peaceful peasant agriculturists, civilised urban folk like the Harappans, or the war bands of quasi-nomadic Aryans, spent the force of their eastward expansion long before its impact could be felt eyen in the northern fringes of peninsular India. While the cultural patterns of the North underwent several revolutionary alterations, India south of the Narmada did not experience any such extensive changes in its Stone Age cultures. It has been claimed that the fairly advanced stone and copper age urban culture of the Indus Valley, the Harappan culture as archaeologists call it was the creation of proto Dravidians, i.e., people whose later representatives moved South ‘falling back step by step before the conquering Aryans’ and raised the Dravidian (Tamil) civilisation of history. But this seems to be altogether a wrong picture of the developments. The Harappan civilisation is clearly seen to have much closer connection with the cultures of an inter-related group extending from the eastern Mediterranean basin to the Northwest of India, than with any known cultures in the interior of India. Moreover, as Gordon rightly points out: “If the Harappans were the early Dravidians then a culture basically of that type should have been widespread all over the considerable Dravidian domain, or at least there should be very extensive and significant Harappan elements in the ancient culture of South India, the result of the southern migration of that people. There - 71 -

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is not the slightest evidence for either of these alternatives.” The civilisation of the Harappans practically died on the spot of its origination and was not transplanted to flourish again elsewhere. Excavation in a number of places in the Deccan and South India go to show that after many thousands of years of the early Stone Age, say from 300,000 to seven or eight thousand years B.C. or a little later, a new culture still using stone tools developed; in this period the tools were fabricated of small stone pieces known for that reason as microliths, and the communities that used such tools were no longer solely dependent on food-gathering and hunting, but became more settled and practised some form of agriculture. There appears to have been a clear transition in the microlithic period from a hunting food gathering economy to a herding food producing one, in which pigs and goats were domesticated and small-scale cultivation with the aid of digging sticks may have been practised as may be inferred from the find of a quern and pestle at a site which showed no trace of any pottery. Microliths continued to be in use even after pottery, hand-made at first, and then wheel-thrown, came into use together with much larger, better finished polished stone implements in what is called the Neolithic, ‘new stone’, period. Dates are conjectural, and one plausible estimate reads: ‘It is doubtful whether any of the pottery found associated with microliths south-east of a line drawn from Delhi to the mouth of the Narmada can be dated earlier than 2000 B.C. at the very earliest and most of it is very much later, and in the case of recently discovered Neolithic plain and painted wares, datable to some part of the 1st millennium B.C.’ The stone tools found in different sites include axes, chisels, picks and hammerstones. The rock paintings and engravings found in Bellary, Raichur and elsewhere show that the Neolithic settlers domesticated the long-horned cattle; they also depict cattle and other animals, hunting scenes and human groups engaged in diverse activities. Metal finds continue to be rare, only spare finds of copper being known; in fact, the copper finds are so few that the propriety of applying the term chalcolithic (copper-stone) to this culture has been called in question. This essentially Neolithic culture is believed to have persisted well into the first millennium B.C. Then there was a sudden change in the cultural milieu and we come upon an era throughout South India from Nagpur to Cape Comorin in which we find people settled in towns and villages making free use of iron and of a new kind - 72 -

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of pottery; this pottery is a red-black ware, generally burnished before firing with a smooth pebble or a bone tool, and then fired face down in reducing conditions which impart the black colour to the pot except to its base which is outermost and gets a red colour owing to its access to plenty of air. This style of pottery which comprises a complex of many shapes and sizes goes hand in hand with iron objects and megalithic tombs with a porthole slab. In fact, some regard this red and black ware as the constant of this culture which occurs with all types of burial in the whole region south of Secunderabad. The megalithic tombs themselves are of many shapes and kinds, some having two or three chambers; there are also rock cut tombs of similar style hewn out of laterite, and burials in pyriform urns and large pottery sarcophagi with or without legs. Iron-shafted tridents formed part of the grave goods in the urn fields at Adichanallur in a megalithic cist at Raigir (Hyderabad) and in a rock cut tomb in Malabar. A pottery sarcophagus was found in a porthole megalithic cist in South Arcot. At Adichanallur there were also bronze objects including cocks and thin gold ornaments variously described as diadems or mouth pieces. These megalithic settlements are generally found in the neighbourhood of good water sources and arable land, and the suggestion has been put forward that these folk were the introducers of paddy cultivation with artificial irrigation into South India. Some scholars are inclined to treat the whole of this development as one culture complex and attach little importance to differences in the mode of disposing the dead which according to early Tamil literature and even according to the relatively late Manimekalai, continued to be practised simultaneously for quite a long period. Others hold that a more patient and careful analysis and more excavations may reveal a number of different though allied cultures.

A VEXED PROBLEM We lack the means at present of identifying the racial and linguistic traits of either the Neolithic people or the megalithic folk who brought iron and perhaps also irrigated rice culture with them. Haimendorf has noted that as the area of megalithic burials coincides with the area of Dravidian speech, the megalith builders may have been Dravidians who imposed their own language on their Neolithic predecessors whom they subjugated. The problem of the original home and movements of Dravidians is indeed quite as vexed as that of the Aryans. We have considered and re- 73 -

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jected the hypothesis that the Harappans were proto-Dravidians. The chronology of the Megalithic culture is now determined on data from the recent excavations at Brahmagiri, Arikumedu and Maski and the beginnings of this culture in South India are placed somewhere in the fourth century B.C. though some scholars are inclined to assign it to a period some two or three centuries earlier. Wheeler’s suggestion that the downfall of the Mauryan Empire after the death of Asoka furnished the context for this cultural revolution seems to put too heavy a burden on the tenuous evidence from the sites named. The discovery of Satavahana finds at the megalithic level in some places cannot serve as proof that that culture began in the Satavahana period. There are distant analogues, distant in space and in time, to the megaliths of South India in W. Asia and E. Mediterranean, and there is also some philological evidence, which all together may suggest a Dravidian immigration from the west by sea – an immigration that perhaps occurred more or less simultaneously with the Aryan advent in the North. But this idea deserves to be explored further before it can find general acceptance.One possible objection to this view has been well expressed by A. L. Basham: ‘Numerous words in the Rig Veda are not connected with any known Indo-European roots, and were evidently borrowed from the natives’. Gordon comments on this: ‘It has never been suggested that such words are Dravidian’. This, I am afraid, is not correct. Several writers have made the suggestion and assumed that at one time Dravidians occupied the whole sub-continent. But this view is turning out more and more to be a hasty generalisation on insufficient data, and here the further observations of Gordon are quite to the point. He says: “The most northerly Dravidian types of speech such as Gondi, Khondi and Kolami are those of people whose traditions indicate ancestral connections with the South, and in many cases the Dravidian language superseded an earlier Mundari tongue, in the same way as it is itself in those same parts giving way to an increasing use of Hindi.” The argument of these two articles will be seen tentatively to point to the conclusion that the Aryan occupation of North India and the Dravidian advent in the South were parallel movements which occurred in the second half of the second millennium and first half of the first millennium B.C. and that the first encounter of the Aryans with the Dravidians must have taken place in the Deccan about the time suggested by Dr R. G. Bhandarkar, i.e., about the seventh century B.C. or a little later. - 74 -

19/6/1960

The maritime history of South India dates far back and the flourishing trade which this part of the sub-continent had with the countries in the Near East and in the Persian Gulf area attests to the advance which it had registered in commercial undertakings.

South India and the sea

T

he isolation of India was a favourite theme with the historians of India in the 19th century and the early years of the 20th; they laid stress on the mountain barrier and the sea moat, and seemed to think that India was a sealed sub-continent except for invaders from the north-west in ancient times, and the European traders and colonial powers in the modern age. It is only in the last two or three decades that scholars have come to realize what should have been obvious from the first, viz., that India’s situation in the centre of the Indian Ocean gave her exceptional facilities for maritime contacts with the lands lying both to the east and west of her on the littoral of the Indian Ocean. In 1918, the great French Indologist Sylvain Levi wrote of ‘the regime of currents and that of periodical winds which govern navigation and have maintained from very ancient times a system of exchanges in which the African coast, Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India, Indo-China and China at her back, have contributed and received each its share.’ About the same time, Mr. Hornell of the Fisheries Department, carried out an interesting investigation on boat designs in the Indian Ocean and pointed out the striking similarity in boat designs between the east coast of South India, portions of the Indian archipelago and the island of Madagascar, evidence of mutual intercourse among the regions. The beginnings of this intercourse lay far back in antiquity and were probably prehistoric. In favour of Hornell’s conclusions from boat designs one could cite the prevalence of Polynesian race-types in the coastal regions and the interior of Tinnevelly. Arab geographers of A.D. 10th century and later testified that people in Madagascar, in Java and other islands of the Indian Archipelago could understand one another without difficulty. The Satavahanas, who ruled the Deccan in the - 75 -

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four or five centuries after the downfall of the Mauryan empire in the second century B.C., developed a genuine interest in seafaring and colonisation, particularly of the eastern lands, and their coins showing a fair sized two masted ship which resembles the ship depicted in a famous frieze from Boro Budur in Java have been found as far south as Cuddalore. Other coins of a similar fabric more or less contemporary and belonging possibly to the Pallavas have also been found. The memory of the maritime power of the Satavahanas survived long after the period of their rule and in A.D. seventh century, more than four centuries after their time, the Sanskrit author Bana of Northern India speaks of them as the Lords of the three oceans, trisamudradhipati. Tirai-Kadal-Odiyum Tiraviyam Tedu - Seek wealth even by crossing the waving sea, is an old Tamil adage, and early Tamil literature contains many significant references to the maritime trade and foreign contacts of the Tamil country in the early centuries of the Christian era. But these contacts must have had their beginnings much earlier, as it seems, though scholars have differed in the interpretation of Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Biblical evidence on the subject. Professor A. H. Sayee thought there was ground to believe that cotton cloth was exported from India to the head of the Persian Gulf in the fourth millennium B.C. and that thence it found its way to Egypt. He based himself on the word Sindhu for muslin mentioned in an ancient Babylonian list of clothing, and related it to sadin of the Old Testament and sindon of the Greeks. But the evidence cited cannot support such high antiquity, and more recent archaeological evidence precludes the acceptance of such dates even after moderation for the maritime trade of South India, though possibly they may apply to the civilisation of the Indus Valley, Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Mr. Kennedy has very plausibly argued that the beginning of regular sea -trade between Southern India and the West could not be dated much before the beginning of the seventh century B.C. and ascribed all such trade to the activities of Nabonidus in whose time ships were known to have come to Babylon from India and even from China. Following this reign, he thinks sea-trade between India and Babylon flourished for a couple of centuries; it was mainly Dravidian and led to the settlement of Indian traders in Arabia, East Africa, Babylonia and China. Kennedy passes over the numerous references in the Hebrew books of The Bible as probably due to the revision by Ezra (5th century B.C.); but substantially the same articles are described in - 76 -

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the records of Egypt at corresponding dates centuries before Ezra’s day and they indicate a trade in articles of Indian origin to the Somali coast and overland to the Nile. Such trade, however, was not carried on by one continuous trading journey as in modern times, for primitive trade passed from tribe to tribe and port to port; the real sources of commodities often remained a closely guarded secret, and prices swelled on account of many payments exacted by intermediaries. It is, however, probable that long before the Greek pilot Hippaulus “discovered” the monsoon in the middle of A.D. first century, Arabian and Dravidian sailors had known and made use of the periodic changes of the monsoons, by far the most notable feature of the climate of the Indian Ocean area. The evidence of both countries indicates that they steered boldly out of sight of land, before records were written to tell of it. The merit of Hippalus’s achievement lay not in his discovery of something unknown before, but in freeing the Roman Empire from the Arabian monopoly of the Eastern trade by tracing it to its source. Beyond India no lasting discovery was made. Even in India the author of The Periplus (c. A.D. 65) did not know Ceylon and the east coast as well as he did the Malabar coast; Ptolemy (c. A.D. 150) indeed knew of Cattigara (South East China) through the account given by Marinu’s of Tyre, but such voyages were exceptional; the majority of the Chinese ships stopped at Malacca while the trade to Malabar was carried in Malay and Tamil ships. “It remained for the Arabs to complete the ‘through line’ by opening direct communication under the Baghdad Caliphate, between the ends of the earth, Lisbon and Canton” (Schoff ). Of the overseas trade of the Tamils in the Sangam Age, the Tamil poems, classical authors and archaeological finds in South India and Indo-China – all speak with one voice. The great port cities of the Tamil country were the emporia where foreign traders enjoyed certain definite rights and privileges. Big ships, we learn, entered the port of Puhar (now represented by the little deserted village of Kaveripatnam at the mouth of the Kaveri river, the Khaberis of the Greek writers) without slacking sail and poured out on the beach precious merchandise of all sorts from overseas. Mixing up exports and imports without distinction, the author of Pattinappalai sings of Puhar: “Under the guardianship of the gods of enduring glory, horses with a noble gait had come by the sea; bagfuls of black pepper had been brought in carts; gems and gold born of the northern mountain, the sandal and agil from the west- 77 -

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ern mountain, the pearl of the southern sea, the coral of the western sea, the products of the Ganges (valley), the yield of the Kaveri, foodstuffs from Ceylon, and goods from Kalagam (Kada-ram), all these materials, precious and bulky alike, were heaped together in the broad streets overflowing with their riches.” Besides the flags waving on the masts of ships in harbour, various other kinds of flags advertised the different kinds of merchandise as well as the fashionable grog shops. Saliyur in the Pandya country and Bandar in Chera are counted among the most important ports. We hear, of repairs of merchant ships after their voyages, and of light houses. People from different countries gathered in the ports, and life in them was truly cosmopolitan. The Yavanas sailed their large ships to Musiri (Cranganore) bearing gold, and returned laden with pepper and the rare products of the sea and the mountain which the Chera King gave in exchange. The author of The Periplus gives the most valuable information about this trade between India and the Roman Empire. He mentions the ports of the west coast of the Tamil country in order viz. Naura (Cannanore), Tyndis – the Tondi of the poems –identified with Ponnai, and Nelcynda very near Kottayam, Muziris (Musuri, Cranganore) abounded in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia and by the Greeks. Bacare (Por-kad) was another port in the same coast. On the nature of the trade, we find this: “They send large ships to these market towns on account of the great quantity and bulk of pepper and malabathrum to be had here. There are imported here, in the first place, a great quantity of coins; topaz, thin clothing, not much, figured linens, antimony, coral, crude glass, copper, tin, lead, wine, not much, but as much as at Barygaza (Broach); realgar and orpiment, and wheat enough, for the sailors for this is not dealt in by the merchants here.There is exported pepper which is produced in quantity in only one region near the markets, a district called Cottonara. Besides this there are exported large quantities of fine pearls, ivory, silk cloth, spikenard from the Ganges, malabathrum from the places in the interior, transparent stones of all kinds (principally beryls of the Coimbatore district for which there was a constant demand in Rome), diamonds and sapphires, and tortoise shell, that from Chryse island and that taken among the islands along the coast of Damirica. This trade increased in volume after Hippalus ‘discovered’ the monsoon and the possibility of large ships sailing with it straight across the ocean instead - 78 -

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of small vessels hugging the coast and exposing themselves to many risks including that from pirates. The other ports of South India noted by The Periplus are: Babita (Varkalai); Comari; Colchi (Kor-kai) with its pearl fisheries; Camara (Kaveripattinam), Poduca (Pondichery), and Sopatma (Markanam). Three types of craft were in use on the east coast; the country boats coasting along the shore, large vessels of single logs bound together, and known as Sangara; and very large ones, Colandia, which made the voyages to the Ganges and Chryse (Malaya). Argaru (Uraiyur) was a great centre of the trade in pearls and the muslins called Argaritic. A great quantity of muslins was also made in the Masula region of the Andhra country. Ivory was a special product of Dosarnae, i.e. Dasarna or Orissa. The large numbers of Roman coins in gold and silver found in many places in the interior of South India attest to the extent of the trade, the presence of Roman settlers, and the periods of the rise, zenith, and decay of this active commerce. It began under Augustus whose coins abound with these of Tiberius. After the death of Nero (A.D. 68) the traffic was not confined to the Tamil ports, but spread more evenly along the Indian coasts. Towards the end of the second century, the direct trade between the Egyptian Greeks of the Roman Empire and India declined, and the Arabs and still more the Auxumites of East Africa began to act as intermediaries. The rise of Constantinople in the fourth century began a new era, and Roman coins reappear in South India and embassies went from India. But this period saw on the whole less activity than the earlier one. Pepper and muslins were the chief articles of export from the South which caused a great drain of Roman currency bitterly condemned by Pliny who wrote: “In no year does India drain us of less than 550,000,000 sesterces ($22,000,000) giving back her own wares which are sold among us at fully 100 times their first cost.” At the funeral of Sabina Poppaea, the consort of Nero, a fabulous store of spices was burnt to provide her with a countless array of protecting spirits in the under world. Pliny also wrote: “Our ladies glory in having pearls suspended from their fingers, or two or three of them dangling in their ears, delighted even with the rattling of the pearls as they knock against each other. They put them on their feet, and that, not only on the laces of their sandals but all over the shoes, it is not enough to wear pearls, but they must tread upon them, and walk with them under foot as well.” - 79 -

3/7/1960

In this article, the author describes how India came into contact with countries of South-East Asia as far back as the early centuries of A. D.

Maritime history of South India

T

he nature of Roman trade with South India and its extension to the Far East are attested by recent excavations in the neighbourhood of Pondichery and in the delta of the Mekong river in Indo-China. From Arikamedu, called also Virampatnam by the French archaeologists, two miles south of Pondichery, the village children brought to Jouveau-Dubreuil in 1937 a number of relics which they had picked up on the surface, amongst them a gem (now lost) which bore an intaglio portrait of Augustus. This was followed by some rather summary digging on the site by French and Indian investigators, and among the results of such diggings Dr R. E. M. Wheeler detected in 1944 sherds of Italian red-glazed ‘arretine’ ware of the early A.D. first century and of amphorae from the Mediterranean, together with a fragment of a Roman lamp and a second Graeco-Roman gem, ‘an untrimmed crystal intaglio representing a cupid and a bird.’ Fie then carried out a systematic excavation in 1945 on behalf of the Archaeological Department of India, and the work was resumed for the French Government by Mr. J. M. Casal in 1947-48. The material of Western origin thus accumulated confirms with important chronological detail the general evidence of early Tamil literature and the numerous hoards of Roman coins mentioned above and provides a firm datum widely applicable for the history of South Indian culture. The type of smooth black and brown pottery found here was also in use among the builders of the megalithic tombs; this had led Wheeler not only to date those tombs to the period 200 B.C.-A.D. 50, but to assume that the population of the area comprised simple fisher folk who lived just above subsistence level on the sea fish they caught from small outriggers and on the rice they cultivated in small patches of land, when the Graeco-Romans burst on them with ‘strange wines, tablewares far - 80 -

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beyond the local skill, lamps of a strange sort, glass, cut gems.’ This is essentially a false picture: the people of the Tamil country had made much greater advances in civilisation, and commanded surpluses which enabled them to develop manufactures and trade, practise the arts and maintain royal courts in appreciable comfort; Tamil and classical literary evidence is clear on the matter. Asoka’s missionaries did not preach dharma or establish hospitals among a starving fisher folk. Archaeological evidence is indeed valuable; but we should not let it land us in glaring absurdities. Ptolemy refers to the site of Arikamedu as Poduke, and this renders it probable that the name Puducheri (corrupted into Pondichery by the Europeans), New Town, represents a landmark in the history of the settlement commemorating the arrival of the Graeco-Romans and their establishment of a ‘factory’ of which the brick-built remains have been excavated along with the other minor antiquities briefly mentioned above. “The overall impression,” says Wheeler, “is that of storage accommodation towards the mouth of the former estuary (of the Gingee river), backed by industrial quarters where, it may be supposed, the “Agaritic” muslins which The Periplus mentioned as an export of the region were made and dyed, and where beads and other objects of semi-precious stones, which litter the area, were assembled or worked.”

KEY FINDINGS IN EXCAVATIONS The excavations begun by M. L. Malleret at OC-EO by the delta of the Mekong river in 1944 were curtailed by war conditions, but not before remains were laid bare of structures of brick and granite, one of them bearing terracotta plaques carrying floral decoration and heads of monsters of a characteristically Indian type. An annexe to it on the flank contained a stone-statuette of Vishnu. Other finds during the excavations included relics of the cults of Siva, Vishnu, Surya; innumerable beads of semi-precious stones, cameos of carnelian, crystal or jasper, some with brief Brahmi inscriptions of the A.D. second-fifth centuries, fragments of bronze figurines in the Amaravati and Gandhara Buddhist styles, gold jewellery and a wide range of terracotta ornaments. The culture is obviously half-native and half-Indian. But there were also other elements from much farther afield. A blue glass gem bears in intaglio a bearded head with plaited hair and a Phrygian cap, and is probably from Persia of the Sassanian period. Other gems are probably Roman bearing motifs familiar in Roman art; two gold - 81 -

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coins, one a pierced piece of Antoninus Pius dated to A.D. 152, and a second less legible, of Marcus Aurelius. This evidence confirms the notice in the Han Annals of China which contains the entry: “The Romans make coins of gold and silver. They traffic by sea with An-hsi (Parthia) and Tien-Chu (India), the profit of which trade is tenfold. Their kings always desired to send embassies to China, but the An-hsi (Parthians) wished to carry on trade with them in Chinese silks, and it is for this reason that they were cut off from communication. This lasted till the ninth year of the Yenhsi period during the Emperor Huan-ti’s reign (A.D. 166). when the king of Ta-ts’in, Anton, sent an embassy which, from the frontier of Jih-nan (Annaur), offered ivory, rhinoceros horns, and tortoise shell. From that time dates the intercourse with this country. “The Annals proceed to comment on the absence of jewels among the gifts offered by the embassy, and indeed, the poverty of the presents does in fact indicate the dealings of a private merchant rather than of a considered imperial mission. Still this thoroughly circumstantial account is a good example of the adventurous spirit in which the Roman trade of the time was carried on, doubtless in partnership with South Indians. Another archaeological site at the head of the Gulf of Siam, in the vicinity of PongTuk, 40 miles from the coast on the Mekong river, has yielded remains of Buddhist shrines of A.D. second century; this and other evidence of Indian influence may explain the presence there of a Roman bronze lamp with distinct claims to rank as a work of art. “The handle is a palmette between dolphins, and the lid bears in relief a head of Silenus crowned with ivy.” This lamp, which has been assigned to about A.D. second century may have reached Siam during the recrudescence of Roman traffic with the Orient in the late fourth century A.D., a period represented by the abundance of Roman copper coinage in Southern India. “At any rate,” as Wheeler puts it, “its presence in Siam may be ascribed to ‘drift’ rather than to organised intercourse with the West.” That the Hindu colonization of the Indo-Chinese peninsula and Indonesia which may have started in the early centuries B.C. received a great impetus from causes still only imperfectly known during A.D. second and third centuries and that South Indians, Tamil and Telugu, took a prominent part in this movement is now generally accepted by scholars acquainted with the scattered but none the less decisive evidence on the subject. In early Tamil literature, however, we get only two references to the eastern lands – one in the Pattinapalai and the - 82 -

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other in the superb but enigmatic epic Silappadikaram, which seems to be a relatively late redaction of early legends in a vivid but imaginary historical setting. The Pattinapalai cannot be much later than A.D. second century, but the Epic of the Anklet may belong anywhere between the fifth and eighth centuries though beyond any doubt it uses the data of a much earlier time. The reference in the Pattinapalai has already been briefly mentioned among the imports of that poured into the ports of the Chola emporium of Puhar or Kaveripattinam, we find kaalagattu aakkam; the commentator explains this as Kadaarattil undaana nugarum porulgalum, i.e. consumable goods which formed the produce of Kadaaram. The equation of Kaalagam with Kadaaram is found in the geographical section of the earliest Tamil lexicon accessible to us, the Divakaram. Kadaram has been satisfactorily identified with Kedah on the west coast of the Malay peninsula, and is well-known in the Chola epigraphy of the 11th century. The reference in the Silappadikaram (canto 14 lines 106-10) may be translated thus: “Having entered together with the east wind laden with (the aroma) of aloes, silks, sandal, spices, and camphor put by the residents of Tondi on board a fleet of tall roomy ships.” The place of entry in question is Madura, an inland city; that is why the poet is careful to say that the person who entered the city did so with the eastern wind (kondal); and the thought of the eastern wind calls up in his mind the image of an armada of merchantmen laden with the cargo of the precious articles, all of them special products of the eastern lands – silk may have been brought to Malaya by Chinese vessels; the Second World War gave us a sharp reminder of how much we still depend on them for spices and medicinal drugs. The Tondi mentioned here, obviously named after the port on the Malabar coast (Tyndis of The Periplus), must have been somewhere in Malaya and has not yet been identified. That the Bay of Bengal was a regular highway of maritime traffic becomes evident from the history of the Hindu colonies of the East, and the celebrated Chinese scholar and pilgrim 1-tsing records at the end of the seventh century that there were periodical sailings which carried travellers straight from Kedah to Negapatam, and vice versa. The Periplus mentions large ships on the Coromandel coast, called Colandia, which sailed to the Ganges and Chryse or the Malay peninsula. The origin of the name is uncertain. Schoff says that it seems to be of Malay origin, and perhaps means no more than ship. Koleh panjail, “sailing ship”, he adds, is the name for the fast fishermen - 83 -

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entered in modern Singapore regattas. The Greek text is Kolandiphonto which Rajendralala Mitra was inclined to derive from the Sanskrit Kolaantara pota, ships for going to foreign shores – which sounds highly speculative. Naturally, the Island of Ceylon had a share in all this trade and colonial developments, and we have the account of Cosmas Indicopleustes (the man who sailed to India) in A.D. sixth century which amplifies what is said in The Periplus: “This is the great island of the ocean situated in the Indian Sea; which is called by the Indians Sielediba, by the Greeks Taprobane, where the Hyacinthus stone is found; and it lies beyond the pepper country. It has other small islands scattered round it in great number; of which some have fresh water, and coconut palms. They are very close to one another. But that great island is frequented by a great press of merchants from far countries. From all parts of India, Persia, Aethiopia come a multitude of ships to this island, which is placed as it were midway between all lands; and it sends ships likewise hither and thither in all directions. From the inner regions, that is, from Tsinitza and from the other market towns, are brought silk cloth, aloe-wood, cloves and sandalwood, and other products according to the place; and it forwards them to those of the outside, that is, to Male, in which the pepper grows; to Calliana, where brass is found, and sesamin wood, and various kinds of cloth, for it, too, is a great market town; and to Sindu, where the castor musk is found, and spikenard; and to Persia, to the country of the Homerites, and Adulis; and in return it receives other things from all these places, which it transmits to the inner regions with its own products likewise.”

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24/7/1960

In this, the third article in the series “South India and the Sea”, Professor Nilakanta Sastri writes about the maritime activities of the Pallavas and of the naval power of the Cholas under whom the Bay was virtually a Chola lake.

Chola ‘Thalassocracy’

W

e have so far considered the principal data bearing on the maritime trade and the overseas colonization in which the people of South India took a prominent share in the early centuries of the Christian era. No specific details have come down to us calculated to throw light either on the naval organisation, commercial or warlike, or on any naval battles of the period. There are vague references to piracy on the west coast of India and a quasi-legendary account of the Chera kings’ exploits on the sea. Thus, Nedunjeral Adan is credited with a naval victory against unnamed enemies and with taking some Yavana traders captive whom he subjected to harsh treatment for a time before releasing them after collecting a heavy ransom. Again, the more celebrated Senguttuvan is called Kadalpirakkottiya, meaning who drove back the sea, but none of the many references to the incident enable us to ascertain its exact nature. The tradition of sea faring was continued under the Pallavas and Cholas, and more tangible evidence is available for this period than for the earlier time. That the Pallavas had rather close political relations with Ceylon and on occasions interfered effectively in the disputes of succession to the Sinhalese throne is well attested by the Ceylonese chronicle of the Mahavamsa. This could not have been done without an organised navy. But the most striking testimony to Pallava sea power is the Tamil inscription from Takua-pa on the west coast of the Malay peninsula of the time of Nandivarman III, ninth century; this inscription found in Siamese territory on the opposite shore of the Bay mentions a Vishnu temple, a tank called Avani-Naaranam after a title of Nandivarman, viz. Avani-Narayana which is found in the contemporary Tamil poem, Nandikkalambakam, and states that both the temple and tank were placed under the protection of the Tamil merchant guild (manigramam) and the military cantonment (senamukham) - 85 -

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doubtless of Pallava soldiers stationed there. But we have at present no means of knowing how the Pallavas came by this overseas possession of theirs. It is now a well-recognised fact that the Chola empire of A.D. 10th to 12th centuries was a major maritime power of the Indian Ocean, and foreign historians of South Asia devote considerable attention to what they describe as Chola Thalassocracy. But this realisation has been of slow growth. The idea of India’s isolation was so deep-rooted that when Hultzsch discovered an inscription of Rajendra I which gave a detailed account of his maritime conquests and included Kadaram among them, he overlooked the plain statement with which this part of the inscription begins, viz., that Rajendra sent a fleet of many ships across the waving sea, and identified Kadaram with the headquarters of a taluk in the Ramnad district. Then Kadaram came to be identified with Burma, because one of the places mentioned in the inscription Mapappalam was located in Burma, and the archaeological department of Burma proclaimed the discovery of Rajendra’s pillars of victory when they dug out fragments of two rectangular granite pillars in the neighbourhood of Pegu round about 1907. The correct identification of Kadaram with Kedah in Malaya was first put forward by the French scholar George Coedes in an epoch-making paper on the Kingdom of Srivijaya in the year 1918, and the Burmese archaeological department formally withdrew in 1922 their identification of the two granite pillars of Pegu with Rajendra’s Jayasthambhas. I have recalled here this bit of history just to give the reader a glimpse into the slow pace of progress in the shedding of baseless prejudices and acquisition of authentic knowledge. It was indeed the aim of Chola policy to convert the Bay of Bengal into a Chola lake and keep all rivals out of it. Ceylon and the Maldives were important for the realisation of this aim. The conquest of Ceylon was begun by Parantaka I in the first half of the 10th century, but the reverses he sustained on land owing to Rashtrakuta hostility ruined his empire at the close of his reign c. A.D. 955. The recovery had to wait for 30 years till the accession of Rajaraja 1, perhaps the greatest soldier and most imaginative statesman among all the Chola monarchs who firmly laid the lines of imperial policy after bringing about the effective political union of the entire country south of the Tungabhadra. He resumed the interrupted conquest of Ceylon and carried it very near completion. He broke down the Chera naval power by a decisive victory - 86 -

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against their fleet at Kandalur on the Travancore coast, and towards the end of his reign he effected the conquest of the Maldives counted as 12,000 islands in an ancient tradition. There was at that time another semi-Indian maritime empire in the Indian Ocean which was centred in Sumatra and Malaya. It had two capitals, viz., Srivijaya, represented to-day by Palembang in S. E. Sumatra, and Kadaram, in Sanskrit Kataha, i.e., Kedah in Malaya as just noticed above. The rulers of the empire were the Buddhist dynasty of the Sailendras. There was mutual friendship between the two empires during Rajaraja’s reign, and the Sailendra ruler Mara Vijayaottunga Varman built a vihara at Negapatam for the use of his subjects visiting the Chola country, and Rajaraja also endowed the vihara with a whole village called Anaimangalam as we learn from the copper plate grant known as the larger Leyden grant. But under Rajendra relations became strained and this was most probably due to the attempt of Srivijaya which had control of all the trade routes across Malaya and Indonesia to obstruct the Chola Intercourse, commercial and diplomatic, with the Chinese empire of the Sungs. Rajendra sent a vast armada against Srivijaya sometime about 1025 which succeeded in smashing the two capitals of the Sumatran empire besides capturing many other places and taking the ruler Sangrama Vijayottunga Varman captive. Srivijaya never recovered fully from this disaster, and the Chola naval power enjoyed unchallenged supremacy for about a century. The experiences of Chola mariners must have been recorded in nautical treatises which are no longer forthcoming but whose existence may be inferred from the references to them contained in late medieval Arab treatises on navigation and geography. Another notable landmark in the maritime history of South India is the celebrated abhayasasana of Motupalli, first issued to foreign merchants trading in Motupalli in the coastal Andhra country by Kakatiya Ganapati in the middle of the thirteenth century and renewed a century later by the Reddi chieftain Anapota (1378). Under this charter, the cargo of ship-wrecked merchants would not be seized as had been the custom before and the duty on all exports and imports would not exceed a thirtieth of their value. In the last quarter of the 13th century, the restless ambition and insatiable curiosity of Kublai Khan, added to the unsettled politics of the Pandyan kingdom, resulted in a very active exchange of embassies, more political than commercial, between the Chinese court and the South Indian powers. Again, in the 15th century, under - 87 -

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the third Ming emperor (1403-25) large fleets of Chinese junks, led by the famous general Cheng Ho made no fewer than seven voyages across the Indian Ocean and visited many South Indian ports, particularly those on the west coast. The Vijayanagar empire fully kept up the maritime traditions and extended its sway over Ceylon and coastal Burma; its lucrative trade with foreign countries was carried on from its 300 ports. The Portuguese chronicler Nunniz asserts that Devaraya II exacted tribute from the rulers of Quilon, Ceylon, Pulicat Pegu and Tenasserim and elsewhere. The testimony of the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela (1170) on trade in Quilon under the Chola rule is worth citing: “This nation is very trustworthy in matters of trade, and whenever foreign merchants enter their port, three secretaries of the king immediately repair on board their vessels, write down their names and report them to him. The king thereupon grants them security for their property, which they may even leave in the open fields without any guard. One of the king’s officers sits in the market, and receives goods that may have been found anywhere and which he returns to those applicants who can minutely describe them. This custom is observed in the whole empire of this king.” There was a steady demand for the pepper from Maabar in China, and Marco Polo found that ‘for one shipload of pepper that goes to Alexandria or elsewhere, destined for Christendom, there came a hundred such, aye and more too, to this haven of Zayton (Chwanchau, above Amoy)’. The same writer, “the prince of mediaeval travellers’ as Yule describes him, visited Kayal, the chief port of the Pandyan kingdom at the end of the 13th century. He says: “It is at this city that all the ships touch, that come from the west as from Hormus and from Kis and from Aden, and all Arabia, laden with horses and with other things for sale. And this brings a great concourse of people from the country round about, and so there is great business done in this city of Cad.” Marco Polo notes that a great part of the wealth of the country was wasted in purchasing horses, a statement fully confirmed by the observations of contemporary Muslim chroniclers who say that the unfavourable climate of South India and the ignorance of Indian horse-keepers necessitated large annual imports of fresh animals from overseas. What Wassaf says on this trade will bear reproduction: “It was a matter of agreement that Malik-ul Islam Jamaluddin and the merchants should embark every year -from the island of Kais (Kis) and land at Maabar. 1,400 horses of the best breed and of such gen- 88 -

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erous origin that, in comparison with them, the most celebrated horses of antiquity, such as the Rukhs of Rustam, etc., should be as worthless as the horse of the chess board. It was also agreed that he should embark as many as he could procure from all the Isles of Persia, such as Kalif, Lhasa, Bahrein, Hurmuzy and Kulhatu. The price of each horse was fixed from of old at 220 dinars of red gold on this condition, that if any horses should sustain any injury, during the voyage, or should happen to die, the value of them should be paid from the royal treasury.” “Maabar,” says Wassaf, further, “extends in length from Quilon to Nellore, nearly 300 para-sangs along the sea-coast. The curiosities of Chin and Machin, and the beautiful products of Hind and Sind, laden on large ships which they call Junks sailing like mountains with the wings of the wind on the surface of the water are always there. The wealth of the Isles of the Persian Gulf in particular, and in part the beauty and adornment of other countries, from Irak and Khurasan as far as Rum and Europe, are derived from Maabar, which is so situated as to be key of Hind’. This key position of South India which is so prominently stated by Wassaf had somehow escaped modern historians till recently and it has been the principal aim of this series on South India and the sea to redress the balance and restore the correct position.

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27/11/1960

Dekkan in the early historical period

D

akshina is a Sanskrit word “ meaning both right (as opposed to left) and the south”; the old name Dakshinapatha, and the later Dekkan are both variants of that word, applied to the country south of the Vindhyas up to the Tungabhadra, most probably because that land lay on the right hand side of the Aryan advance into Northern India whose route generally lay from west to east, or more generally the south lies to the right of a man facing the rising sun. The Dekkan enters history relatively late, and the rise of Indo-Aryan civilization in this region is assigned to some time between 700 and 400 B.C. The first concrete historical fact that the region was included in Asoka’s empire as we find his inscriptions scattered over its southern border. There are also traditions that the pre-Mauryan Magadhan emperors of the Nanda dynasty held sway over the area, and modern Nanded is taken to be connected with the name of the Nanda dynasty; that perhaps about that time there was a school of Buddhist learning at Paithan (Pratishthana); that a little later Chandragupta Maurya and Bhadrabahu crossed the Dekkan in their journey from Magadha to Sravanabelagola in Mysore; and lastly that Bindusara, the son of Chandragupta and father of Asoka, effected the conquest or reconquest of several minor kingdoms in the Dekkan. The first great historic dynasty to rule over the Dekkan is called Satavahanas in the inscriptions and Andhras or Andhrabhrityas in the Puranas. Their inscriptions are all in Prakrit, and vestiges of their rule in the Andhra country proper do not appear till relatively late in the history of the dynasty; this has raised a doubt in the minds of some scholars as to whether the Satavahanas were Andhras at all. But the doubt would appear to be misplaced if we recall that the Puranas definitely describe the first king of the line, Simuka, as an Andhrajatiya, born of the Andhras. But there is no certainty about the number of rulers in the dynasty or when its rule began. The older view, still held by some, is that there were 30 kings who ruled all told for about 450 years from the second century B.C. to A.D. third century. Another view is that there were - 90 -

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only 19 kings in the main line and that they ruled for about 300 years; on this view the longer list of names and the excess of a century and a half are to be explained as arising from the mistaken inclusion of collateral or subsidiary rulers of the line and their regnal periods in the total. Neither the state of the Purana texts nor arguments drawn from palaeography is decisive enough to justify a definite choice. It has been said that scholars who adopt the longer list and chronology will have to account for the paucity of Satavahana records during a period ‘of about 300 years’; but those who adopt the shorter list and begin the Satavahana rule in the first century B.C. will have to say what happened in the Dekkan after Asoka ceased to rule. Such vague considerations are not of much help when we remember that ‘paucity of records’ is the most common feature of all ancient Indian history. The Satavahana-Kula (dynasty) might have started its career by gaining high administrative office in the north-west of the Dekkan in the empire of Asoka and declared its independence soon after the great Emperor’s death. Their patronages of Buddhism though most of the kings were themselves Hindu in their religious profession and their administrative system in general were doubtless legacies from the Mauryan Empire. The evidence of coins and literature points to the region of Pratishthana (Paithan in Aurangabad district) as the original centre from which the Satavahanas spread their power; a rilievo figure of the founder of the dynasty and an inscription of his daughter-in law Naganika recording the performance of Vedic sacrifices and the dakshinas offered in them come from Nanaghat, a pass in the Western Ghats only a hundred miles as the crow flies from Paithan. In the course of a century or more, Satavahana power spread over the whole of the Dekkan and organized it into a powerful State with a good share in the maritime trade with the western lands and the colonization of the eastern lands across the Bay of Bengal which gave rise to many a Hindu Kingdom in that region. The details of the expansion are lost, apparently beyond recovery; but the Nanaghat inscription already describes the third ruler of the dynasty, Satakarni I, as a Samrat (emperor) and Dakshinapathapati, Lord of the Dekkan; he performed two Asvamedha sacrifices and a rajasuja, besides numerous other rites whose names are set forth in considerable detail in the record. Satakarni is a name of frequent occurrence among the Satavahanas, but its significance, like that of Satavahana, has remained ‘obscure; the Silappadikaram seems to translate the name - 91 -

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into ‘a hundred ears’ when it refers to Nurruvar Kannar, and a modern linguist has sought to explain the term as a compound word of Munda origin meaning son (kan) of the horse (sadam), which seems to gain some support from Ptolemy’s mention of Hippokura (horse town) as the capital of Vilivayakura (Pulumayi II?).

‘LORDS OF THE THREE OCEANS’ The political history of the Satavahanas is not well known but it is clear they built up a considerable naval power; and the seventh century writer Bana describes them as ‘lords of the three oceans’ (trisamudradhipati). The Sakas, who had established themselves in Gujarat and Malwa, invaded and occupied large tracts of Satavahana territory, and the signal success of Gautamiputra Satakarni in the wars against them is described with epic grandeur in a long inscription engraved at Nasik by his mother in the reign of her grandson Pulumayi II. But the wars were exhausting the resources of the empire and doubtless contributed ultimately to its decay and disruption early in A.D. third century, though they were eminently successful in preserving the independence of the Dekkan. It was not all antagonism, however, and there are instances of dynastic inter-marriages between the Sakas and Satavahanas which must have provided opportunities for mutual cultural influences. It is well known that, many Sakas and Greeks resident in Western India made endowments and monetary contributions for the maintenance of monks in viharas and the construction of specified parts in them. The Satavahanas were great patrons of religion, literature and art. Jaina legends aver that even the first Satavahana ruler built Jaina and Buddhist shrines and thus gained their support. The great progress of Buddhism in the last two centuries B.C. in the Dekkan is attested by the cave temples, viharas, and stupas at Pitalkhora, Nasik, Bhaja, Bedsa, Kondane and Kuda in the Western Dekkan, and Bhattiprolu, Amaravati, Goli Ghantasala and Gummididurru in the east. The chaitya cave at Karla, ‘the most excellent in Jambudvipa’ belongs to the first century B.C. Industry and trade flourished and merchants, craftsmen, women, and even monks and nuns vied with each another in making donations to the Buddhist establishments. The viharas expanded in size and came to include bhojana mantapas (refectories) and upasthanasalas (reception halls). The objects of worship were at first stupas, footprints and other symbols of the Master, but later beautiful Buddha images in various significant postures. There was also a proliferation - 92 -

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of sects, but no evidence of sectarian animosity: on the contrary, some good evidence of mutual respect and the co-existence of different sects in the same vihara. There were many teachers of both sexes, adepts in the Dharma and Vinaya, and monks, nuns, and laymen flocked to them for instructions. Tradition affirms that the great Buddhist divine Nagarjuna who had a thorough Brahmanical training at first was a personal friend of Gautamiputra to whom he addressed his ‘letter to a friend’ (Suhrillekha). Aryadeva from Ceylon was another philosopher of Buddhism who spent part of his time in Dhanayakataka. Prakrit literature flourished and king Hala was himself the compiler of an anthology of 700 verses in Haharashtri, Sattasai, also called Gathasaptasats in Sanskrit. The verses are in Arya metre well adapted to singing and produce the effect of something light and airy. The collection presents a great diversity; some verses are frivolous, others witty, and yet others are sad and sentimental. Some breathe high philosophy, while others depict love episodes of all sorts. This anthology had a great influence on later Prakrit and Sanskrit literature, and Bana bestows high praise on it when he says that the Satavahana made an immortal and refined treasure (Kosa) of song adorned with fine expressions of character like jewels. Gunadhya’s Brihatkatha said to have been written in the Paisachi language now survives only in later adaptations, mostly in Sanskrit. Only minute fragments of the original have survived as examples cited in works on Prakrit grammar, A measure of the importance ot Gunadhya’s work is revealed by the reverence with which Dandin, Subandhu and Bana speak of it, and by the fact that an excellent Tamil rendering of it was made by Kongu Velvi which has also survived only in part; the title of the Tamil poem Perungadai is an exact translation of the title of the original work. The Satavahana period witnessed an amazing development of city life. Old towns were expanded and new ones grew up. Inscriptions reveal the activities of various classes of workers; corn dealers, florists, weavers, oil pressers, fabricators of hydraulic engines, braziers, polishers, iron workers, artisans, writers, leather workers, perfumers, goldsmiths, jewellers, stone-masons, stone polishers, carpenters and others. Most of these crafts and trades were organised in guilds. Each guild had an alderman, sethin, and had its office in the town hall (nigamasabha). Most of the craftsmen were as well to do as those of Europe in the Middle ages. It is to their artistic taste and munificence that we owe some of the - 93 -

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costliest Buddhist monuments of the period. Meagre as are the relics, literary and archaeological, of the distant Satavahana times, enough has survived to enable us to see pretty clearly that during four centuries and more, the rulers of this dynasty ensured to the Dekkan political unity and independence, economic prosperity and religious freedom and a fairly prominent role in the cultural life of India and her eastern ‘domes’, as they may be designated for convenience – though there was not a tinge of ‘colonialism’ as we understand it to-day in the relations between the mother country and the daughter States.

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8/1/1961

After the disintegration of the Satavahana Empire, considerable confusion prevailed in South India until the rise of the Chalukyas and the Pallavas.

South India after Satavahanas

T

he political unity of the Deccan had been established for the first time in history by the Satavahanas in the second century B.C. after the break up of Asoka’s empire. They had successfully maintained that unity in the face of powerful Saka inroads from Gujarat and Malwa, and Gautamiputra Satakarni covered himself with glory by rolling back the Saka tide and upholding the unity of the empire and the integrity of Hindu religion and society. But the long struggle with the foreign power apparently exhausted the strength of the empire which tottered to its fall in early A.D. third century. Smaller powers, tribal and dynastic, established themselves in different parts of what had been the Satavahana empire, and in the fourth century the confusion created by these warring States became worse confounded by the military storm caused by the swift conquering raid of Samudragupta which appears to have followed a route along the east coast, reached the neighbourhood of Kanchi as its southern limit, and withdrawn along a similar route a little more to the interior. As a result of the gyrations we find many ‘successors of Satavahanas’ established in different parts of the Deccan – the Abhiras and Traikutakas in the north-west, the Vakatakas of Berar in the north centre, the Ikshvakus followed by the Brhatphalayanas, the Salankayanas and Vishnukundins in the east, the Pallavas in the south-east, the Gangas in the south, the Chutus and Kadambas in the south-west and possibly several other minor powers of whom no satisfactory records have reached us. The early Pallavas seem to have gone far towards becoming an imperial power and ruled an extensive territory south of the Krishna river and extending from sea to sea; though we have no clear record of this phase of Pallava history, this is the impression we get - 95 -

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from the story recorded in the Talagunda pillar inscription of the rise of Kadamba power. Kadamba Mayurasarman, we learn from that record, was a learned Brahman who went over to Kanchipuram to complete his study of Vedic lore in the ghatika (college) there; there a Pallava cavalier treated him in a cavalier way and a quarrel ensued – the inscription gives no more specific details. Mayurasarman was provoked by this military intrusion into Brahmin academic life and resolved to teach the Pallava-kshatriyas a lesson by himself grasping the sword instead of the kusa grass. He became an inveterate rebel at the head of a band of roughs and finding a secure shelter in the mountains and forests of the Srisailam region gave no end of trouble to the Pallava rulers and their subordinate allies the Brihadbanas and others. He successfully defied the troops sent by the Pallavas for his chastisement and compelled them to make peace more or less on his own terms, namely, by recognising his sovereignty over all the land between the western sea and Prehara river by which may have been meant either the Tungabadra or the Malaprabha. This, we learn, was the origin of the Kadamba Kingdom. It was also perhaps the beginning of the end of the early Pallava empire of which we know so little and which is remembered only by two or three Prakrit copper plate grants besides the circumstantial account of Mayurasarman’s rise in the Talagunda pillar inscription just noticed. The Prakrit copper plates, however, contain little of historical value besides the names of a few princes and a princess, and some details of local administration. This is more or less true of the records of the other dynasties we have mentioned among the successors of Satavahanas. The Ikshvakus form, however, a conspicuous exception with the numerous and ornate stone inscriptions, particularly from Nagarjunakonda, which enable us to reconstruct a good bit of political history and visualise rather vividly the state of Buddhist monastic life in the Krishna valley and its relations, temporal and spiritual with the monastic communities, sang has, of other countries, particularly of Ceylon. We may note in passing that the Krishna valley in Nagarjunakonda has been the subject of intensified excavation in recent years for the salvaging of its historic antiquities about to be submerged by the Nagarjunasagar – a minor prototype so to say of the large international efforts now on hand for similar work on a much faster scale in the Nile way in the neighbourhood of Luxor necessitated by the High Aswan Dam project. The new Nagarjunakonda excavations have brought to light many interesting relics, - 96 -

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historical and prehistoric, and the detailed report on them will be awaited with great interest by scholars. The Ikshvakus apart, however, the history of the Deccan, from the fall of the Satavahanas in the third century to the rise of the Chalukyas of Badami under Pulakesi I in the sixth century, is a ‘relatively dark period’ for which ‘the evidence is fitful’ and the ‘annals of politics and culture’ very meagre and disconnected.

CONDITIONS IN TAMIL COUNTRY When we turn farther south to the Tamil country our predicament becomes even worse. When the so-called Sangam Age actually ended or how is not at all clear. The light on literary chronology that we get from the coincidences between the writers of classical European antiquity like the anonymous author of The Periplus, Pliny and Ptolemy and the early Tamil poems and from the finds of Roman coins fails us almost completely after A.D. third century. The dates of composition of the minor works that a much later age has grouped together under the designation of Padinenkilkanakku are matters of vague and generally unsupported conjecture. The twin epics of Silappadikaram and Manimekalai at one time confidently treated as part of the Sangam literature of the early A.D. centuries have been revealed by critical scholarship to belong to a time many centuries later, and the literary fiction that is recorded in the padigams of the two epics and makes their authors contemporaries is seen to be the myth that it is, like the data embodied in many padigams like those of the Padirruppattu and works of the type of the Bhoja prabanda, Tamilnavalar Caritai and so on. And this literature of the late or post-Sangam period is singularly devoid of firm historical statements calculated to settle the relative and absolute chronology of the works concerned, and honestly speaking, it seems almost a desperate device to accept as historical the contemporaneity of the Chera king Senguttuvan and Gajabahu I, of Ceylon on the basis of Silappadikaram. Luckily, the date of the early Sangam poems is now seen clearly to be quite independent of this very dubious synchronism. A new historical dawn is marked by the well-attested rise of the Pallavas of the Simha Vishnu line and of the Pandyas some time in A.D. sixth century, about its middle or a little later. The cumulative evidence of stone inscriptions and copper plate grants fortunately leaves no possible room for doubt on this score; and the Chalukyas of Badami also come up in the Deccan about the same time or - 97 -

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a little earlier, say by one generation or so. No student of South Indian history will fail to notice the fact mentioned in many inscriptions that the early rulers of all these lines claim victories over the Kalabharas a name which offers one of the mysterious problems of our past history. One of the earliest Pandyan copper plates, the Velvikudi grant, contains the only concrete statement about the Kalabharas in all the inscriptions, and it says that after a Brahmin donee who got a village as a grant from the King Palyaga Mudukadami Peruvaludi and his descendants had enjoyed the village for a long time (nidu bhuhi) a Kali king named Kalabharan took possession of the extensive earth driving away numberless great kings and tells us no more about it; but it refers also to the Kalabharas in the plural and their brave ocean-like army. The late Mr. Krishna Sastri was inclined to accept the suggestion that Kali was the name of a dynasty of kings, Kalikula, though Hultzsch was inclined to translate the expression as ‘people of the Kali’. There are, however, faint traces of a Kali dynasty and a Kali era in the annals of Jainism, and the celebrated Gomata colossus of Sravana Belagola is said to have been erected in the year 600 of the Kali era; we know that this happened in A.D. 983 and that means that the Kali era began about 383 – a plausible date for the termination of the Sangam Age. It will be noticed that it falls about a generation after the military raid of Samudragupta, and may well be a reflection of the progress of confusion and unsettlement caused by that raid.

KALABHRA “REVOLUTION” Several considerations suggest that religion was a principal factor in the Kalabhra revolution as we may call it for convenience. The name Kalabhra is doubtless the same as Kalabba, the dynasty of a king Accuta Vikkanta who figures, as a patron of Buddhism in the Kaveri valley probably in the fifth century. We have legends enshrined in old Tamil poems which credit this king with having captured and strictly confined the three Tamil Kings Chera, Chola and Pandya – a fact which tallies with the Kalabhra overthrowing ‘numberless great kings’ (Velvikudi grant). Again, we find at the beginning of the next epoch, the period of Pandya Pallava efflorescence, religious leaders like Appar, Sambandar loudly complaining of the triumph of heresy, Jainism and Buddhism, in the Tamil country. This indicates perhaps that the political upheaval was also part of a religious revolution. The name Kalabhra has also been connected with Kalappala and the suggestion has been made - 98 -

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that Kurruva Nayanar, a Kalappala ruler of Kalandai, who wanted to be crowned, like the Cholas, by the Tillai Muvayiravar and was refused the honour may well have been a scion of the Kalabbakula. If these considerations are correct, the Tamil land suffered much and suffered long from these intruders, the Cholas fared worst; for they could not recover till A.D. ninth century and their land was held by the line to which Accuta belonged and became a stronghold of Buddhism. The Pandyas and Pallavas recovered sooner and reasserted themselves in the sixth century. We may note finally that as the Kadambas also claim to have crushed the Kalabharas, an attempt has been made recently to prove that the Kalabharas had their original home in the region of Sravana Belagola where we have the Katavapra or Kalabappu hill, whence they were dislodged by the Kadambas. They then settled in a new place called Kalinad or Kalvarnad, including Bangalore, Kolar, and Chittoor districts and made that region the base of their operations against the Tamil rulers. These are possibilities that deserve to be studied more closely. Enough has been said, however, to show that during the period from the fourth to the sixth centuries, the Tamil country passes from one distinctly marked age, that of the Sangam literature, to another equally well-marked, the age of the Nayanars and Alvars through a very obscure transition the nature and duration of which cannot yet be exactly determined owing to the paucity of evidence and the possibility of diverse interpretations.

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2/4/1961

The most celebrated ruler among the Chalukyas of Badami was Pulakesin II who inflicted a crushing defeat on Harshavardhana of Kanauj. This article gives an account of Pulakesin’s accession to the throne and his exploits in the early years of his reign.

Pulakesin II, the royal warrior

S

ome 20 years ago was discovered an inscription on a boulder in the fort at Badami bearing the early Saka date 465 (A.D. 543-4) and recording the fortification of the hill both above and below by the Chalukya Vallabhesvara. This was Pulakesin I, the real founder of the empire of the Chalukyas of Badami. His name is a puzzle; Fleet explained it as half-Kannada (puli - tiger and half Sanskrit (kesi) and translated tiger-haired. In Sanskrit, however, the root pul has the meaning “to grow, be great” and it is possible to hold that the name means ‘the great lion’; kesi is a wellknown Sanskrit word for lion. His grandson was Pulakesin II perhaps the most celebrated ruler among the Chalukyas of Badami. Pulakesin II was a young boy, perhaps about 10 years of age, at the time of his father Kirtivarma’s death, A.D. 597-98. So, the rule of the kingdom passed, for a time, into the hands of Mangalesa, the younger brother of Kirtivarman, who was apparently to act as Regent till the young Pulakesin came of age. But having tasted power even from the later years of his elder brother’s reign, Mangalesa evidently formed designs of his own to perpetuate the succession in his own family. There is a well-known inscription bearing the name of Ravikirti as its composer in excellent Sanskrit verse, engraved in the Jaina temple at Aihole and dated in the Saka year corresponding to A.D. 634-35, some seven or eight years before the close of the reign of Pulakesin II. The inscription records how Mangalesa continued his brother’s work of the expansion of the Badami Empire with better results, and conquered Goa (revatidvipa) and other regions appointing governors of his own over the newly conquered territory. But then it also says that Mangalesa became jealous of Pulakesin who had the dignity of Na- 100 -

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husha and was a favourite of Fortune (Lakshmi); so Pulakesin had to flee the court and lead the life of an exile for some years. And in due course he contrived to reduce the strength of Mangalesa on all sides by increasing his own diplomatic and military power – upachita mantrotpaha-saktii prayoga. In the end Mangalesa had to abandon three things at the same time, viz. his effort to secure the kingdom for his own son, the vast kingdom itself, and his own life. It is clear that Mangalesa made an attempt to stop Pulakesin getting on the throne and failed. Perhaps he declared his own son Yuvaraja; perhaps there was a civil war and a pitched battle in which Mangalesa lost his life. We do not know; we can only surmise. Likewise, we have no idea who Pulakesin’s allies were in his successful bid for power. Mangalesa’s reign was ignored in the later Badami records; but it appears in its proper place in the grants of the Kalyani Chalukyas (from A.D. 10th century) with reliable details, and a belated gloss over Mangalesa’s conduct to Pulakesin which says that Mangalesa took upon himself the burden of administration of the realm during the nonage of his nephew, and later returned the kingdom to Satyasraya when he grew up to be a young man, adding in a tell-tale manner: who indeed among the Chalukyas would swerve from the path of dharma? Pulakesin became king some time in A.D. 609-10. The hostilities between Mangalesa and Pulakesin had encouraged the feudatories of the empire to strike for their own independence and, after he settled with Mangalesa, Pulakesin had to meet the challenge of other opponents. Ravikirti says that at his accession the world was encompassed by the darkness of enemies, and mentions two of them by name, Appayika and Govinda, who appeared with a considerable host of elephants to the north of the Bhimarthi river; one of them was repulsed in battle and the other became an ally and was received into favour. Pulakesin was a great soldier and all his martial ability was needed to stabilise the empire shaken by recent dissensions and secure a dominant position for it in the South. The Chalukya power of Badami was founded by rebellion against the suzerain power of the Kadambas of Vanavasi and now Pulakesin turned against the Kadamba capital to confirm and complete its deposition from the chief place. The Aihole inscription contains a picturesque description of the siege; Vanavasi rivalled the city of the gods in its wealth and was adorned by a girdle of swans sporting on the high waves of the Varada river; when it was being besieged by the ocean of - 101 -

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Pulakesin’s forces which surrounded it, Vanavasi, though a land fortress, bore the appearance of a castle on the sea. The picturesque enthusiasm of this description receives its justification from the disappearance of the early Kadambas of Vanavasi from history after this; Pulakesin’s campaign was a complete success.

SUBJUGATION OF ALUPAS AND GANGAS Then came the turn of their neighbours the Alupas and Gangas who felt the weight of Pulakesin’s arms and as a result became the constant attendants of Pulakesin. The Alupas were a minor dynasty of local chieftains who ruled in the South Kanara region for several centuries as seen from their stone inscriptions which come particularly from the Udupi taluk. The Gangas were, of course, the celebrated Western Gangas of Talakad who, by their geographical position, were forced to take a part on one side or other in the recurring conflicts between the Chalukyas to the north and the Pallavas to the south of the Tungabhadra line. The Ganga ruler at this time was most probably Durvinita, and there is some evidence, though late, which seems to justify the assumption that he gave one of his daughters in marriage to the conqueror, and that this princess became the mother of Vikramaditya I, the ablest among the sons of Pulakesin II. NORTHWARD EXPANSION OF KINGDOM Pulakesin then turned against the Konkan and easily reduced the branch of the Mauryas that was ruling from Puri, the Lakshmi of the Western ocean, on the island of Elephanta near Bombay. In the enterprise, Pulakesin is said to have employed hundreds of ships that looked like arrays of rutting elephants, a comparison which betrays incidentally the unusual character of a naval war in ancient India. Puri was a very prosperous seaport town and Pulakesin was naturally eager to gain control of it. The Latas, Malavas, and Gurjaras then offered him submission one after another, and the empire received a definite northward extension up to the river Mahi. In this period, Lata was a minor principality to the south of the river Kim, with its capital at Navasarika (Nausari to-day); after its conquest Pulakesin seems to have appointed a member of his own family as Viceroy as we find a Chalukya Vijayaraja ruling there in A.D. 641. The Gurjaras ruled the country between the Kim and Mahi rivers, and their submission to Pulakesin like that of the Malavas, over whose territory Pulakesin does not seem ever to have - 102 -

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exercised rule, must have been dictated by the rapid spread of the power of Harshavardhana of Kanauj who had made himself master of all North India (Sakala uttarapada isvara). A conflict between two such expansionist rulers as Pulakesin and Harsha was inevitable, and not long in coming Hiuen Tsang recorded: “The great king Siladitya (Harsha) at this time was invading east and West, and countries far and near were giving allegiance to him, but Ma-ha-la-ch-’a (Maharashtra) refused to become subject to him.” His biographer supplements this statement, saying that the proud Siladitya was unable to prevail against Pulakesin though he marched against him at the head of troops gathered from all the northern countries and was accompanied by their best generals. This is confirmed by the Aihole inscription which records a battle in which Harsha lost heavily particularly in elephants and became joyless in spite of his name which means joy. The Narmada was the frontier successfully held by Pulakesin who did not send his elephants into the difficult Vindhyan terrain, but guarded the passes with powerful divisions of infantry. This seems to have happened fairly early in the reigns of both Harsha and Pulakesin and a tacitly accepted balance of power established between the Lord of the North and the Lord of the South without mentioning the name of Harsha, the Hyderabad grant (A.D. 612) of Pulakesin says that he obtained the title of Paramesvara by defeating a hostile king who had given himself to the contest of a hundred battles. Ravikirti stresses the importance of Pulakesin’s victory on the Narmada by a whole verse recording his great qualities in war and diplomacy, and stating that he had become the lord of the three Maharashtras, comprising 99,000 villages. Master of the western littoral, Pulakesin exchanged embassies with the contemporary Sassanian monarch of Persia Khusru II. It used to be believed that two paintings on the ceiling of Cave I in Ajanta portray Khusru II and his celebrated consort Shirin on the one hand, and Pulakesin II receiving a Persian embassy on the other, but Foucher has expressed the emphatic view that no historical scenes were represented, anywhere in Ajanta where only Buddhist subjects were painted. But the details mentioned by the Persian historian Tabari (A.D. 838-923) in his account of the dispute between Khusru and his son are clear and definite. Following a Pehlevi work written soon after Khusru’s death, Tabari puts the following statement in the mouth of Khusru; “Two years ago, Pulakesin, king of India’ sent to us in the thirty-sixth year of our reign, ambassadors carry- 103 -

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ing a letter imparting to us various news, and presents for us, for you, and our other sons. He also wrote a letter to each of you. To you he presented – don’t you remember it – an elephant, a sword, a white falcon and a piece of gold brocade. When we looked at the presents and at the letters, we remarked that yours bore the mark ‘Private’ on the cover in the Indian language. Then we ordered that the presents and other letters should be delivered to each of you, but we kept back your letter, on account of the remark written on the outside. We then sent for an Indian scribe, had the seal broken, and the letter read. The contents were: ‘Rejoice and be good of cheer for on the day Dai Ba Adhar, of the thirty-eight year of the reign of Chosroes, thou will be crowned King and become ruler of the whole empire. Signed Pulakesi.’ But we closed this letter with our seal, and gave it into the keeping of our consort Shirin.” This account leaves us in no doubt regarding the constancy and intimacy of the contacts between the royal families of Persia and Western India. The further conquests and the later career of Pulakesin II must be reserved for another article.

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16/4/1961

Pulakesin’s conquests in the Deccan, after his mastery over Maharashtra, made him the Dakshinapathesvara (Lord of the South).

Later campaigns of Pulakesin II

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he repulse of Harshavardhana’s attempt to penetrate the Deccan was a fitting finale to the early campaigns of Pulakesin by which he had made himself master of all Maharashtra. Soon after, Pulakesin thought of extending his sway over eastern Deccan and thus becoming truly the Lord of the South, Dakshinapathesvara. For this purpose, he arranged for the security of the home territory during his absence on distant campaigns by making his younger brother Yuvaraja; that brother is known to history as Kubja (humpbacked) Vishnuvardhana. In a grant he issued in the absence of Pulakesin, Vishnuvardhana bears the titles Vishamasiddhi and Sri-prithivivallabha. The first title is explained in a later character as gained by him by the successes (siddhi) he achieved against impregnable (vishama) fortresses on land and sea, and this implies that he had already taken part in Pulakesin’s campaigns against Vanavasi, Puri and other places. His loyalty and ability were recognised by his brother who gave him thus an integral share in the administration of the realm. The Aihole inscription, the Kavya of Ravikirti which, he claimed, made him the equal of Bharavi and Kalidasa, is still the main source of our information for Pulakesin’s campaigns in eastern Deccan. The description imparts to this digvijaya the appearance of a pradakshina round the Deccan, and this may well have been historically true. According to this description, the rulers of Southern Kosala and Kalinga were the first to be tackled. They had conquests over other neighbours to their credit, but when they saw Pulakesin taking the field against them they thought prudence was the better part of valour and offered their submission which was duly accepted. The ruler of Pishtapuram (modern Pithapuram) on the coast of the Godavari district was not so prudent and evidently faced an attack which he was unable to resist; he was - 105 -

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reduced to forced vassalage. In the next stage of Pulakesin’s war of conquest (digvijaya), fighting centred round lake Kunala (Colair) whose waters were dyed with the blood of soldiers killed in battle. This fight took place in the well-known Vengidesa proper where the Vishnukundins had ruled with power for some generations and were naturally loath to accept subordination without a fight. The Vishnukundins were still the most important power in Andhra at the time of Pulakesin’s invasion, and it is possible that Kalinga and Pishtapura were also included in their sphere of influence even if they did not actually form part of their kingdom. The ruler of Pishtapura must have lost everything to Pulakesin now, or to his brother Vishnuvardhana soon after, when he made it the capital of his new vice-royalty which was soon to develop into an independent kingdom, the Vengi Kingdom of the Eastern Chalukyas.

CONFLICT WITH PALLAVA KING South of the Vishnukundin Kingdom lay the territory ruled by the Pallavas of the Simhavishnu line ruling from Kanchi; their power was rapidly growing and threatened to become a serious rival to that of the Badami Chalukyas, a prospect which Pulakesin did not relish. The Pallava ruler of this time was Mahendravarman I and some account of his conflict with Pulakesin and the battle of Pullalur has been given already in the study of Mahendravarman. The Aihole inscription affirms that the forces of Pulakesin, flushed with victory in many battles, caused the splendour of the lord of the Pallavas first to be obscured by the dust they raised, and then to vanish behind the walls of Kanchipura. This is rather vague rhetoric. But the Pallava records mention a definite victory in the battle of Pullalur, 15 miles north of Kanchipuram, right on Pulakesin’s route to that city. We have no reason to distrust the definite statement in the Pallava records, which, however, do not name the enemy. Probably, the Pallava ruler offered battle in an attempt to save the capital and may have had to retreat behind the walls of the capital as implied by the Aihole version. In any event, Pulakesin apparently did not inflict much loss on the Pallavas, and was not satisfied with the results attained. The siege of Kanchi, if one was attempted, was not a conspicuous success. Pulakesin must be taken to have returned to his capital from Kanchi. The campaigns in eastern Deccan most probably lasted about three years A.D. 617-20, during which his brother was in - 106 -

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charge of the home country. Then he sent Vishnuvardhana to the east to complete the conquest and settle the newly subjugated territory. In A.D. 631 we find both the brothers in Eastern Deccan, for Pulakesin is said to have been present on the occasion of a grant made by Vishnuvardhana who, by this time, had overthrown many enemies and, with the consent of his elder brother, secured the kingdom of Vengi for his own descendants. He was styled accordingly Maharaja (Timmapuram plates) just like Pulakesin himself. The arrangement must have satisfied Vishnuvardhana and prevented his taking after Mangalesa. The new kingdom had its first capital at Pishtapura, and moved to Vengi perhaps after the last vestiges of Vishnukundin power had disappeared there. Before the date of Pulakesin’s second visit to the Eastern Deccan in A.D. 631, there had occurred a change of rulers in Kanchi, Mahendravarman having been succeeded by his son Narasimhavarman Mahamalla. At the same time, the Bana country apparently became a bone of contention between the two powers; a stone inscription from the Gooty taluk records the subjugation of Ranavikrama by Pulakesin, and the record is engraved by Mahendra Pallavachari; the Bana, originally a Chalukya vassal, must have changed over voluntarily or by force to the Pallava side, and again been subjugated by the Chalukya. This marked the first step in a renewed trial of strength between Pulakesin and the Pallavas. In this round, the Pallava had the best of it and we have only his version of what happened. Pulakesin invaded the Palllava country in force, but Narasimhavarman is said to have defeated him in many battles fought at Pariyala, Manimangala, Suramara and elsewhere; only Manimangala among these battle fields is now identifiable with a homonymous place some 20 miles east of Kanchi; but it is obvious that once again the safety of the Pallava capital was threatened and there was much hard fighting to save it. In these fights, the Pallava was ably assisted by a Sinhalese prince, Manavamma, who got his reward later when Narasimhavarman helped him to gain the throne of Ceylon. The Pallava King now made up his mind to carry the war into the enemy’s territory and teach Pulakesin a lesson so as to avoid the recurrence of the threat to Kanchi which had occurred twice in twenty years. He invaded the Chalukya territory and rushed straight on the capital and laid siege to it We have no details, and we also hear nothing more of Pulakesin after A.D. 642, the year of the siege. There is a Pallava stone inscription in florid Pallava - 107 -

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Grantha characters behind the Mallikarjuna temple in the heart of Badami; the inscription is much ruined, but is clearly dated in the 13th year of Narasimhavarman who also took the title of the capturer of Vatapi, and is said to have, like Agastya, destroyed Vatapi. It is a fair presumption that Pulakesin fell fighting in the siege. Pulakesin’s reign thus ended in a gloom worse than that from which it had emerged. There was something in his too ardent militarism that aroused the implacable animosity of his foes and led to his destruction. But his work of conquest and consolidation had been so well done that even the Pallava occupation of the capital for some years, and the civil strife that followed among his sons, did not preclude its recovery under Vikramaditya I, the most talented of Pulakesin’s sons. In the interval between these wars, the pious Buddhist Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang moved peacefully from the dominions of Narasimhavarman to those of Pulakesin. He mentions Kanchipuram but does not mention the name of its ruler. His travel in South India was in A.D. 641-42. Of Maharashtra and its people and of the monasteries of Ajanta and the paintings there, he says much that is of interest. He gives the name of Pulakesin and describes him as a Kshatriya by birth; ‘his benevolent sway reached far and wide, and his vassals served him with perfect loyalty’. He says that the capital of Maharashtra ‘had a large river on its west side, and was above thirty li (six miles) in circuit’, and that it lay about 200 miles (1,000 li) south-west of Bharoach – a description that certainly does not point to Badami but may well apply to Nasik, an important centre of Buddhism where Hiuen Tsang may well have met Pulakesin and which he perhaps consequently took to be the capital of the kingdom. “The inhabitants of Maharashtra,” the pilgrim records, “were proud-spirited and warlike, grateful for favours and revengeful for wrongs, self-sacrificing towards suppliants and sanguinary to death with any who treated them insultingly. The martial heroes who led the van of the army in battle went into conflict intoxicated, and their war elephants were also made drunk before the engagements. Relying on the strength of his heroes and elephants, the king treated neighbouring countries with contempt. The people were fond of learning, and they combined orthodoxy (Buddhism) and heterodoxy (other creeds).”

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26/2/1961

The Pallavas of Kanchi have made notable contribution to the sculptural wealth of South India. Mahendravarman of the illustrious dynasty is one of the most versatile rulers known to South Indian history.

Mahendravarman, a royal genius

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he Kalabhras of indeterminate provenance brought about a veritable crisis in South Indian history and civilisation, the nature of which remains still to be determined by research. This crisis was put an end to in the latter half of A.D. sixth century by the simultaneous, but not demonstrably concerted, action of three powers that occupied the stage for two or three centuries thereafter; these powers were the Chalukyas of Badami, the Pallavas of Kanchi, and the Pandyas of Madura. The Pallavas, who held the centre of the stage between the Chalukyas on the north and the Pandyas on the south, were in many ways the most notable among them, and made the most striking contributions to the culture and the arts of S. India. Among the Pallavas themselves, perhaps the most outstanding figure, one who deserves a prominent place among the most fascinating if somewhat enigmatic rulers of men known to history, was Mahendravarman, the son and successor of Simhavishnu and the second ruler of the dynasty founded by him. We are fortunate in having a fine portrait sculpture in Varaha cave temple at Mahabalipuram of Mahendravarman with two of his queens by his side; we owe this to the filial piety of his son Narasimhavarman who had the title Mahamalla, which gave the name Mamallapuram corrupted into Mahabailipuram and thereafter related to the Bana cycle of legends centring round Bali or Mahabali. Mahendravarman was clearly the abhisheka-nama, coronation name, of the king; we have now no means of knowing his personal name given to him at his birth. Another king in a distant land, afterwards famous as Kambuja, modern Cambodia, a conqueror, known as Citrasena at his birth, also assumed the name Mahendravarman as his abhisheka-nama. This was perhaps not an acci- 113 -

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dental coincidence, for A.D. sixth and seventh centuries formed a period of close commercial and cultural contacts between S. India and the Indian colonies in Indo-China and Indonesia. Simhavishnu is said to have conquered all the country down to the Kaveri and Mahendravarman must have inherited, therefore, a fairly extensive kingdom. Though he was, as we shall see, much more interested in the art of peace, Mahendra was no mean soldier and evidently sought to extend his heritage by further aggression. And his more war-like contemporary, the Chalukya Pulakesin II of Badami, who had proved himself more than a match for Harshavardhana, the emperor of the north (Uttarapathesvara.) aspired to dominate the south and become the Dakshinapathesvara; so, he would not brook the rising power of Mahendravarman and its expansion. Details are lacking, but Pulakesin was the aggressor and invaded the Pallava kingdom and came to within 15 miles of Kancheepuram; Mahendravarman met the challenge successfully and inflicted a defeat on the invader in a pitch battle at Pullalur (the Polilore of the Anglo-Mysore wars of a later age), and compelled him to retrace his steps into his own kingdom. But possibly the Pallava ruler lost some of his northern possession irretrievably on this occasion. Modern historians generally accept the views put forward by the late Professor Sundaram Pillai and endorsed by V. Venkayya that the famous Saiva saint Tirunavakkarasu or Appar and Mahendravarman were contemporaries, that they were both Jains at first, that Appar embraced Saivism first, and was persecuted by Mahendravarman whom the saint ultimately succeeded in winning over to Saivism. This theory rests mainly on the story given in the Periyapuranam of Sekkilar, who wrote his great hagiography in the 12th century, and there has been no lack of recent criticism on the evidence of the poem, though it mentions a Pallava king as the author of the persecution which it describes in much detail, it does not name the ruler; and when it says that after his conversion to Saivism the king built the temple of Tiruvadigai (in Cuddalore) with the material carried from the ruins of the Jaina monastery of Pataliputtira, it gives the name of the new temple as Gunadara-ichehuran whereas the title of Mahendra was Gunabhara, not Gunadhara. It is also pointed out that in the history of S. Indian architecture, structural temples were unknown in the time of Mahendravarman. But we do not know the exact state either of the Tiruvadigai temple or of the Jaina monastery in early Pallava - 114 -

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times, and Sekkilar’s account may well have been an imaginative reading of the features of his time into the past. The difference of one letter (dha in place of bha) in the title of the temple can be due to copyists’ error, and at any rate is too trivial in itself to invalidate the identification of the unnamed Pallava king with Mahendra. Again, there is a well-known Sanskrit verse in the Trichinopoly cave inscription of Mahendravarman with a very significant and unmistakable play upon the word linga: it implies prima facie that the king had turned his back on a false faith ‘vipaksha vritteh paravrittam’ and had established a linga to enable devotees to gain the true knowledge of the Real (God); of course, the verse is a pun on the names of logical categories also. Here again, the objection is made that there is no trace of a rock-cut linga in the Trichinopoly cave or indeed in any of the cave temples of the Mahendra period, that linga worship in S. India cannot be traced to so early a period, and that consequently the verse in the Trichi inscription can furnish no evidence of Mahendra’s early religious faith which he abandoned for Saivism. But there is the celebrated Gudimallam lingam which has been assigned to the early centuries BC or A.D. on account of its style recalling some of the Sanchi sculptures. And it is well known that in early worship the object worshipped was often a painting on a wall instead of a three-dimensional icon and we cannot be sure that a linga could not have been painted for worship in the Trichinopoly cave. Though the position seems thus to be arguable, we may perhaps hold that the doubts raised are not enough to turn the scale against the prevailing view regarding the contemporaneity of Appar and Mahendravarman, and the conversion of the latter to Saivism by the former. All the Mahendra rock-cut temples are known to have been dedicated to Hindu deities, and so his conversion to that faith must have occurred before he embarked on his building activities. In this sphere he claims to have been an innovator, and we can almost hear him clapping his hands in childish glee as he records in the Mandagappattu cave that being a Vichitra-chitta he had constructed a shrine dedicated to Brahma, Isvara and Vishnu - notice the central place of Isvara - without the use of brick, timber, metal or mortar, i.e., by cutting into live rock. He was vichitra-chitta also in his fondness for many other curious titles which he applies to himself: Lalitankura, Avanibhajana, Satrumalla, and many others, including some obviously Telugu titles like Nilviloni-ambu and Neyyambu. - 115 -

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One of these titles Mattavilasa recalls his eminence as the writer of a Sanskrit farce (prahasana) of that name, which bears clear witness to the broadminded tolerance of the king which casts a serious doubt on the stories of the persecution of Appar recorded by Sekkilar; but we should not forget that miracle and legend are the natural results of imagination playing on a cherished past, particularly in the sphere of religious faith. The Mattavilasa (Sport of drunkards) is a one-act play which treats of a drunken Saivite ascetic who loses the skull which he uses as a begging bowl and accuses a Buddhist monk of stealing it. After much satirical dialogue in which other dissolute ascetics of different persuasions and both sexes are involved, it is discovered that the skull has been stolen by a dog. Though slight, this little rollicking farce throws a flood of light on the life of the times and is replete with a Rabelaisian humour. In a similar though slightly different strain is another farce, the Bhagavadajjukam, a satire on a Buddhist bhikshu and his recalcitrant pupil. It is supposed by an anonymous commentator, to contain an allegorical or hidden meaning pointing to the truths of monistic Vedanta. Both the Mattavilasa and Bhagavadajjuka are mentioned in the Mamandur inscription of Mahendravarman, and it is, therefore, proper to ascribe the play to that king, in spite of the anonymous commentator who ascribes it to a Bodhayana.

MUSICAL INSCRIPTION At Kudumiyamalai in the former Pudukkottai State, there is an interesting musical inscription which records exercises to be practised on stringed instruments with seven or eight strings as a Tamil addendum to the record explains. The inscription which consists of svara-gramas is recorded, in Pallava Grantha characters of the seventh or eight century and concludes with the statement that it was the work of a Saiva monarch (a mahesvara) who was the pupil of Rudracharya, evidently a celebrated music master of the time. This mahesvara composer of the record has often been identified with Mahendravarman; while this quite fits in with what we know otherwise of this fascinating ruler and his ways, some critics have pointed out that the characters of the inscription are rather later than those of Mahendra’s time and that the Pudukottah territory contains no monuments in the Mahendra style and was most probably not part of his dominion. But it must be owned that it is not easy to suggest any claimant better suited to the authorship of this unique South Indian musical inscription. - 116 -

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Soldier, author, artist, and builder, Mahendravarman is one of the most charming and versatile rulers known to S. Indian history. We would gladly exchange much of the extant chronicles for more and better authenticated knowledge of this wonderful man.

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21/5/1961

The author says that historians must set about making a fresh study of the Pallava religious renaissance with the data furnished by contemporary evidence. They must accept tradition only to the extent to which it is not flagrantly contradicted by such evidence.

Hindu Renaissance of the Pallava period

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n a day towards the end of March or early in April every year, vast crowds gather round the Mylapore temple of Kapalisvarar for the festival of the Arupattumuvar – the sixty-three. We have the Tiruttondar Puranam, better known as Periya Puranam, which forms the 12th and last book of the Tamil Saiva canon narrating the lives of these saints in epic detail and mellifluous verse – the work of Sekkilar the prince of Tamil hagiographers, who lived in A.D. 12th century. The earliest literary reference to the group of Nayanars is found in the Tiruttondattogai, the group of holy servants (of God), a poem by Sundaramurti, A.D. ninth century, himself a Nayanar, recognised as completing the tale of 63, his own poem giving the names of just 62 individual saints, and nine groups of saints - according to Sekkilar’s Puranam. When exactly the festival of the 63 came into vogue in Mylapore, or that of the impalement of the Jainas at Madura, is not ascertainable beyond doubt. So also, we have no clear notion when the Saiva canon of 12 books was put together in that form, though there seems to be some reason to think that the first redaction of the canon by Rajaraja I, or in his reign, was confined to the Devaram making up the first seven books. We have legends narrated in poems passing under reputed names like Umapatisivacharya, but for the authenticity of which even orthodox editors are unable to vouch. Much of all this is matter of active religious faith in current - Saivism, and we find also corresponding features in the live Vaishnavism of the Tamil country. Without prejudice to current religious faith and practice of the orthodox followers of each sect, the student of history should feel free to examine critically the sources of his information with a view to tracing the - 118 -

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processes of growth and change in the development of each cult. This is the method by which much welcome light has been shed on the history of other religions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and our own Vedic religion, Buddhism, Jainism and so on. The historian should also be prepared to reconsider his conclusions in the light of fresh facts that had escaped him earlier or of new and better explanations of admitted facts. The history of the Hindu Renaissance of the Pallava period was first reconstructed in the early decades of this century by scholars like Sundaram Pillai and Venkayya with the aid of evidence from literature and epigraphy. But as it seems now on further study too much was taken on trust from Sekkilar’s great work which was written some five or six centuries after the events of which it treats and is replete with numerous miracles which cannot be treated as history. Some scholars are inclined to attribute to Sekkilar almost all the virtues of a modern historian and assume that he more or less followed all the processes employed in modern historical writing, including criticism of sources, what in German is called Quellenkritik. In this respect, orthodox tradition seems to provide a more authentic picture of the conditions in which Sekkilar carried out his work. We learn that the Chola king, most probably Kulottunga II, was engaged in studying with great relish the Jain poem Jivakacintamani and treating the heretical story as the truth; Sekkilar remonstrated with the king that he should not waste his time and energy over false literature which spelt no good for life in this world or the next, and that he should turn his mind to the holy and true stories of the achievements of Saiva saints as recorded first in the Tiruttondattogai by Sundaramurti and later somewhat more elaborately by Nambi Andar Nambi. Sekkilar followed up his remonstrances with an oral narration of the ancient tales for the edification of the king, who then commissioned Sekkilar to write a full-dress account of the lives of the saints and gave him in abundant measure all the wealth and other material aids needed to enable him to carry out the task in the precincts of the Chidambaram temple. So, we see that in a very real sense this great poem is the aftermath of the Pallava Renaissance of which, however, the only authentic records should be sought in the contemporary devotional hymns which were subsequently gathered and edited canonically by Rajaraja and/or Nambi Andar Nambi. (We shall leave the parallel history of the Vaishnava movement on one side for the time). It seems, however, an irony of fate that Sekkilar’s great work, - 119 -

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planned and executed as a corrective to the Chola monarch’s slavery to Jaina literature, should have formed the starting point of a new assimilation of other Jaina features into Saivism. It has often happened that rival creeds in their competition to win popular favour have ended by developing many common features; witness Mahayana Buddhism and Puranic Hinduism for instance. At first Sekkilar’s work was known as Tiruttondarpuranam; but now few will recognise the work if that name is uttered; it is much better known as Periya Puranam. To explain this, we should recall an interesting chapter of Kannada Jaina history. In the latter half of the 10th century, Chavundaraya, a feudatory of Ganga Rajamalla IV and patron of the great Kannada poet Ranna, set up the colossus of Gommatesvara at Sravana Belagola, and was rewarded by his suzerain with the title of Raya for the service he had rendered to Jainism. The same chieftain was himself an author of repute and composed in A.D. 978 the celebrated prose hagiography known as Chavundarja-purana, or, what is more relevant to our purpose, the Trishasti-lakshana Mahapurana, i.e., the great purana of 63 traits; it treats of the legends of 24 tirthankaras, 12 Chakravartis, 9 Balabhadras, 9 Narayanas and 9 Pratinarayanas - 63 in all. The first thing that strikes us here is that Tamil Periya Puranam is an exact rendering of Mahapurana. And then the 63 Jain saints of the Mahapurana may conceivably have been the prototype of the 63 Nayanars. Now let us look a little closely at the evolution of this number sixty-three in Tamil Saivism. Sundaramurti’s hymn contains as already noted 62 individual names of saints and the names of nine groups, making 71 in all. Sekkilar’s poem is constructed on this basis and if we include the name of Sundaramurti, whose story is also given in the poem and furnishes its framework we get 72 in all. It is not inconceivable that Sekkilar had the figure 63 in his mind including the name of Sundaramurti in the list of individuals and putting the group names on one side, but if that was so, he has given no hint of it, possibly because he did not like to display such an obvious adoption of the Jaina precedent, and we are left wondering whether the ‘63 saints’ of Saivism form really a contribution of the great hagiologist or of a later reformer. In the temples to-day, there is much indefiniteness in practice; though the phrase Arupattumuvar is commonly employed, the number is only an approximation; for one thing the three authors of the Devaram and Manikkavasagar (of Tiruvasagam) are treated as a class apart to-day, a plan not warranted by anything in Sekkilar, - 120 -

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and the remaining figures vary in number between 60 and say seventy. Let us also note this: that in the Silver Age of Tamil Saivism under Rajaraja Chola, there seems to have been no idea of worshipping all the Tondars regularly in the temples though we hear of bronze icons in the Great Temple of Tanjore of the Devaram trio, Siruttondan, and a few others and the Tanjore inscriptions are a remarkably complete record of the affairs of the temple. The mention of Manikkavasagar raises some important questions bearing on the history of the Saiva revival. The question was long debated in learned treatises and articles whether Manikkavasagar preceded the authors of the Devaram or followed them. Direct Christian influence on the thought and expression of Manikkavasagar has been postulated by some writers, but this seems as unlikely as the influence of Islam on Sankara’s philosophy which has been postulated by others. The facts that Manikkavasagar finds no place in the Tiruttondattogai, which would be almost unaccountable if the Tiruvasagam has been known to Sundaramurti, and that in the canon it figures as the eighth book after the seven books of the Devaram, seem to be definite indications of the relative chronological position of Manikkavasagar and his great work. But even of this we cannot be too sure, for Tirurnular figures in the Tiruttondattogai, and the Tirumandiram, supposed to be his production, take a later place in the canon. The position of Manikkavasagar in Tamil Saivism has always remained doubtful, though a relatively recent popular re-grouping counts him with the Devaram trio as one of the four Samayakuravar, as against the Santanakuravan of a later time who expounded the philosophy of Saiva Siddhanta. The net result of this discussion seems to be that we must set about making a fresh study of the Pallava religious renaissance with the data furnished by strictly contemporary evidence, and accepting tradition only to the extent to which it is not flagrantly contradicted by such evidence. In an earlier contribution in the series, while discussing the occurrences of the reign of Mahendravarman Pallava we had occasion to point out difficulties in reconciling Sekkilar’s narrative of the life of Tirunavakkarasu (Appar) with other data, though we felt that generally the main outline of the story of Appar converting a Pallava king, perchance Mahendravarman, from Jainism to Saivism may stand. We shall endeavour in the next article to study the life of Jnanasambandar, and generally the religious movement of the period as a whole with particular reference to Saivism. - 121 -

25/6/1961

Our main source to gain some idea of the salient features of Saivism is the Tevaram. The hymns, according to discerning scholars, have never been critically edited and have been interpolated by scribes at various stages of copying through the centuries.

State of Saivism in the Pallava period

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efore we proceed to discuss the chronology of the Saiva Nayanars of the Pallava period and the historicity of the incidents of their lives as narrated by Sekkilar, it would be useful to gain some idea of the leading features of the Saivism of the time as reflected in the contemporary sources, namely the Tevaram and the inscriptions, besides the Sanskrit farce Mattavilasa of Mahendravarman. The Tevaram has never been critically edited, and it necessarily shares all the shortcomings of all Indian literary evidence drawn from works which have been copied many times over through the centuries by scribes whose ignorance or temerity has effected many changes that may have obscured or altered the original. We are treated to a fantastic legend about the original numbers of the hymns, the loss of the vast majority of them by the action of termites, and the manner of their recovery by Rajaraja and Nambi Andar Nambi. Actually, we find many hymns falling short of their full number, and one hymn has been recovered from a stone inscription at Tiruvidaivayil in late characters of the imperial Chola period but purporting to be a composition of Gnanasambandar. Discerning scholars suspect that in Sambandar’s hymns the end verses generally numbered eleventh, which are of the nature of a benediction, are the works of a later hand, and that there are, besides, other interpolations in the entire canon, which are supposed to be the work of a certain Velliambala Vana Tambiran and are on that account known as Velli Padaikal. We have no sure means of testing the accuracy of these views, and indeed it is the view of the present writer that it is impossible, with our present manuscript resources or rather the lack of them, - 122 -

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to go behind important text of the Tevaram as found in the current printed editions. Our sketch of Saivism, however, cannot be exhaustive, but calculated to present only its leading features. Even cursory readers of the Tevaram will readily recognise that practically the whole gamut of the mythology of the make up and deeds of Siva is well known to the hymnists. They mention frequently his jata (matted locks) and his snake ornaments, Ganga and the digit of the moon on his head, the skin of the elephant and tiger as his robes, his ruddy form (also called white at times) and neck darkened by the poison he swallowed and was stopped from going down below the neck, his third eye which reduced Cupid (kama) to ashes, the deer, the axe, the trident, the skull of Brahma, the Vinai, fire etc., held in his hands, his abode in the hearts of devotees, in burning grounds and elsewhere, his immanence in the entire universe in his eightfold manifestation (astaumuru) the bull as his mount and badge, his dance form as well as his hermaphrodite aspect, the holy ash he wears all over, and so on, the Puranic tales of the burning of the three Asura cities, his assumption of the hunter’s form to indulge in a wrestle with Arjuna and bless him in the end by presenting him a war weapon (the Pasupatha) and others like these are often alluded to. The importance of Namah Sivaya is stressed. The family of Siva includes besides Parvati, their two sons Ganesa and Muruga, the latter procreated specially for the destruction of the otherwise invincible Asuras.

APPAR’S CENSURE OF BRAHMA AND VISHNU Siva temples of different sizes and shapes, including those built by Kochchenganan, are mentioned. Worship in these temples was accompanied by the recitation of Vedic hymns by choirs of persons specially trained for the purpose; and this was supplemented in later times by the recitation of Tevaram (Tiruppadigam) by similar choirs; but this did not happen till very late in A.D. ninth or early 10th century, according to the testimony at inscriptions. The hymn of Appar, which bears the title Lingapuranam in current editions of the Tevaram, is of considerable interest as a casual account of the chief elements in the worship offered to Siva. In the hymn Appar censures Brahma and Vishnu for their attempt to get the measure of the Lord without qualifying themselves in any manner for the task by offering him due worship, and the enumeration of their defaults spread over the 10 verses of the main hymn is sig- 123 -

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nificant: “They did not gather flowers or offer them to Him, they did not bathe Him in pure water or adorn Him with a round tilaka (mark on the forehead); they did not take up broomstick with water mixed with cow dung to clean the premises; or make or bear the basket for carrying and offering flowers; they did not think of bathing Him in ghee and milk, nor of praising Him sincerely without fraud and falsehood; they did not make chaplets of the buds of erukku (madar) nor did they offer Him a shred of cloth for His loins; they did not climb trees to gather flower nor think of bearing a load of water for His bath; they did not take up the khatvanga (axe) or kapala (skull), nor do obeisance to Him prostrating with the eight parts of their body; they did not wear the holy ashes to shine in them, nor wear a garland of fragrant flowers; they did not offer at His feet fresh kuvalai buds cut into petals and made into a garland, they did not wear kandi (amarant) and take up the kapala (skull) or put their mouth to the conch to blow it.” At the end comes an eleventh verse which affirms that when Vishnu and Brahma failed to find Him after a search everywhere, the holy redhaired God appeared saying: “I am here in the linga.” This verse has all the appearance of an interpolation with a view to dragging in the word linga, though it should be admitted that the preceding 10 verses are unintelligible - when they talk indefinitely of the two who failed to do the varied acts of worship and yet sought to get his measure - except in the light of the Lingapurana story; and this view gains support from the repeated description of Siva in the hymn as a lustrous form (2), a form of fiery colour (4), a form that stood as light (6). But the vagueness of the Tamil phrases used also renders it possible to hold that the Lingapurana story may be an elaboration of the hymn, and the eleventh verse a result of such elaboration.

ETHICS AND RELIGION LINKED There is another verse of Appar which links ethics closely with religion and also sums up the essentials of worship; it may roughly be rendered thus: “With the body as the temple, the worshipful will as the slave, truth as ceremonial purity, and the mind as the linga of ruby, with love as the ghee and milk for bathing (Him) profusely, I performed puja to the Lord with praises as offerings.” This verse is remarkable for the appearance of the word linga in the body of the hymn, and not in a suspicious last verse as in the Lingapurana hymn cited above. We shall have occasion to revert - 124 -

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to this in due course. The institution of Laksharchana, the propitiation of the deity by uttering his names 1,00,000 times, is mentioned. The offerings made are variously called havis or bait, and lights (diipa) and incense (dhupa) were employed in worship; besides sandal, select flowers and music with various instruments like drums, conches, flutes and so on. We also hear of devotees worshipping the Lord in groups or congregations, and further of the devotees themselves becoming the objects of worship either singly or in groups; in a hymn of Gnanasambandar, the Pandya Minister, Kulaccirai, gets particular praise for this practice. The Mattavilasa of Mahendravarman is a welcome piece of literary evidence on the state of religion in his reign and in his capital city. Though it is a light farce and should be interpreted with due reserve, it still provides a peep into the practical manifestations of religion in social life. It is a one-act play which has for its characters a Saiva Kapalika and his wife, both great boozers, a Buddhist bhikshu whom the Kapalika suspects of having stolen his kapala, a Saiva Pasupata who is called upon to adjudge the dispute between the Kapalika and the bhikshu and is something of a libertine, besides a lunatic who points to a dog who is the real culprit, that has walked away with the kapala. Incidentally, a speech of the Kapalika’s mate refers to the large stores of wealth accumulated in the Rajavihara of the city which its inmates could use freely to bribe the city magistrates and corrupt the course of justice. Altogether the little farce appears to be the work of a tolerant good-natured author who is not misled by the pretenses of men and can laugh indulgently at their foibles. It is perhaps worth noting that in this playlet there is no reference to Vaishnavism. That Mahendravarman was far from being a fanatical sectarian appears to be a legitimate inference from the Mandagappattu inscription which records with glee his construction of a rock-cut shrine to the Tirumurti. But the Trichinopoly inscription is of a different import, and that and other Pallava inscriptions bearing on the state of Saivism must form the subject of our next study.

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23/7/1961

Saiva revival was in full stride by the middle of the Pallava period of rule.

Some Pallava inscriptions

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part from the Tevaram, the inscriptions are the most copious and authentic source of the state of Saivism in the country “in the period of Hindu Renaissance”. There is one precious statement made by Hiuen Tsang about A.D. 642, the time of his visit to the Pallava Kingdom. “There were more than 100 Buddhist monasteries with above 10,000 Brethren all of the Sthavira School, The Deva Temples were above 80, and the majority belonged to the Digambaras.” This makes Jainism the dominant sect, but it is not easy to decide if this was in fact so, or Hiuen Tsang, in his dislike of Jainism, formed an exaggerated estimate of its prevalence. This creed gets only a passing reference in the Mattavilasa which seems to give equal importance to the ascetic orders of Saivism and Buddhism. According to the inscriptions which tell us more about kings and officials than about the common people, all the Pallava kings were worshippers of Siva or Vishnu, the line, is said to have been a devotee of Vishnu. The first temple excavated by his son Mahendravarman at Mandagapattu was dedicated to Brahma, Vishnu and Isvara, which shows that his religious outlook was the broad tolerant one that characterized the smattas as they came to be called at a somewhat later time. Mamandur is also a triple shrine while Mahendravadi in North Arcot is a relatively rare instance of a Vishnu shrine made by the same king. Another cave at Mamandur (the one that contains a long-damaged inscription) may also be a Vishnu shrine. Pallavaram (now a Muslim dargah), Dalavanur and Siyamangalam, among other places, are all dedicated to Siva, and are described by names like Satrumallesvara, Avanibhajanapallavesvara and so on. There are other rock-cut cave shrines in the Mahendra style without inscriptions, as at Kuranganilrnuttam, where, however, Sambandar sings of a tall mada-kovil which must have been a brick structure, and not of the rock-cut shrine. Our aim here is not a study of the evolution of Pallava architecture, but of Saivism, and - 126 -

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so we must pass over many monuments of great interest in themselves, but not so important for our purpose.

SHRINE ON TIRUCHI ROCK But the piece de resistance of Mahendravarman’s reign is the upper rock-cut shrine on the Trichinopoly rock which carries many inscriptions; most of them are short ones giving the various titles of the king; another in a single verse gives the name of the temple – Lalitankurapallavesvara griham. But there are two longer inscriptions in good Sanskrit verse (four each) in fine sculptured panel of Siva as Gangadhara, there can be no manner of doubt that the verses make direct reference to this panel. We may dwell a little on these inscriptions because they give a vivid idea of the state of faith at the time; they show Mahendravarman as a pronounced Saivite who had developed a decided preference for the faith over others; and one verse in these records containing a pun on the word Linga has been the subject of a rather keen discussion in recent times. When Hultzsch first edited these inscriptions, he summed up their contents as follows. “The two inscriptions record, that a king Gunabhara, who bore the birudas Purushottama, Satrumalla, and Satyasandha, constructed a temple of Siva on the top of the mountain and placed in it a linga and a statue of himself. We may now analyse the verses one by one, beginning with the inscription on the pillar to the right (1) King Gunabhara placed a stone figure in the wonderful stone temple at the top of the best of mountains, and in this way he made Siva and himself stationary (i.e. permanent) in the worlds; (2) On this mountain, king Satrumalla built a temple of Girisa (Siva), the husband of the mountain’s daughter (Parvati), in order to make his name (the mountain-dweller) true to fact; (3) when Hara (Siva) asked him; ‘How could I, standing in a temple on earth, view the splendour of the Chola country or the river Kaveri?’ King Gunabhara, whose rule was like that of Manu, assigned to him this cloud touching mountain temple; (4) Thus did this noble man (Purushottama) make with joy the matchless stone form of Siva, and thus with Siva borne on its top (head), the natural loftiness of the mountain was made fruitful. Before passing to the other inscription, it may be noted that the phrase Kritva Sivam sirasi, and indeed the entire second half of this fourth verse, strongly suggests the idea of bearing a form of Siva on the head practised by his devotees, somewhat in the manner of modern pandarams going about with a Sivalinga made - 127 -

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of rudraksha adorning their head. We may recall the name of the Bharasiva, a dynasty of ruling kings in Northern India, of A.D. third or fourth century, who bore a form of Siva on their heads or shoulders. But it must be admitted that there seems to be no reference to this practice yet in the Tevaram hymns, the bulk of which perhaps date from a time later than that of our inscription. To turn now to the other inscription on the left side: This begins with a direct reference to the Gangadhara panel: (1) Being afraid that the God who is fond of rivers – an allusion to Siva bearing the Ganga in his locks – having looked at the Kaveri with lovely qualities and with waters pleasing to the eye and wearing a garland of gardens, might fall in love with her. Girikanyaka (Parvati) has, I think, left her father’s family and resides permanently on this mountain, telling (her Lord) that this river (Kaveri) is the beloved (wife) of the Pallava (2) When Gunabhara is king, let the knowledge of the lin-gin turned back from hostile vipaksha conduct, be spread for long in this world by means of this “ling a”. (3) This mountain resembles the diadem of the Chola province, this temple of Hara its chief jewel, and the splendour of Sankara its splendour. (4) By the stone-chisel a material body of Satyasandha (Mahendravarman) was executed and by that was produced the eternal body of his fame.

MISSING IMAGES This inscription raises questions which will not perhaps be answered in one and the same way by different minds. In the cave as it is now, we miss the image of Parvati which must have been there to render the first verse intelligible, and we also miss the stone image of Mahendravarman, whose title Satyasandha is found again in the Pallavaram cave inscriptions along with many other titles. Perhaps we also miss the stone image of Siva installed in the temple as stated in verse (1) of the previous inscription. There are sockets on the floor of the shrine cell in the cave which may well have been receptacles of the images of Siva and Parvati, the Ganghadhara panel being found on the Western wall of the mandapa right opposite the shrine front – suggestions which I owe to Sri K. R. Srinivasan of the Temple Survey of the Archaeological Department of India, though it is not now easy to suggest the probable location of the Mahendravarman statue. It is clear that the cave has suffered damage in the centuries that have passed since its construction. More important is the question raised by the second verse of the second - 128 -

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inscription relating to “Ling a” and “Ling in”, but the question involves an important point in the history of Saivism and must be reserved for discussion in a separate article, and not disposed of incidentally in a general sketch of Saivism in Pallava inscriptions. Tirumayyam in Pudukkotai taluq of Trichinopoly contains a fragment of a musical inscription, perhaps originally a replica of the better-preserved inscription at Kudumiyamalai. Mainly on paleographical grounds, both inscriptions have often been assigned to Mahendravarman I whose versatile talents may appear to justify the ascription. Both these records begin with the words namassivaya - the credal formula of southern Saivism. We know that this formula occurs in the Tevaram; but we cannot yet affirm that it is as old as Mahendravarman’s reign as the ascription of the musical inscriptions to that monarch cannot be said to rest on unassailable grounds. The shrine cells of the temples of Mahendravarman I’s time are now empty, with no traces of a rock-cut linga or any image of Siva or Vishnu. “Often”, says K. R. Srinivasan who has carefully inspected these cave temples recently, “there is a slight relief of a pedestal cut at the base of the back wall indicating that the deity in worship was either a wall painting or was picked out in stucco from the plastered wall above the line of the pedestal. Tell-tale traces of painted plaster extant in many cases, as also the absence of any original water outlet in the cell would confirm this.’’ This kind of worship of painted or stucco images is mentioned in the Vaishnava hymns of the early Alvars as well. If we accept the full implications of this, we must conclude that the Tevaram hymns containing references to the bathing of Siva in liquids (abhisheka) must belong to a later date than Mahendra’s reign. But worship with abhisheka was not long in coming as there is an unmistakable allusion to it in the inscriptions of Paramesvaravarman I less than half a century later. Siva is here hailed as the causeless (eternal) cause of birth, existence and destruction (of the universe). The king is said to bear with his head the unborn lord crushed by the weight of whose toe Mount Kailasa went down to the nether world along with the 10-headed (Ravana); is the phrase murdhna bibharti, bears with his head, a metaphor indicating only that the king is a devotee of Siva, or does it refer to an image of Siva in some form literally carried on the head? Another verse in the same inscription gives a string of eight or nine names of Siva much in the manner of a Sahasranama but much briefer - 129 -

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indicating a new trend. Yet another is a pun on abhisheka with water and once more suggests the bearing of a Siva image on his head by the king. The relevant portion may be translated thus: The handsome Sankara dwells in the broad lake, viz. the head (of the king) filled with the waters of the abhisheka (worship of god, coronation of the king), and full of varied gems, viz. lotus flowers. Instead of this clever, though laboured, double entendre, we should have welcomed a straight statement about the abhisheka of Siva; but court poets are not chroniclers, and must have their fanciful ways of imparting facts. The inscription records the name of the temple at the end – Atyantakamapallavesvara griham; this is preceded by a verse cursing six times (with dhik) those in whose hearts Rudra, the deliverer from the path of evil, does not dwell. Some of these verses are repeated in other records of the same king and of a later king Rajasimha and the curse (dhik) also recurs often elsewhere, indicating a growing intolerance of other sects even within the Hindu fold, not to speak of heresies like Jainism and Buddhism. We are thus in the full tide of the Saiva revival by the middle of the Pallava period of rule; we shall have to study the later inscriptions also before taking up the question of the place of the linga in this movement.

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27/8/1961

The several inscriptions of the Pallava dynasty throw much light on the abiding religious faith of the kings.

Somaskanda in Pallava sculptures

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n the cave temples of Mahendravarman I, there is generally no evidence of an image in the round installed in the centre of the sanctum for worship, but some evidence such as relics of paintings on the back wall and a stone ridge at the foot of it to serve as a pedestal for stucco or wooden sculptures leaning against the wall to which worship may have been offered; there is, however, the exceptional instance of the Trichinopoly cave with its inscriptions which seem to imply a different arrangement. But the general rule noted above seems to have governed practice to the end of Narasimhavarman I’s reign, and careful observation has revealed that for the first time a sculptured Somaskanda panel appears in the back wall of the shrine in the temples of Paramesvaravarman I’s time, including some which may have been begun by Narasimhavarman I, but whose construction was completed in Paramesvaravarman’s time; the short reign of Mahendravarman II, which intervened between the two rulers, being apparently of little significance in this connection. The inscriptions of Rajasimha (i.e. Narasimhavarman II, the son of Paramesvaravarman I) furnish clear evidence of the increased vogue of the Somaskanda conception. For one thing, in a well-known inscription of the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchi, he compares his own birth to that of Kumara or Subrahmanya by a graceful pun on the name of his father – Subrahmanyah Kumaro Guha iva paramaad is’varaad – aattajanmaa. Again, in the Atiranachandesvara temple at Saluvankuppam, his inscription says: “May Pasupati (Siva) attended by the daughter of the Mountain (Parvati), Guha and Gana always take delight in residing here.” Again, in the small Mahendravarmesvara built by Rajasimhan’s son Mahendravarman III in front of the Kailasanatha, we read: “May Krittivasas (Siva) dwell for ever in this Mahendravarmesvara in the company of Guha and Parvati and the troops of his attend- 131 -

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ants.” All this is quite in keeping with the more or less a regular appearance of fine sculptures of the Somaskanda group in all the temples of the period in the back wall of the central shrine, irrespective of whether a ‘linga’ is set up in front of the panel as in some relatively late examples or not. It is perhaps worthwhile reproducing here the following summary of the results of a recent inspection of the monolithic rathas at Mamallapuram as regards the dispositions in the shrine cells: “The Draupadi ratha contains inside the shrine a bas-relief of Durga cut on the back wall of the sanctum, while the Arjuna-ratha has an empty cell with traces of plaster on the back wall showing that the consecrated deity was a painting or stucco relief. The completed top storey of the Dharmaraja ratha contains a Somaskanda panel caved by Paramesvaravarman I. The Trimurti cave-temple contains bas-relief of Guru murti, Siva and Vishnu in its three shrine-cells. None of the rest, all incomplete, contains any sculpture inside the cell. There is no trace of a rock-cut linga inside the sanctum of any example, nor is there a water-outlet in the form of projecting spout (pranala) usually found in the northern side of the shrine.” There can be no doubt that the reigns of Paramesvaravarman I, and Rajasimha (together with the short, intervening reign of Mahendravarman II), witnessed the high watermark of the Saiva revival, and this is attested fittingly enough by the numerous structural stone temples of Rajasimha’s reign at Mamallapuram, Kanchipuram, and Panamalai among which the Kailasanatha is undoubtedly the foremost. And Rajasimha himself was one of the most devoted Saivas known to history. In the Kailasanatha inscription, from which we have already cited the description of Rajasimha’s birth, there occurs a verse which sets up a high claim for him and which Hultzsch rendered as follows: “If, in the Krita Age kings like Dushyanta, who saw the gods and were engaged by saints like Kanva, would hear a heavenly voice without body (ambaragatta vaanii sariiram vinaa), that is not a matter for wonder; but ah! this is extremely astonishing, that Sribhara (Rajasimha) has heard that voice in the Kali Age, from which good qualities keep aloof.” Scholars who have eagerly sought to place in the Pallava period the Nayanars whose lives Sekkilar writes about, have confidently suggested that this is a reference to the story of Pusalar Nayanar of Ninra- ur; in that story as Sekkilar records it, the Kadava king, not named, who had built a stone temple at Kanchipuram and fixed a - 132 -

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day for its consecration, had a dream the previous night in which Siva appeared before him and told him that as He had resolved to enter on the following day the temple which Pusalar had completed after long contemplation, the King had better put off his consecration to some later day; the story continues that the Kadava obeyed the behest, and went over to Ninra-ur to find that Pusalar’s temple was not a material construction, but an imaginary mental shrine. We do not hear any more about the consecration of the stone temple of Kanchipuram. Here we can readily see that Kadava stands obviously for a Pallava king, and a stone temple in Kanchipuram is involved. As against this, a ‘heavenly voice’ is not a dream; we are not told what the heavenly voice told Rajasimha; there are many stone temples of Pallava origin, like Muktesvaram, Matangesvaram and many others in Kanchipuram, and there is no evidence that the Kadavas name was Rajasimha or Narasimhavarman. It may be added that Nambi Andar Nambi mentions only the mental construction of Pusalar and makes no reference to the Kadava or his stone temple at Kanchipuram.

THE PATH OF SAIVASIDDHAANTA Rajasimha bears a prodigiously large number of titles, and some of these are of great significance from our point of view. The verse which compares his birth to that of Kumara also says that by walking along the path of the Saiva doctrine he had got rid of all impurity (Saivasiddhaanta maarge kshata sakalamalah.) This is certainly among the earliest uses of the expression Saivasiddhanta, and marks along with the other attributes to be noted here an important stage in the foundation and fixation of the doctrine of which the systematic treatises in Tamil were to come very much later in the 13the century, he bears the titles aagamapramaana and aagamaanusaarii besides Deeva deevabhakta. The last title shows clearly the highest position held by Siva in “the pantheon” of this school. The reference to the Agamas is again notable as the first datable mention of this body of mystic literature which takes rank as equal to the Vedas in importance and which are held by some devotees as coeval with the Vedas if not anterior to them. It has been pointed out that the technique followed in the monolithic temples at Mamallapuram dating from the time of Narasimhavarman I seems to furnish proof of the observance of the injunctions of agamas, and hence probably of their having come into existence already. The Agamas require the installation of the stupi - 133 -

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(finial) of a temple to coincide with its consecration – both being performed on the same day. Unlike structural temples which are built from the base upwards, the rock cut monoliths are worked downwards from above; but even so in the monoliths at Mamallapuram, the stupis are not integral with the rest of the temple and cut out of the same rock, but form separate pieces inserted into special sockets after the completion of the rest of the vimana from top downwards. This is a notable fact which seems to be of considerable interest to the chronology of Agamic literature. An inscription in the Mamallapuram Stone Temple describes Rajasimha as Chandraardhasekhara – sikkhaamani; i.e. the bearer of Siva as his crest jewel, and Sivachudamani, and the Vayalur inscription calls him Mahesvarasikhaamani - diiptamauli, i.e. whose head is brightened by the crest jewel, viz. Mahesvara. These epithets confirm in explicit terms the practice of devotees carrying on their head a figure of Siva in some form which was suggested in less explicit terms by the Trichinopoly inscriptions of Mahendravarman I. The Saivism of the Pallava dynasty is further affirmed by describing Drona, the eponymous ancestor of the dynasty, as an amsa (part or portion) of purari (Siva) as in the Panamalai inscription of Rajasimha. The Saiva affiliations became so deep-rooted that even Nandivarman II, avowed Vaishnava that he was, combines with his devotion to Vishnu a pronounced allegiance to Siva also. Thus, in the opening verses of his Kasakudi plates we find that obeisance is offered first to Brahman, the Vedantic absolute – common ground of all the diverse creeds, then to Trivikrama form of Vishnu, then to Siva who gets a full-dress description with all his attributes and some of the great legends connected with his name, and then again, a combined form of Trivikrama and Hara – distinct but united (sampriktadehaantarau), and lastly to Vinayaka, the son of Siva and remover of obstacles. Interesting in themselves as revealing the growing inclinations to Saivism on the part of the different Pallava kings, the data we have brought together from the inscriptions do not furnish any direct testimony on the question how far this development in the royal family was a result of the contemporary popular movement led by the Nayanars or actually inspired and supported that movement. The language of these inscriptions, with rare exceptions as at Dalavanur in the Gingee Taluk, is high Sanskrit and the popular Tamil speech is rarely employed whereas the Tevaram hymns (as also the Nalayira Divyaprabhandam) are all in Tamil. And there - 134 -

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is no direct mention in the epigraphs of any sort of connection between the kings and the saints, and we hear little of the spiritual advisers of the kings, though to be sure there must have been some in the early Pallava period as demonstrably there were in relatively later times. Any attempt to fix definite correlations between the Kings and the Saints or events mentioned in traditions and in inscriptions must proceed on cautious lines if they are to be really valid and universally acceptable.

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29/10/1961

The chronology of the renaissance of Hinduism during the Pallava period is examined here in the light of the hymns composed by the saints Sambandar, Appar and Sundaramurti.

Chronology of the Hindu revival

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he chronology of the Hindu revival as generally accepted now rests on a number of assumptions mostly derived from the details set forth by Sekkilar in the "Perlva Puranam" sometimes the data from the Divyasuri Carita and guru paramparais have also been relied on for the Vaishnava Alvars. We shall do well to examine the entire problem afresh in the light of contemporary data drawn from the hymns of the different devotees and see if they support the accepted chronology or suggest the need for its revision. Let us begin with Jnanasambandar. In one of his hymns on Brahmapuram (Shiyali) he mentions a Nagarayan and Nandan as a chieftain and king respectively. He then refers to Tiruppuvanam more than once as a place where the three crowned kings of the Tamil land offered worship, either severally or all at the same time: this place is on the south bank of the Vaigai about 12 miles east of Madurai. He makes similar statements about Mukkichchuram, i.e. Uraiyur. He has hymns on Mahendrapalli, Ten Tirumullaivayil and Pallavanichchuram - all ports which must have been springboards for Narasimhavarman I’s invasion of Ceylon. There are references to Ganapati and his relationship to Siva in the hymns of Sambandar and Appar whereas they are absent from the poems of Karaikkal Ammaiyar or in the Sangam works. Sambandar is said, though in a rather dubious eleventh verse, to have composed a hymn on the Ganapatichchuram of Tiruchchangattangudi at the request of Siruttondan, a contemporary Nayanar, who according to Sekkilar, our earliest authority on the matter, led a Pallava expedition against the western Chalukya capital of Badami (Vatapi) from where he may have brought the worship of Ganapati to the Tamil country. In the sculptures of Mamallapuram, we find the - 136 -

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representation of a stray gana with the head of an elephant over a human body in a frieze in the Ramanuja mandapa of the time of Paramesvaravarma, and Ganapati begins to occupy a place of importance as a cult deity at the end of the Saptamatrika series only from the time of Rajasimha II, say A.D. 700. If we turn to the data on the best-known episode of life viz. his suppression of the Jainas of Madurai, we find that Sambandar has a hymn (3.120) describing the diligent worship offered to Siva in Madurai by the Pandya queen Mangaiyarkkarasi, a Chola princess, and the Minister Kulaccirai; in another hymn (3.51) every stanza ends with the wish that the fire started by the heretical Jains should turn to the Pandya king, while the eleventh states plainly that the fire should enter the body of the king by the grace of the god of Alavay (Madurai); yet another hymn (2.66) is a general praise of the magic and mystic powers of holy ashes (niru), and it is found only in the eleventh verse (tirukkadaikkappu) that Sambandar sang the hymn to cure the Pandya of the burning disease (tippini) that he was ailing from. There are many other references to Jainas (and Buddhists) in his hymns. It should be noted that there is no reference here to the other miracles connected with the episode in the Periya Puranam or to the impalement of 8,000 Jainas. Sambandar mentions the nine grahas and their action on human fortunes (2.85 and 3.10). Abhisheka with milk, curd, and ghee as part of worship is known to Sambandar (3.1), though this finds more frequent mention by the later hymnists. He mentions several types of temples under the names tunganaimaadam, madakkoyil, perundirukkoyil and so on. He mentions the practice of erecting temporary lingas of sand for worship, and also refers to more permanent lingas under the name Taanu. Sambandar’s compositions are cast in several metres ranging from Kural-adi to ensirkkelu nedil adi, and generally the style of his compositions and metres will bear comparison with the metres employed in Perumal Tirumoli and Periya Tirumoli in the Divyaprabandham. We may also note in passing the tradition recorded in the Divyasuri Carita of a meeting at Shiyali between Sambandar and Tirumangai Alvar which has generally been ignored under the influence of the accepted chronology of the Nayanars.

REFERENCES IN APPAR’S HYMNS Appar or Tirunavakkarasu mentions another Nayanar, Nandi or Nambi Nandi, and also refers to Jnanasambandar, and this agrees - 137 -

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with the tradition that they were contemporaries. In his hymns on Innambar, he mentions the Pandya, Chera and Chola as worshipping in that shrine. He refers to the god by the term Rajasimha in one of his hymns, but besides this there are no particular references to Pallava kings or rulers of Tondainad, which is notable in view of his life history as generally represented now which makes him a contemporary of Mahendravarman. Appar, having been a Jaina for some time, is, however, clearly attested by his hymns in which he regrets the aberration. There are references to Ganapati in his hymns as also to the erection of temporary lingas for worship. His hymns contain references to several types of temples and to a mystic type of mental worship treating the body as the temple, the mind as the devotee, truth as purity, friendship as ghee and milk and so on. And, in his hymns, temple worship makes a further advance by the practice of carrying the idol in procession along the streets of the town. The full references to the objects employed in worship found in the Lingapurana hymn have been mentioned in an earlier article. The hymns of Appar are in various developed metres, some of them long ones like the Nedun-tandakam of the sixth book which bears comparison with the same metre in two lengths employed by Tirumangai. Besides hymns on particular shrines, Appar has some of a more general nature in every one of the books. Sundaramurti, the last of the Tevaram trio, avers that he only repeats Sambandar and Appar in the manner of his praises of the deity, and mentions by name many of the earlier devotees. This is not surprising considering that the Tiruttondattogai, the basis of the entire hagiology of Saivism is attributed to him, though some scholars have doubted the authenticity of the attribution as a whole or in part. And though he too refers to the three kings of the Tamil country in general, he evinces his particular interest in Pallava rule by referring to the god of Chidambaram as punishing the kings who failed to pay their tributes owing to the Pallavas by right. This reminds one of Tirumangai’s statement that the shrine of Tillai-tiruchchitrakutam, the shrine of Vishnu in Chidambaram, was surrounded by the temples in which the Pallava king had offered worship with gold, pearls and jewels he brought for the purpose. And one eminent scholar has surmised that this contemporaneity of Sundarar (Aludaiya Nambi) with Tirumangai led, by confusion, to the rise of a tradition that the Alvar was a contemporary of Jnanasambandar (Aludaiya Pillai), but this theo- 138 -

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ry disregards the main fact in the story that the meeting between the two saints took place at Shiyali, the home town of Sambandar. Let us now take account of some general facts relating to the whole movement of the Pallava Hindu renaissance. The shrines celebrated in the hymns are heavily concentrated in the Kaveri valley and rather sparse in other parts of the Tamil country. Thus, of the Saiva shrines no fewer than 190 are located on the banks of the Kaveri, 127 on the south bank and 63 on the north Tondainad has 32 of them and the adjacent ‘Nadu-nadu’ 22 making 54 in all. As against this, the Pandya country has only 14, Kongu 7, the northern country 5, Ceylon 2 and the Malainad (Malabar) and Tulu country one each. The distribution of the 108 Tirupatis, Vishnu shrines is equally significant, though the disparities are not so great. The paramapada or Vishnu’s heaven apart, the Chola country has 40, Tondai 22 and Nadunad 2, Pandya 18, Malanad 13 and northern India 12. The concentration of both sets in the Kaveri valley and in the Tondaimandalam and its neighbourhood is unmistakable. Again, in this period Tiruvarur was perhaps the most celebrated centre of Saivism for here is laid the scene of Sundaramurti meeting all the adiyars – whether it is a personal meeting with them or only worship of their images is not quite clear – and thereupon composing the Tiruttondattogai. Again, Arur gets the largest number of Tevaram hymns (34 after Shiyali which has 71 of which 67 are by Sambandar, a native of the city. Tradition assigns the birth of the four earliest Alvars to places in the Tondainad, the Pallava country par excellence, though the Tevaram trio have their origin a little further south. The same tradition makes contemporaries of the first four Alvars who refer to Mamallapuram and employ the title Gunabhara preceded by ‘Kon’, king, in an apostrophe addressed to Vishnu. Archaeology strongly favours the view, also supported by some verses of the early Alvars, that at first the images of deities were either painted on the walls of garbhagrihas or made of wood and stucco and set on the backwall rather than in the centre of the shrine room: under such an arrangement abhisheka would not be possible, but we find both Sambandar and Appar making unmistakable references to abhisheka with different materials as an essential part of worship. As for the expedition of Paranjoti or Siruttondar against Vatapi, though we have only Sekkilar’s authority for it and nothing earlier, we may accept it as a historical fact, but there were two expeditions one in Narasimhavarman’s reign and another sent by Paramesvaravarman, and we have no means - 139 -

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of deciding which was the one in which Paranjoti took part, and possibly transported an image of Ganapati from Vatapi (Badami) like a later Chola emperor who transported a rather heavy stone dvarapalaka all the way from the Western Chalukya capital Kalyani to the Chola country. Another general factor we must notice and lay some stress on is the fact that for all the campaigns which the saints conducted against the Jainas and the Buddhists, they do not seem to have been uprooted altogether, and there are many signs that they continued in different centres in some strength for some centuries more. The hymns of the latest Alvars and the story of Manikkavasagar’s disputation with the Buddhists, and references in foreign sources to Buddhism in Kanchipuram and elsewhere deserve to be noted in this connection. The political references to the three kings worshipping in shrines like Tiruppuvanam and the reign of Nandan are not easy to accommodate in the extant chronology, and one wonders at times if the mention of the three kings is after all conventional, for there is no evidence of Cholas at all in most of this period. Clear references to Pallava kings are rare except in Tirumangai and Sundarar, and it is not easy to decide what part the kings had in the furtherance of the movement which seems to have been more popular than official in inspiration. All things considered, though precise dates are extremely difficult to arrive at, an unbiased review of the entire evidence with special stress on the strictly contemporary part of it, seems to suggest that the prevalent chronology which starts the revival movement in Mahendravarman’s reign puts it about a century or more earlier than the true date, that the movement was strongest in the Chola and Tondai parts of the Tamil country than elsewhere. The peak of the movement may perhaps be placed from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the ninth or a little earlier. The Alvars and the Nayanars - though the points of contact between them are few and far between and though stray instances are not wanting of antagonisms between them - on the whole seem to have worked together against the heretical faiths outside the Vedic fold. But the impression of total victory given by later literature and hagiology would appear to be rather exaggerated.

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1/10/1961

The origin and development of linga worship is discussed in this article.

A symbol of Siva

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here is a vast literature in many languages on linga worship, and obviously it is not possible to discuss the subject in all its bearings within the limits of this article. Many cone-shaped objects found in the prehistoric cities of the Indus valley are almost certainly formalised representations of the phallus, though it is doubtful if the large ring-shaped stones also found there can be regarded as formalised representations of the female generative organ; the association of linga and yoni so common in modern Hindu thought and temple practice is indeed not clearly attested until we reach relatively late Tantric times with the excesses of the Saktas of the vamachara. The first clear literary reference to phallic worship prevalent among pre-Aryans occurs in the Rig Veda in two hymns which pray for protection against the Sisnadevas (phallic worshippers). There are passages in the Upanishads which describe woman as fire and the sex act as a sacrifice – a conception which links up this aspect of philosophic speculation with the primitive fertility cults that figure prominently in anthropological works. But this strain of thought seems to have disappeared early. In early Tamil literature, there are references to wooden posts (kandu) which served as the abode of a deity; but it is difficult to trace any historical relation between this and the short cylindrical stone pillars with rounded tops which served as lingas representing Siva. The commonly accepted view is that the cult of the linga was a pre-Aryan cult incorporated into Hinduism about the beginning of the Christian era, though at first it was not very important, and perhaps opposed by the orthodox. As the chronology of our literature especially of the epics and Puranas is extremely uncertain, it is next to impossible to give even approximate dates to the numerous stories on the origin of the Siva linga and its worship, and the interpretations of its significance. It is notable that none of the Puranas generally accepted as the oldest viz. Vayu, Vishnu, Matsya and Markandeya, and - 145 -

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even some later ones like Brahma and Bhagavata, seem to contain the main story we find elsewhere on the origin of the linga. The scene of the story is usually laid in the Devadaruvana, the abode of rishis, and one of the detailed versions of the story is found in the Revakhanda of the Skandapurana; it occurs in many other works with insignificant variations. The story is that Siva and Parvati were once travelling by air; when they were flying over the Darukavana, Siva drew the attention of his consort to the wives of rishis moving below and praised their devotion to their husbands; whereupon Parvati insists on Siva going in the midst of those women as a handsome male and corrupting their virtue; Siva yields, and the women of the holy forest are agitated at the sight of him and lose their virtue; Siva disappears mysteriously after this, but the rishis discover the cause of the agitation among their women, and utter a curse that the male organ (linga) of the disturber of their domestic peace should fall to the ground. When the curse takes effect, there ensues a crisis in the universe which is resolved by the compromise that the linga should be worshipped by all as the highest deity. In some versions, Siva himself asks for such worship as a condition of the restoration of normality in the universe. We have quite another account in the tantra works of which the Naradapancharatra may be accepted as a good representative. Here the gods go to Siva and request him to take Daksha’s daughter for his wife and enter the married state like the rest of them. Siva does so and starts sporting with his consort who finds herself unequal to satisfying him; when she withdraws the tejas of both of them fall to the earth, and occupying the whole universe results in the creation of lingas and yonis all over. So, the Sivalinga was born of the tejas of both. The Mahabharata contains a story in which Siva hides under water for a while and when he comes out of it finds the world full of creatures not of his making; in his anger he cut off his linga and threw it in the midst of the lake, where it stood erect and became sthanu – permanently erect. The Skandapurana also gives a mystic explanation which harps back to the Vedic concept of Heaven and Earth – dyavaprithivi, when it says: the sky is called linga, the earth is its base (pithika); the abode of all gods is called linga because everything merges in it. All these stories, even the mystic explanation last cited, are connected with procreation and sex; and belong to that side of linga worship which is related to the realistic phallus image which we come across so often. This is generally taken to be the heritage of a pre-Aryan strain, and if - 146 -

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this view is correct, the stories are an attempt at syncretism. Of quite another sort is the concept of a cosmic pillar of fire of which the foot and the top could not be found by Vishnu and Brahma when they sought to do so as a boar and a swan respectively. The locus classicus for this version is the Lingapurana which deals with the episode of the quarrel between Brahma and Vishnu at the time of the Great Deluge, and Siva’s imparting of the truth of creation to them in the form of a cosmic pillar of fire. It is perhaps worth “recalling here that the connection between Siva and Agni is of Vedic antiquity; and in the puranic stories Subrahmanya is at once the son of Siva and of Agni. In the Mahabharata, we find the statement that during Daksha’s sacrifice Siva came out of the agni-kunda. It is noteworthy that the hymnists of the Tevaram sing constantly only of this version of the fire linga and seem to be totally oblivious of the other linga with its phallic associations. And the Lingayats of a later time also appear to take the same line and sail clear of all phallicism. It has been suggested that the non-phallic and more philosophical presentation of the linga is a later refinement calculated to hide the crudeness of the syncretism of Saivism with primitive phallicism, and that the Lingapurana must be taken to be an even later work than the texts which contain the numerous variations of the Darukavana episode. The fact that in even so puristic a work, a phrase like archyamedhra – one whose male organ deserves worship – makes its appearance may be cited as furnishing some support for the view. But we should not forget that religious development is not unilinear but complex; with purism on one side, we also find Saktic regressions on another. If now we leave the literary evidence after this very summary and inadequate notice, and turn to the material evidence of archaeology, we find strangely enough that the earliest traces of Siva worship accessible to us are in the coins of foreign rulers, particularly the Kushanas, which bear effigies of Siva in human form, or of the bull, his mount in later mythology, and the symbol of procreation according to some scholars. Sometimes a trident, also a typical emblem of Siva, appears. The linga also appears on coins but sometimes it is phallic, sometimes not, being only a short post. The Mathura museum contains an interesting sculpture of perhaps A.D. second or third century which shows a clearly phallic linga being worshipped by two devotees whose dress clearly proves their foreign origin; the person standing nearest the linga - 147 -

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holds a long thing with both his hands; this looks very much like a python, but is interpreted by knowledgeable scholars like Pramod Chandra of the Prince of Wales Museum (Bombay) as a garland. It should also be mentioned that the linga in this sculpture stands on a pedestal which is just a pedestal, and not a yoni by any means. It has been rightly stressed by scholars who have studied the subject intensely that in many, why most of the early instances, the pedestal was only a snapana-droni for draining off the abhisheka water and that the idea of yoni was introduced rather relatively late under the influence of Sakti ideas. In North India, there are found many early lingas with a face on one side or all the four sides – mukha-lingas, which are by no means phallic in character. In South India, we have the enormous phallus of Gudimallam standing up straight from the ground without any pedestal, with its striking realism, bearing also a two-armed human figure of Siva with some of his emblems standing on the shoulders of a crouching dwarf, with his male organ in normal position seen through the diaphanous robe he seems to be wearing. Gopinatha Rao dated it to the early centuries B.C. on the ground of the style which resembles the sculptures of Sanchi. The correctness of this dating has been called in question recently, and we must say that this monumental linga is quite out of the way and it is difficult to find its place in the evolution of S. Indian iconography. The Pallavas who may, after all, have had something to do with the Pahlavas (Sakas and Kushanas), had the bull for their emblem from the beginning as the seals on all their early Prakrit charters testify. Though the chain of evidence is not as strong or continuous as we should like, the idea may be tentatively put forward that a strong wave of Saivism flowed into South India with the Pallavas and that linga worship in some form, possibly more refined than crude, formed part of it. That besides Saivism the Pallavas were familiar with and patronised Vaishnavism also becomes clear from the early Prakrit charters mentioned above. It thus appears that the great revival of these Hindu creeds we witness under their later successors in Kanchipuram must have had the ground prepared for it by these earlier rulers. In fact, the Tamil country may be said to owe many elements of its advanced culture to them – its architecture and sculpture, its painting and music, its system of writing, and its religious institutions and practices. If now we turn to the famous linga verse in Mahendravarman’s Trichinopoly inscription, there does not appear to be much difficulty in postulating the - 148 -

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installation of a linga in the cave temple. For one thing it is difficult, not to say impossible, to make sense of the verse without this postulate. And then, it cannot be a mere chance coincidence that in the Hindu colonies of Indo-China which show strong Pallava influences in writing, architecture etc., we find that as early as late A.D. fourth century or early fifth century the worship of Mahesvara in the form of a linga has been systematised as contemporary Chinese sources testify, and that further we find a contemporary of Mahendravarman of Kanchi in Chitrasena of Chen-la (Kamboja) who assumed the title of Mahendravarman at his coronation and who also established a linga of Girisa (Siva) on a mountain as a token of his conquests just as the Pallava ruler did. But, at the same time, we must admit that the phrase Vipakshavritteh paravrttam which has turned back from hostile conduct, in the verse is not by itself sufficient to establish that Mahendravarman had been a Jaina before he became a Saiva. He may have had others in mind while himself being a consistent Saiva throughout. It has been said there is no trace of a stone linga now in the cave; but any conclusion drawn from the present look of the cave about its condition about 1,300 years ago may not be correct; and if the objects of worship were painted or picked out in stucco in those days, as there is reason to think they were, they might have disappeared.

A sculpture from the Mathura museum, dated A.D. second or third century, shows a linga being worshipped by two devotees whose dress proves their foreign origin. - 149 -

23/4/1960

India, Tibet and China in antiquity

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urrent events on the long Himalayan border of our country invest with a peculiar interest the story of the ancient contacts of India with her northern neighbours. That practically the whole of Central Asia, innermost Asia from Bactria in the west to Tunhuang on the Western borders of ancient China in the East, formed part of Greater India for many centuries in the first half of the first millennium of the Christian era is now common knowledge. Apart from this, we can see from the ancient authorities, now known to us, that India had fairly close trade relations across the Himalayas with her immediate neighbours and through them with China, that there were established trade routes regularly in use, and that China had little direct knowledge of these until a relatively late period. Tibet remained virtually unknown to the Chinese before A.D. ninth century. In 139 B.C., Emperor Hsia Wu-ti of China sent a general named Chang-kien as Ambassador to Bactria (Ta-hia) to negotiate a treaty with that country against the common enemy, the Hiung-nu, a people who were making the Tarim basin unsafe and thereby hindering China’s trade with the West. Chang-kien told the Emperor on his return, among other things, that bamboo and cloth from south-western China (Kiung and shu) had reached Bactria and that they had been imported from a country that lay a 1000 li to the south-east a hot and moist land where elephants were trained for war. This country called Shin-tu was doubtless India, and she offered an alternative passage for Chinese trade with the west whereby the dangers that beset the route along the Tarim basins were avoided. So much we gather from Chinese sources. The Indian sources are more elaborate, though still rather vague. They evince clear knowledge of the land immediately beyond the western Himalayas, particularly the source territory of the Ganga, Yamuna, the Sindhu, Sutlej and Brahmaputra, the region of the holy lake Manas and of Mount Kailasa, the goal of many pilgrimages, often named and praised in early Indian poetry. Again, Tibet’s chief river, the upper course of the Brahmaputra - 150 -

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(Yaru-Zangbo) was known both to the Indians and the Greeks who called it Bautisos, i.e., the river of the Bautai, the Greek form of the Indian Bhota, itself based on the Tibetan Bod – the name by which the Tibetans described themselves. The Mahabharata mentions the river under the name Jambunadi among the seven chief rivers of the world which flow from the heavenly Ganga. This river is said to flow round the Meru mountain and near the Uttarakurus, which is just the Indian name for the people of eastern Tibet. Gold originating in this river was considered most superior and designated Jaambunada. Another passage in the Mahabharata contains a list of the presents or tributes received by Yudhishthira and the peoples who brought them. Here we find the names of the Sakas, Tukharas, and Kankas. The two first named peoples lived in Turan and Sogdiana, but the last named Kankas are of special interest to us. They were a people of Eastern Tibet and their presents included just the products which Pliny calls Seric (i.e., Chinese), viz. skins, iron and silk fabrics; the name used for the last item kita-ja born of worms, leaves no doubt that Chinese silk is meant. The skins must have been of sheep for which Tibet was well known. A little further north were the Khasas, Paradas, Kulindas, Tanga-nas and Paratanganas, whose tribute to the Indian king, included gold, chamaras, and honey. The gold was pipilika, antgold, which was dug out by ants, according to a tradition known to Herodotus and other Greek writers as well. Lassen conjectured that the so-called ants were a sort of spotted marmots met within the plateaus of Tibet. Chamaras, which were of two sorts black and white, belong to the insignia of Indian royalty and were made out of the tail of the Tibetan Yak (Bos Grunniens, Skt. Camara). From Greek sources we get more precise data on this trade and its route. Pliny met the Sinhalese ambassador to Claudius, by name Rachias about A.D. 50 and learnt from the ambassador that his father had traded in the lands to the north of Emodus (Himalayas) in what he described as a very primitive type of barter. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written about A.D. 80, mentions the Chinese capitals Thinae from which raw silk and silk cloth are brought on foot through Bactria to Barygaza and are also exported to Limyrika by way of the river Ganges. Here is mention of two routes – one over Bactria (thus the usual Tarim basin route’ to Barygaza (Broach) and the other to Limyrika i.e. the Malabar Coast with its port at Muziris, along the Ganges. This route passed necessarily over the eastern Himalayas, for if it was over the West- 151 -

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ern sector and led into the Punjab, the goods would have gone down the Indus to Barygaza, and not taken the much longer route along the Ganges to Limyrika. Lastly, Ptolemy (A.D. 140) also mentions both these routes from the Chinese capital (of the Seres) as not only the road that led to Bactriane by way of the stone Tower, but also a road led to India through “Pataliputra” i.e. Patna, thus definitely confirming the existence of the route over the eastern Himalayas which touched Pataliputra soon after entering India. It is a good surmise that this route passed along the Kosi river, of which the two source streams rise in the northern plateau, and break through the mountains to unite before reaching the plain into one stream which joins the Ganges a little below Pataliputra. Along both source streams, there is a way leading to Tibet; by the one along the western arm called Bhotiya (Tibetan) Kosi in its upper course even armies have found a passage. The further course beyond the Himalaya must have lain along the Valley of the Ki-Chu where now Lassa is located beyond the Star-Lake (Hsing-Su-hai) and the Khukhu-nor. A verse in the Panchatantra referring to the trade practices of the Kiratas is a further confirmation of the reality of this route and trade.

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4/1/1959

Anandaranga Pillai’s diary is among the most valuable source of material for South Indian history during the English and French struggle for supremacy in this part of India.

A unique Tamil diarist

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he almost total lack of the historic sense in the make-up of the average Indian mind has long been noticed and often commented on. It is accounted for in different ways by different authors. The contrast to the Chinese outlook on historical events and chronicles of them is particularly striking because China and India are the two great Asian countries which have much in common, including a continuous history running through several millennia stretching to our own day and many significant contributions to human civilization and thought. While China abounds in many dynastic chronicles and cyclopaedias which record precise dates (not all of them of equal authenticity it is true), for all the major events and personalities that adorn the long and bright annals of the Celestial Empire, sober statements of facts are virtually unknown to Indian literature. Even professedly historical works revel in myth and legend and mix up facts and fancies in an inextricable puranic tangle. Round about A.D. 1000, the shrewd, and by no means unsympathetic observer, Alberuni, put his finger unerringly on one of the basic defects of Indian character when he wrote: “The Hindus do not pay much attention to the historical order of things, they are careless in relating the chronological succession of their kings, and when they are pressed for information and are at a loss, not knowing what to say, they invariably take to tale-telling.” Almost the only exception to the rule, the work which lays down canons of historical writing comparable to modern historical thought and conforms to them in the portrayal of historical times (as separate from prehistoric and legendary), Kalhana’s Rajatarangini, was written quite obviously under the inspiration from and on the model of contemporary Muslim historians; even here there is a difference, Kalhana following the traditional practice of writing his work in verse instead of in prose as the Persian chroniclers did. But Kalhana is unique in India in his - 153 -

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views on and practice of historiography. And so is Anandaranga Pillai, the celebrated merchant prince and diplomat, contemporary of Dupleix, whose respected counsellor and courtier he was for many years. Pillai maintained a diary, written in his own hand from day to day, and this diary has now been recognised as an authentic source for the history of the crucial period it covers in the Anglo-French struggle for supremacy in the Carnatic in the first half of the 18th century. My aim here is not to traverse the well-known and oft-repeated story of this contest, but to invite the attention of the reader to the diarist himself and the main features of his diary both as a historical and a literary document. Born in a hamlet near Perambur (Madras) in 1709, Anandaranga Pillai died at Pondicherry in January 1761, a few days before Lally surrendered the city to the English, acknowledging that the French had lost the game in the Carnatic. Anandaranga’s father was Tiruvengadam Pillai, one of the well-to- do merchants of the upper middle-class which turned to its own advantage the economic opportunities that came with the advent of the European trading companies. Anandaranga Pillai, on account of the intimacy which soon developed between him and Dupleix after the latter’s advent in Pondicherry, had the rare advantage of following from day to day the diplomatic and military moves of the French and their allies and enemies in those fateful years of Dupleix’s governorship of Pondicherry. Much as he admired the ambition and daring that characterised Dupleix’s plans, he retained sufficient independence of mind to be able to criticise these plans, naturally more often in the pages of his diary than in front of Dupleix himself. He also remained an orthodox Hindu steeped in the traditional ways of life. Liberal expenditure in gifts to Brahmins on ceremonial occasions, and patronage of learning and the arts besides the foundation and endowments of public charities and temples were the normal modes in which wealthy men rendered themselves useful to society and respected by it. There are numerous instances noted in the diary with becoming modesty of such social benefaction on the part of Anandaranga Pillai. His personal life remained quite simple, and he often had only cold rice for his morning meal and a modest mid-day meal rather late in the afternoon. This was so even at the time he held rank as chief courtier, an official position which required his going about riding a palanquin with torches burning even during the day. His dignified demeanour, to which his rather portly figure made no small contribution, - 154 -

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and his skill and ability in handling persons of different types in the course of his daily conduct of affairs were noticed by all who came into contact with him and his work. Pillai had a singularly noble character free from stain and faced with characteristic calm and resolution difficult situations in which he found himself with the Governor owing to the intrigues of tale-bearers. Madame Dupleix and he seem never to have got on, and Pillai is inclined to attribute to Madame’s malign influence over her husband the failure of much that he planned and the defects of temper that he so often exhibited. Pillai was a close observer and good judge of men and events and even his observations on people he did not like are leavened by a good humour and wit. In an age where everyone from Dupleix downwards was actively engaged in the pursuit of personal gain by hook or by crook, Pillai studiously refrained from following a policy of grab, content to make money by normal methods of legitimate trade, and when he desired to own a landed estate he directly petitioned the authorities for it. His integrity is an outstanding trait in the age to which he belonged, and even in the exercise of the official powers vested in him, he was so moderate and restrained as to draw from Dupleix the remark ‘you do not seem to know your powers’. Pillai was thoroughly loyal to the French cause and was very lenient in his judgements even of gross mistakes of policy on the part of the French officials such as their destruction of a Hindu temple under pressure from the Jesuits though ostensibly for military reasons. He was full of a sense of the mystery of things and often resigned himself pathetically to the workings of fate and circumstance when carefully laid plans miscarried in their execution. He had great faith in astrology. His personal devotion to Dupleix was unexampled and he often neglected his social duties to his relatives such as settling marriages or attending them, asking his father- in-law to deputise for him; once he recorded that he performed his father’s anniversary (sradh) before 7 a.m. to be able to attend to the important official work that needed his attention on the day; and on another occasion, when Dupleix asked him why he was not attending the festival of God at Villiyanur, he replied that he esteemed the service of Dupleix more.

VALUABLE SUPPLEMENTS Among the scholars patronised by Anandaranga Pillai were a Telugu poet and a Sanskrit poet who have left more or less complete - 155 -

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accounts of the family and doings of Anandaranga Pillai written in the traditional style. The Telugu author was Kasturi Rangayya whose Anandarangarat Chandamu, printed at the Vavilla Press is a connected account of the family which is, however, much less detailed than the Sanskrit champu, called Anandaranga Vijaya Champu of Srinivasa Kavi. An excellent critical edition of the champu was published in 1948 by Dr V. Raghavan, well known for the wide range of his scholarly interests and his untiring energy in their steady pursuit. Neither work ranks high for its literary quality; but together, and the champu rather more than the chandamu, they form valuable supplements, to the diary and furnish proof that though Anandaranga Pillai adopted much that is new from the French, he continued to be thoroughly well rooted in the traditional modes of Hindu life, just as many Japanese nobles and officials are seen to-day to combine their traditional ways of life with those of the West, sometimes even maintaining two houses and establishments answering to the two modes. Pillai makes a casual reference to the diary maintained by his predecessor in office and cousin, Chevalier Guruva Pillai. We have now no means of even guessing its nature and importance. But there can be no doubt that the habit of making a daily record of events and impressions came of the Western contacts of these Indian merchants and nobles. There is no reason to think that Anandaranga Pillai ever had the thought of publication in his mind when he wrote the diary; much less could he have even dreamt of the eager interest in it exhibited by modern historians of the Anglo-French struggles in India. The story of the first discovery of the diary in 1846, the vicissitudes it experienced, and its second recovery by instalments for translation into English in the closing years of the last century and the early decades of this century, has often been told and need not be repeated here. Some of the missing pages were discovered by the present writer at Pondicherry as recently as 1939, thanks to the opportunities procured by the late Professor Jouveau-Dubreuil. The diary has still many gaps left and we are not sure we have got down to the absolute original written by Anandaranga Pillai in any of its parts. Neither these problems nor the historical value of the diary can be discussed at the end of an article meant primarily to draw attention to the Diarist, to the available literature about him and his times, and to the diary itself. We must say, however, that the diary faithfully reflects not only the trade and politics of the time, but the social and religious conditions, the habits and beliefs of the - 156 -

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people and their manners in private and public life. Above all, the language of the diary has a quaint interest all its own. It is not literary, but highly colloquial. It records many contemporary French names in a manner that seems to give a clue to their contemporary pronunciation. Dupleix for instance is Duplekisu the final X being given full value – a pronunciation still current in Pondicherry and warranted by Webster’s International. Many French words have been freely employed by the diarist, an extreme instance being ‘mattelothu’, very intriguing when written in Tamil characters until you learn to connect it with Fr. Matelot, sailor or shipmate. In fact, a systematic study of how Tamil has changed in its vocabulary and structure by its contact with so many foreign languages in modern times by a competent linguist will go far to establish the breadth of outlook and receptivity to new words and ideas that characterised the Tamil outlook through the centuries and act as a corrective to the narrow parochialism and purism that seem to have proved so attractive to some Tamils. Towards such study and interpretation of our linguistic history, this diary, now available in the original Tamil in four volumes (1948-51), printed at Pondicherry and sold in the public library of that place, must be a very great help.

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8/12/1957

The foundation and development of Tamil culture and civilization were due to the fact that the people, very wisely, opened as many windows as possible to the world.

Scapegoats

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n the 15th of November, 1957, there was a piquant debate on what is known as the National Honour Bill. The celebrated poet Namakkal Ramalingam Pillai drew by his speech on the occasion a well-merited praise from the Home Minister Sri Bhaktavatsalam who congratulated him on his able maiden speech and said he spoke in a moving spirit and his words came from his heart full of feeling. The poet’s speech as reported reads, among other things: “The situation to-day was pitiable, and it was largely due to the fact that they had allowed this ‘anti-Brahmin’ and ‘anti-North’ movement to gather momentum. They had allowed this agitation asking Brahmins to quit Tamil Nad. To say that the Brahmins came from North India was something false. History would show that Brahmins lived in this part of the country from ancient days of Tolkappiam. It was the kings belonging to the Chera, Chola and Pandya dynasties who wanted these Brahmins to study Sanskrit and make researches. Again, it was these kings who gave them all protection. In Tamilnad, they had lived happily all these times and both the two languages flourished and prospered simultaneously. The Sanskrit language must be treasured. In their enthusiasm to develop Tamil they should not blindly show hatred and prejudice towards another great language of this country.” Every word of the poet’s pithy observations is strictly true and my aim in this article is to provide a concise commentary to show that this is so. We need not vex ourselves over the difficult questions of origin; it is enough to recognise that the established facts of a long social evolution came to be looked upon as a divine dispensation, and the theory of the four varnas was just a rationalization of the factual context. There have always been more, many more than four varnas in actual life. But the theoretical framework of varnas and their dharmas, and the postulate of their divine ordination were universally accepted in India till the other day. It is open to - 161 -

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anyone to shed these notions if he feels like it, but not to seek out scapegoats for sacrifice at the altar of their present discontents. The Brahmin class was the brain-trust of society. Though heredity was the main basis of recruitment to it, there was some fluidity at first, but even after this ceased to be, only Brahmins who proved true to their trust by learning and character commanded respect and became eligible for privileges like exemption from taxes and maintenance at the cost of society. Learning, nonattachment and a pure life were expected of them, and every generation included a good fraction which fulfilled these expectations and were spread all over the country. There were of course many lesser grades among those who were born Brahmins, and this was well recognised all over, and society’s treatment of these grades was according to their merits. The Brahmins were not like the Catholic or Muslim clergy pledged to support a creed, but an intellectual aristocracy that directed the thought of India whatever form it took. Their thought system was spacious enough to embrace the animistic aborigine and the atheistic philosopher, and find a niche for each in society. Their intellectual superiority was sufficiently real to gain general acceptance. In politics they had the good sense to rule by serving, to be ministers and not kings. They had no hierarchy and no Pope; they produced no Hildebrand or a Becket. Knowledge they made their peculiar province in its creative side, but, at the same time, they went far out to simplify it and popularise it by means of myth and legend, epics and puranas, so that the country as a whole became unified in the bonds of a common culture. The highest type of Brahmin had spiritual eminence, possessed the secret of intercourse with the other world, and so commanded respect by his selflessness and devotion to common good. Birth and plaited hair did not make a true Brahmin any more than a shaven head made a bhikshu; but he who renounced the world, was pure in thought, word and deed, followed dharma in all circumstances and perfected himself in knowledge was the true Brahmin. There were doubtless frauds and impostors; but by and large, the records, indigenous and foreign, of successive centuries are such as to convince any unbiased enquirer that the Brahman class was true to the trust reposed in them and gave the highest possible service to Indian society not only in religion and philosophy primarily, but in secular knowledge as well as in the arts of peace and war. Some modern thinkers like Gerald Heard have been so struck with the cultural role of the Brahmin in Hindu - 162 -

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society that they have called for the creation of a class of neo-Brahmins to provide the corrective needed for the dehumanization caused by the domination of technology and industry in the culture of the West. The role of the Brahmin in the foundation and development of the culture and civilization of the Tamil country is in no way less significant than elsewhere in India. The Tamil language is believed to have been received by Agastya from the Dancing Lord Siva and transmitted by him to the race of Tamils along with the grammar of the language. The Tamil Buddhists substituted Avalokitesvara for Siva, but agreed that the language had its birth in the Podiya mountain, the abode of Agastya. Tolkappiyar, the author of the earliest extant Tamil grammar, is believed to have been a pupil of Agastya, and belonged to the family of Kavi, another name for the Brahmin sage Usanas. The Sangam literature, which is the earliest stratum of Tamil literature known, not only contains a fair number of Sanskritic words and expressions but is replete with the ideas and imagery, with myths and legends taken over bodily from Sanskrit sources. The earliest Tamil writing is that of the stone inscriptions in the caverns in the mountains of the Tamil districts, and these inscriptions are found engraved in Brahmi characters and contain pure Sanskrit words like kutumbika. The extent of interpenetration between Sanskrit and Tamil, the northern and southern cultures already achieved before the Christian era is unmistakably clear. The invocatory poems of six anthologies out of eight (Ettuttogai) of the Sangam period, are by a poet who is called ‘Perundevanar who sang the Bharatam’; and the Sinnamamur copper plates mention the translation of the Mahabharata into Tamil as one of the achievements of the early Pandyas. An early Pandyan king Peruvaludi performed so many Vedic sacrifices that he came to be known as ‘the king of many sacrificial halls’ .This clearly implies both the presence of many learned Brahmins and the great respect they commanded. In fact, there is a whole poem in the Purananuru (no. 166) which forms a most detailed and affectionate description of the daily life of a learned Brahmin of Punjarrur in the Tanjore region by poet Avur Mulangizhar, who was not a Brahmin. There were many Brahmins among the poets of the Sangam age who attained great fame like Kapilar and Uruttirangannanar (Rudraksha) of Kadiyalur. The story of Rama had already become part of the racial legacy, a poet describes, for instance, the generosity shown by a Chola monarch to him and - 163 -

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his followers in the following terms: “He showered on us much fine and costly jewellery not suited to our condition; at this, some of the large group of my kinsfolk, used only to abject poverty put on their ears ornaments meant for the fingers; some wore on their fingers things meant for the ear; others put on their necks jewels meant for the waist; others again adorned their waists with ornaments properly worn on the neck; in this wise like the great group of red-faced monkeys which shone in the fine jewels (of Sita) that they discovered on the ground on the day when the mighty Rakshasa carried off Sita, the wife of Rama on the swift chariot, we became the cause of endless laughter.” The Brahmins’ active role in the expansion of Indo-Aryan culture is even better attested in the lands of Indonesia and Indo-China. Here inscriptions in good Sanskrit verse engraved in South Indian Pallava Grantha characters attest the migration of Brahmins and their performance for the local kings of Borneo and other islands of many Vedic sacrifices for which they had been specially invited by the kings. The Ramayana and Mahabharata continue to this day to furnish the themes for the music, dance and drama in all these far-flung lands. A long succession of inscriptions in all the languages of South India recording grants of land and money for the use of Brahmins by many dynasties of rulers and chieftains bear unmistakable proof of the esteem in which Brahmins were held in society and of the confidence they inspired by the diligence and care with which they discharged their obligations to society, by their practice and spread of learning, and by setting up high standards of morality, justice and social harmony. There was a great renaissance of Hinduism in South India in A.D. sixth century calculated to counteract the ascendancy of Buddhism and Jainism; this renaissance gave birth to an impressive volume of the highest literature of devotion in Tamil, and eventually to successive systems of philosophical thought. The racial memory cherishes these great occurrences in the stories of the 63 Nayanars, 12 Alvars, and many acharyas and gurus. The Brahmins will be seen to occupy, on any reckoning, no mean place in this great galaxy of saints and seers, thinkers and philosophers. Brahmins did often take to secular pursuits and did so with distinction. At the end of A.D. 13th century Marco Polo records of the Brahmins of South India: “You must know that these Brahmins are the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth... They eat no flesh and - 164 -

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drink no wine, and live a life of great chastity, having intercourse with no woman except with their wives, nor would they on any account take what belongs to another.” Some three centuries later, the Dutch traveller Van Linschoten records: “The Brahmins are the honestest and most esteemed Nation among the Indian heathens; for they do always serve in the chiefest places about the kings as receivers, stewards, ambassadors and such like offices. They are of great authority among the Indian people, for that the king doth nothing without their counsel and consent.” And the great Krishna Deva Raya wrote in justification of this practice: “Because a Brahman would stand to his post even in times of danger and would continue in service through thick and thin it is always advisable for a king to take Brahmans as his officers... That king can lay his hand on his breast and sleep peacefully who appoints as masters of his fortresses Brahmans who are attached to himself, are learned in many sciences and arts, and are followers of dharma. ... who see that neither he nor his subjects suffer and who give trouble only to his enemies.” The record of the Brahmin’s life and work in South India, as elsewhere, through the ages is one of which he may well be on the whole proud, and there is little reason for him to be apologetic or contrite about his past. The present is very different from past ages in the climate of its thought. Life has always meant change, and modern life has brought about rapid change due to the impact of the science and technology of the West; the old social organisation geared to the group rather than to the individual and making for a high degree of concerted social harmony has given way before the new forces; and we have not yet found a new norm. The inevitable strains and stresses of the transition can be tided over smoothly only if the leaders of thought and action become fully and constantly aware of the need for patience and tolerance, qualities for which Indian civilization has been noted through the ages, thanks not the least to the recognized leadership of the Brahmin in that glorious adventure of the past. At no time and in no place has there been a danger of the Brahmin overwhelming others by his numbers; he has everywhere been a small minority. His leadership has always rested on his character and work, and their recognition by others. Even to-day, he is not alarmed by the ruthless hostility of a misguided handful; he bides his time in the hope that the plea of leaders like poet Ramalingam will prevail. - 165 -

23/2/1958

This article is a survey of the various factors making for national unity and underlines the fact that eternal vigilance is the price in India, not only of liberty but of unity.

Unity of the sub-continent

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t is a little over a decade since India was cut up into two States to implement the ‘two-nation theory’. We still seem to be threatened by incipient forces of disruption; the plea for a plebiscite in Kashmir up in the north and the cry for a separate Dravidistan or rather Tamilnad in the far South, though not very strong or widespread today, are yet warning signals that all is not yet quite well. And there is the controversy over the official language of the Union and the place of English in our State and culture system. It may well be worth our while to find out the nature of our experience in our long history and derive what suggestions we may for the future. Geography has made India a well-marked and vast sub-continent made up of two major divisions – the Northern Gangetic plain and the Peninsular south. The Vindhyas form a sprawling dividing line emphasised by the Narmada and Tapti and the Mahanadi. There are no rivers flowing north to south or vice versa and communication between the two regions was never easy and Railway and air-travel came into vogue. Geologists say that the Peninsular block is older than the Himalayas and the Gangetic plain, but that has as little bearing on the vicissitudes of human history as the other hypothesis of Lemuria. Knowledge of our pre-history is still very limited; but we know enough to be sure that the historical culture of India is a blend of diverse elements and that everywhere culture becomes progressive and articulate and maintains a continuity lasting up to our own times from the advent of the Aryan Sanskrit culture of which the earliest extant record is the Rig Veda. The bearers of this culture were by and large broad-minded seers and sages who led their compatriots into intelligent and workable compromises with the pre-existing cultures of the Nishadas, Kiratas and Dravidians, and thus built up a pluralistic society in which every group found - 166 -

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a place suited to its needs and capacities. We get few names and no dates. Agastya, the doughty champion of Aryandom, is hailed as the subjugator of the Vindhyas, i.e., leader in the expansion to the south, the kulaguru of the Pandyas signifying the completion of the Aryanisation of India and drinker of the ocean, i.e., pioneer of colonisation of the East where he was long worshipped in many shrines along with Siva. Rama, the prince of Ayodhya, is a more doubtful case. In fact, the anonymity of the whole process of acculturation and the striking success which attended it everywhere are among the most surprising facts of world history. The cultural unification was so striking as to lead Ptolemy, the Alexandrine geographer of A.D. second century, to include all South-East Asia up to China under the description ‘India beyond the Ganges’; and the Arab geographers kept his terminology up to A.D. 1300 and later. We find that the concept of Jambudvipa or Bharatavarsha takes shape very early, and even the Aitareya Brahmana contains a list of the names of kings who were crowned as world emperors. But in real history political unity of practically the whole country was realised but once, under the Mauryas, and it is their celebrated chancellor Kautilya who laid it down that the whole of India from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin and from sea to sea on either side was the proper field of the emperor’s sovereignty - Chakravartikshetram. Kautilya and the Mauryas appear to have been strongly influenced by the Achaemenid traditions of Persia and the close contact with the contemporary post-Alexandrian Hellenistic kingdoms, and their political set up was the exception rather than the rule of ancient Indian polity. But Jambudvipa, is clearly mentioned in the early Tamil works of the Sangam period, and the three Tamil kings, Chera, Chola and Pandya, claim to have taken part in the Great War of Mahabharata, and to have either conquered all India up to the Himalayas or to have led a digvijaya over the whole continent. Fabulous though they be, such claims recorded in poems are clear evidence of the feeling of Indian unity. The roots of that unity, however, were not political, but almost entirely cultural. In the field of language, a potent and flexible literary idiom was created very early from the Vedic idiom in the form of classical Sanskrit, which has remained the handiest instrument of the intelligentsia throughout the ages and did not lose its place even when Persian was made the official language under the Mughals; the everyday speech of the people, on the other hand, was allowed to develop along natural lines, each region developing its - 167 -

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own language, but all regions maintaining a live contact with Sanskrit and its literature for enriching their vocabulary, grammar and literary forms. Sanskrit too in its turn profited by its contacts with the popular languages often borrowing words and sometimes taking over literary forms like the Champu. It is not possible to exaggerate the vital role of Sanskrit in sustaining the unity of Indian culture both in India and abroad. Many language poets, the illustrious Kamban and Tulasi Das among them, were great adepts in Sanskrit. In principle the relation in which Tamil stands to Sanskrit in its language and literature in no way differs from that of the other Dravidian languages; only its literature developed much earlier than the literatures in Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam, and it is perhaps a concomitant of this chronological difference that Tamil contains a much richer desi vocabulary even in its literary idiom than the other languages. Maharashtri in the Deccan, and all the modern North Indian languages are clearly descendants of the spoken prakritic idioms of the different regions. But all languages and literatures without exception, both of the North and the South are heavily indebted in many ways to Sanskrit, and this is no mean factor in the make up of the basic unity of Indian culture. We have only to think of the wide and abiding influence of the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Puranas as agents of popular education, and their effects on the moral ideals and daily conduct of people in all India and the colonies and even on their recreation and amusements like music, dance and drama. Another basic factor is the pattern of social structure of which the joint family and caste were the most characteristic features. In effect it was, as has been hinted already, a pluralist structure in which many different groups found their appropriate places in a delicately organised functional hierarchy. The principle of hereditary castes developed a greater variety, complexity and tenacity in India than anywhere else in the world; many a reform movement which set out to eradicate it, has ended by itself becoming a separate caste. Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity and Islam have all failed to arrest its pervasiveness and even forest tribes have not been loath to adopt it. This fact, taken along with the absence of such crystallisation of social divisions in other societies and civilisations formed by Aryans leads to a legitimate supposition that this principle was the legacy of the pre-Aryan peoples of India to Indo-Aryan society. If this view is correct, it reflects the greater glory on the Indo-Aryan founders that while they based the so- 168 -

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cial pattern on this principle for the day- to-day life of the people, they did not lose sight of the fundamental purity and nobility of the human soul and found the means of affirming it in the higher sphere of religion and philosophy. A third factor of unity was the latitudinarian religious outlook which grew up very early and was strengthened by every added experience through the centuries. Room was found for the inclusion in religious ceremonial of many local and popular customs and even sports and pastimes, and as these varied with time and place, the law-givers generally stopped with prescribing a necessary framework binding on all and leaving the details to be gathered from the women and elders of the locality who were the custodians of folk custom and practice. At no time, however, were local variations allowed to develop separatist attitudes. Besides the common framework of skeleton ceremonies, increasing stress was laid on the merit of pilgrimages to holy places and tirthas, and with striking prescience these were fixed in all parts of the vast sub-continent in a manner that attracted the northerners to the south and sent up the southerners to the north. You have only to think of Tirupati, Ramesvaram and Cape Comorin on the one hand, and of Benares, Haridvar, Mathura, Kailas and Badari on the other, not to speak of Puri and Somanath in the middle extremities, to realise what a powerful factor of national unity these sacred shrines and tirthas constitute to this day.

SINGLE POLITICAL UNIT India became a single political unit for a period of less than a century under the Mauryas and then lapsed into the usual condition of many warring States. She had to wait till the 19th century when the consolidation of the British rule over the whole land again brought about unification into a single State. Though, speaking generally, the State systems of the northern and southern parts of India developed irrespective of each other, still there were many episodes in which the north and south met in conflict or otherwise. There were also some mediating powers which at times linked the north and south, forming a bridge between them; such were the Satavahanas (second century B.C. to A.D. third century) and the Vakatakas of Berar. Powerful emperors always sought to make their power felt outside the immediate sphere of their activity, and this ideal accounts for the raid of Samudra Gupta into the Deccan, the unsuccessful attempt of Harshavardhana to cross the Narmada and successful military raids into the North of the Rash- 169 -

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trakuta rulers Govinda III, Indra III and Krishna III, of the Chola Rajendra I, and other occurrences of a similar character. Though war was sometimes a savage affair, generally it was more of the nature of a tournament among professionals which caused little disturbance to the normal life of the country. And even temporary raids and conquests often led to the migration of considerable sections of the population from one part of the country to another especially from among the ruling and fighting classes. This is well attested in the South where a copious supply of inscriptions on stone and copper testifies to the presence at different epochs of Tamils in the Telugu and Karnatak areas, of Malayalis, Kannadigas and Telugus in the Tamil land. Religion and learning formed other motives for migrations on a sizable scale. Great centres of learning like Benares, Nalanda, Vatabhi, Kanchipuram attracted scholars from all parts of the country across vast distances, and so did the patronage and charity of powerful and liberal monarchs like Chalukya Vikramaditya, the Cholas Rajendra and Kulottunga, and the illustrious Krishnadeva Raya of Vijayanagar. The presence of many political frontiers was at no time a hindrance to the free movement and mixing of peoples and cultures from the different regions; and in spite of noticeable differences in externals, the common feeling of Indianness, of belonging in a definite way to one another, was ever present among the peoples of India. In fact, if we recall the utter instability of political frontiers in the days when India was free in the past and the total lack of any evidence that this instability ever damaged any important interests of the people, we cannot help a feeling of dismay at the recent scrambles over the question of boundaries after the reorganisation of States. The most notable addition in recent times to the factors making for national unity was the common desire for the cessation of the British rule in India and the attainment of sovereignty. The most potent factor in the generation and promotion of this feeling of nationalism and independence was the influence of English language and literature and of English constitutional history. English was the basis of the new political unity just as western science and technology imbibed through English will be the basis of the successful attainment of planned industrialisation and welfare. A serious setback is now threatening us barely a decade after the withdrawal of the English rule and the attainment of freedom. Administratively, we bungled the question of States reorganisation, ignoring the Dar Report as we could not stand the glare of its log- 170 -

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ic, and appointing a new commission whose wobbling aided by the indecisions of Government let loose forces of linguistic frenzy that have not yet spent themselves, and appear not likely to stop before the break-up of bilingual Bombay. A linguistic regional organisation was convenient as a means of bringing about a mass revolt against foreign rule as it made communication with the mass easier for the national leaders; it was perhaps inevitable that once started such an alignment, though never known to history, would be hard to give up. It is beyond doubt a great advantage to the development of the regional languages and the conduct of regional administration. But the stress on regionalism should not be allowed to go too far if the risk of the revival of political divisions and antagonisms of the past is to be obviated. The pleas for a change in the Constitution calculated to aggrandise States’ power at the expense of the Centre and for Dravidistan are conspicuous examples of incipient trends which should be nipped in the bud as their appeal to blind emotions is fraught with great mischief.

QUESTION OF OFFICIAL LANGUAGE The question of the official language of the Union has raised so much dispute that leaders assembled in Gauhati found it necessary to debate whether it has or has not been of an acrimonious character. To rule out English on the score of its foreignness is to take a stand on sentiment and prestige, to throw away the manifest benefits of our having cultivated the language for over a century, and the advantages of widening international contacts; it is also to ignore the difficulties of non-Hindi speakers and the long leeway that Hindi has to make up before it can become a convenient and handy vehicle of modern ideas in administration and science. Not only the Union administration but our universities and centres of higher study and research must continue to employ English for many more years to avoid the unduly burdensome costs of employing many languages in administration and the fragmentation of our culture that must ensue from the mutual isolation of our universities. Barring a few zealots, the advocates of Hindi as official language recognise that we must wait for the change till that language grows richer and more flexible and makes a nearer approach to English in this regard. Then why raise a storm now over something which will mature for real consideration only many years hence? Eternal vigilance is the price, in India, not only of liberty but of unity. - 171 -

27/7/1958

In the death of Sir Jadunath Sarkar some months ago, India lost the doyen of her historians. Here is a vivid account of his life and work given by another veteran historian.

Portrait of a historian

“T

he study of the Mughal Empire which I began with my India of Aurangzib: Statistics, Topography and Roads (printed in 1901), has come to its end with the extinction of that empire which is the subject matter of the present volume. The events of nearly half the reign of Shah Jahan and the whole of Aurangzib’s are covered in my History of Aurangzib in five volumes, with a supplementary work The Life and Times of Shivaji. Then follows W. Irvine’s Later Mughals (1707 38) in two volumes edited and continued by me, and lastly, this Fall of the Mughal Empire (1738-1803) in four volumes.” In these words written in May 1950 in the preface to the fourth volume of the Fall, Sir Jadunath summed up the core of his life’s work. The directness and simplicity of this summary statement about half a century of devoted and impassioned research is typical of the great scholar who passed away early this year, full of years and honours and the knowledge that he had won universal reverence from all lovers of learning and character throughout the world. He was nearly 80 when he completed his work on the Mughals, but he never laid down his pen and was busy to the last, thinking and writing himself, or helping others to do so. My first meeting with Sir Jadunath occurred in 1919 when I joined the History department of the Benares Hindu University as Professor and he was head of the department. Our association here lasted less than a year. The reason for Jadunath Sarkar (he had not yet become a knight) rather abruptly terminating his connection with the university and reverting to his place in Government service is not without some academic interest. In his account of the Sikh movement in the History of Aurangzib (ch. 35) he had cited an anecdote from Dabistan of how a certain guru praised a parrot and a Sikh immediately went to its owner and offered to barter his wife and daughter for the bird; and commented on the - 172 -

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perversion of values resulting from the extremity of devotion. He was wildly attacked in the court of the university, and very soon things were made so hot for him that he decided to quit. The loss was certainly not his. To me, however, luckily, this short-lived association with him proved to be the beginning of a life-long friendship which became closer with the lapse of time and the growth of common friends and interests. Sir Jadunath was a member of the committee entrusted with the task of selecting the Professor of Indian History and Archaeology in the University of Madras in 1929 and their choice happened to fall on me. Since then I had the privilege of working with him in other selection committees in the same university. His opinion of the candidates was always strictly based on a critical assessment of the work submitted by them, and in his academic judgment, the great man gave no room, whatever, for the play of dakshinyam or other extraneous considerations. In fact, Sir Jadunath gave the appearance of a strict and austere man. He denied himself all avoidable social intercourse and once explained to me that he did this in the interest of work and exhorted me to follow his example if I meant to do serious research. I am afraid I have not been able to follow the exhortation fully, though I have always valued it not only as golden advice but as an index to Sarkar’s own unrivalled achievement. He was always very economical with his time and never allowed any one to waste it. To a promising junior scholar, he was ever encouraging and generously helpful, but once he suspected sham, he quietly turned his back and thought no more of him. He wrote a beautiful and clear hand, and carried the spirit of economy to excessive lengths, making important research notes on the backs of used covers and so on. But everything was orderly and there never was confusion. He lost no time searching for things as others often do. His magnificent library of books and manuscripts was available for use by any true scholar who was efficient and businesslike. In one of his visits to Madras, two scholars in the university applied to him for a rare Persian manuscript in his collection; when he went back to Calcutta, he sent the manuscript to me enjoining me to give it for use by A and not to B, as he had no faith in the capacity of the latter for any good work. He knew I did not read Persian and had no interest in the manuscript, but I was part of his security system. Once in the early days of our acquaintance in Benares, I permitted myself to make the rather tart remark that Aurangzib - 173 -

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was a good subject for study and research, but a bad model for life; he scowled on me for a second, and then relaxed and just smiled. He suffered bereavements by war and communal frenzy, and bore them with fortitude. Needless to say, Jadunath Sarkar had a brilliant academic career and was elected to the Premchand Roychand Scholarship in 1897; this endowment, it may be noted in passing, is one of the generous endowments in which Calcutta University is particularly rich, and has played no mean part in discovering and encouraging talent among the graduates of that university by providing them with the opportunities for proving their worth to the world. A mere glance at the succession list of scholars under this endowment shows that almost everyone who became somebody later, started as a Premchand Roychand Scholar. The first publication of Sarkar in 1901 (mentioned above) not only showed his capacity for hard work and precise and minute research, but indicated his definite choice of the field in which he was to labour throughout his long and busy life. To meet the demands made on him by the vastness and variety of the sources he had to study, he diligently cultivated many new languages – Persian, Marathi, French, and Portuguese; he knew the risks of depending on translations and tried, as far as possible, to study the sources in the original. But the sources of India’s history are so multifarious that even Sarkar’s sustained diligence could not cover the entire ground as I discovered when I casually mentioned to him the treaties which the Dutch East India Company had entered into with the country powers, including Emperor Aurangzib, which were being published in a series of volumes styled Corpus Diplomaticum Neerlando Indicum by Heeres and Stapel; he wanted me at once to make a list of the treaties with Aurangzib with dates and references, and this, of course, I did promptly. Sarkar was a great teacher of History, and except for the short Benares interlude, his work lay mostly in Bihar and Orissa – Patna College and Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. When the Indian Educational Service was thrown open to Indians, Sarkar was naturally one of the earliest to be taken into it; ‘I owe no small debt to Bihar’, he said in December 1930, “I have spent my entire active career, less three years, in this province. I may even claim Patna as my spiritual home. Here I have found opportunities, unequalled elsewhere in India, for studying the past history of India at its foun- 174 -

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tainhead. Here I have received a living inspiration from the great monuments of the past all around us.” This he said at a meeting of the Indian Historical Records Commission in which he played a dominant part from its inception in 1919 to about 1941. He had little love for other Congresses and Conferences, and the Indian History Congress was somehow his bete noire; I never got the reason why. The Gwalior Session of the Indian Historical Records Commission (1929) was the first I attended, and it so happened that that was the first meeting of the Commission after Jadunath Sarkar got the Knighthood. Sir Frank Noyce, who, as Education Secretary to the Government of India was ex-officio Chairman of the Commission and who was himself a keen researcher in Indian records, congratulated Sir Jadunath and said: “Sir Jadunath has shown that India can produce historians worthy to rank with the greatest names of the West. He has shown that it is possible to combine wide and deep scholarship with literary grace. He has shown that history should deal not only with dynastic wars and internecine feuds but with the economic and social life of the nation.” The title of C.I.E. was conferred on Sir Jadunath later. Mr. G. S. Sardesai was a member of the Commission at the time. The friendship between Sardesai and Jadunath is a rare instance of sustained co-operation in research lasting over half-a-century. Sir Jadunath often spent, some weeks in the delightful village of Kamshet, enjoying the loving hospitality of Sardesai. And there was a regular stream of letters between them when they were separated by practically the whole width of India. Mr. Sardesai once placed the whole collection in my hands, and after a close study of the letters extending over some months, I suggested that a good selection from them should be published. I understand that such a selection, though not so extensive as may be desired, will form part of the two volumes planned by Professor Hari Ram Gupta of the Punjab as a tribute of commemoration to Jadunath; the book has been printed and waits for the index to be published; it is no small disappointment that the volumes could not make their appearance on Sir Jadunath’s lifetime. But, perhaps, it is just as well it should be so; for he hated publicity and to my knowledge discouraged several earlier attempts in the direction, and it was s surprise to me when Professor H. R. Gupta wrote to me about the plan he had formed less than four years ago. The long association of the two great historians was of mutual benefit and yielded good results in the furtherance of knowledge. - 175 -

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The epic historian of the Marathas, Sardesai, doubtless, put Sarkar wise on many a recondite point in Maratha history and its sources; Sarkar more than amply repaid the debt by his elucidation of knotty points in source criticism, quellenkritik as the Germans call it in which he was supreme and of general history, above all, by persuading Sardesai to produce the three volumes of the New History of the Marathas in English giving to a larger circle of readers the substance of his monumental Marathi Riyasat in six volumes. But, for the rest, the Marathas evinced much hostility to Sarkar and his work; Sarkar’s outspoken judgments based on his preference at times for non-Marathi sources, his peccadilloes such as his reference to Shivaji as Shiva and to the ‘Poona Brahmins’ irritated them; on the whole they felt that Sarkar had done less than justice to the great historic role of the Maratha nation in recent history and even Sardesai suffered in their estimation for his close association with Sarkar. Sarkar too, it must be owned, was a person of strong likes and dislikes, not incapable of reciprocation. His differences with the Great Sir Ashutosh Mukherji and his high academic standards which led him to criticise much that he saw in the Calcutta University even when he was its Vice-Chancellor (1926-28) are well- known. Sir Jadunath was Chairman of the editorial board set up by the Bharatiya Itihas Parishad in the early forties for the preparation of a New History of the Indian People in 20 volumes; quite characteristically before accepting the charge, Sir Jadunath wrote to Dr Rajendra Prasad, Rector of the Parishad, asking that the academic freedom of the editorial board should be fully guaranteed. He had good reason to do so as his experience in Benares had shown that its existence could not always be assumed. But in this instance, there was no difficulty, and the necessary assurance was readily given and observed in ample measure. Two volumes in the series were completed, but before the publication of the second of these, the scheme was merged in another similar scheme started by the Indian History Congress. Sir Jadunath was invited to preside over the new editorial board of the combined scheme, but he declined. Events have more than justified his refusal. The merger was in part the result of a suggestion from the Education Ministry of the Government of India, but it seems to have only heralded a stasis from which no recovery can be anticipated. Sarkar’s deliberate withdrawal from a promiscuous society - 176 -

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appears indeed to have helped him to form a correct judgment of men and situations.

VALUABLE WORK ON MUGHALS Besides being a historian, Sarkar was known to be a fine writer of Bengali and a knowledgeable critic of Bengali literature. Of this side of Sarkar’s work, I cannot speak with knowledge, but will only refer to his close friendship with Rabindranath Tagore whose poems he had begun to appreciate and popularise long before the great poet won the Nobel Prize. But, it was as a historian that Sarkar won the palm. He had to win wide recognition among Western critics before the croaks of his Indian critics were stilled. H. Beveridge, no mean Persian scholar, wrote in 1922: “Jadunath Sarkar may be called Primus in India as the user of Persian authorities for the history of India. He might be styled the Bengali Gibbon. ... All his volumes are good and reflect the highest credit on their author. The account of Aurangzib in the 3rd and 4th volumes is exceptionally good.” Of The Life and Times of Shivaji, the same critic observed: “All his (Sarkar’s) books are good but perhaps the best of them is The Life and Times of Shivaji. It is full of research and gives a striking picture of that great event – the birth and development, of the Maratha nation.” Of Sarkar’s edition and continuation of Irvine’s Later Mughals (2 vols.) P. E. Roberts says: “This is a contribution of first-rate importance to historical studies. It drives a broad pathway through a very tangled jungle, it clears up many disputed points... It is a piece of work which badly needed doing, and it has been done with amazing thoroughness. The most valuable part of the book is the careful incorporation of Persian and Marathi unpublished material.” Of the Fall of the Mughal Empire (4 vols.), Sarkar himself said: “The present writer is here making the first attempt to synthesise the Persian, Marathi, French, English, Hindi, Rajasthani and Sanskrit sources, and reconstruct the story of the fall of the Mughal Empire, from the invasion of Nadir Shah in 1739 to the British conquest of Delhi and assumption of the Keeper-ship of the puppet but still legitimate Padishah in 1803.” In all these works, Sarkar confined himself to the main themes, rigidly excluding all the local history of the times he dealt with, which did not have a direct bearing on them. “A more serious defect,” he said, “is that the social and economic history of this long stretch of time has been crowded out of the present series, though I have made many short excursions - 177 -

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into that field in my minor works and essays.” These minor works and essays are quite a good number and need not be listed here; they serve to put an edge on the poignancy of our regret that he could not give us a systematic social and economic history, for it would be long, very long before another scholar so competent and so well-informed may be found applying himself to the subject. Sarkar belonged to the school of 19th century historians who, as Coulanges observed, studied a subject from all known sources and then presented the results of their researches to the reader; they spared themselves the display of erudition, some indications at the foot of the pages sufficing for the reader whom they invited to verify. Sarkar says somewhere that he collected more than 5,000 letters of Aurangzib and his contemporaries, not to speak of the other historical manuscripts, yet he did not publish a single volume of ‘sources’, which has now become the fashion. As historian, again, he accepted the responsibility of delivering moral judgments on men and events; and sometimes he even permitted himself to speculate on the might- have-beens as in his discussion of the results of the defeat of the Marathas in 1761. History is infinite; there are as many methods and styles in it as there are historians; Sir Jadunath’s place in the front rank of them all is secure.

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30/11/1958

Use of Roman Script (Letter to the Editor) Sir, – On page III of your Weekly Magazine dated October 26 appear two reviews under the captions ‘Bibliography in India’ and ‘India’s Many Tongues’. From the latter we learn that a new book The Languages of India edited by V. K. Narasimhan and others contains a vigorous plea by Rajaji for the retention of English as the official inter-State and Union language with its indisputable advantages – a plea borne out by the figures of the circulation of newspapers in the country. The reviewer commends particularly the reproduction of the script of each of the languages dealt with in the symposium with a pronunciation key in English. In the other review Dr. S. R. Ranganathan severely blames the first number of Indian National Bibliography for ‘the most revolting and unhelpful feature’, viz., ‘the use of the Roman script for the entries of the publications in all the Indian languages.’ There can be no more forceful picture of our present language situation than these two reviews appearing in parallel columns in one issue of your esteemed weekly. I may say at once that my mind is with the advocates of the continuance of English for pan-Indian and foreign intercourse, and I wish, with your leave, to consider briefly the points made by one of the foremost experts in Library Science in the world with the respect and care they merit. I am, however, a layman with no knowledge of library technique, and my reactions are those of an ordinary reader of books who may have occasional use for bibliographies of the kind under reference. Everyone will share Dr. Ranganathan’s regret expressed in the first part of the review that the collection of Indian books published till 1947 kept ready for transfer to India from the India Office Library was not actually transferred owing to some bungling at the Indian end; but one may hope it is still not too late for the concerned authorities to take suitable action to have the transfer effected as it would mean no deprivation for Great Britain which apparently has more than one set of these books. We should also Join him in regretting that the publications from 1947 to 1957 have gone unattended both in India and Britain, and again hope that all - 179 -

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possible effort will be put forth to make good this omission as far as is practicable now. But what is utterly unintelligible is his strong condemnation of the use of the Roman script in transliterating the names of authors and books in the Indian languages. One has only to glance at the cogent foreword of Mr. Humayun Kabir to this publication to realise that the only possible reasonable course has been followed in this regard. The method adopted makes the bibliography easy to produce, and easy to use, for all Indians and foreigners, irrespective of their own mother tongues. Dr. Ranganathan does not hesitate to stigmatize this ‘as a grievous fault disclosing absence of clear thinking free from the inhibitions dating from the British period and the absence of responsiveness to the needs of the India of the Gandhian period’. He avers that the booksellers and residents of particular linguistic areas are ‘the most numerous consumers of the bibliography’, and puts forward the facile assumption that any one interested in a language other than his own may be presumed to be able to read its script. He then lays down the amazing dictum: “The correct form of the Polyglot Indian National Bibliography is, therefore, an assemblage of the particulars forming the different linguistic biographies each in its own script”. Literally accepted and carried out, this will land us in a bibliography worthy of the Stone Age of ‘Library Science’. Dr. Ranganathan argues that Europe has ‘at least four scripts in use’ and therefore India may use fourteen. But, these scripts in Europe are more relics of a vanishing historical setting, and few will question the dominance of the use of the Roman script and its growing spread all the world over. Russia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, to mention only a few examples, have switched over to Roman for international use. It will be both retrograde and costly in every sense of the term to depart from Roman for the National Bibliography of India. Few who know the facts will swallow the facetious statement that ‘the Registrar of Books has already been for long producing a State bibliography in many of the States’; the present writer discovered that this is far, very far from the truth when he sought recently to gain access to an up to date bibliography of recent Tamil literature on the eve of a Seminar on recent Tamil writing convened by the Institute of Traditional Cultures. The attack on the statements in the foreword is equally misleading and the references to Parkinson’s Law and bureaucracy are no more relevant to the - 180 -

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real issue before us than the arrogation of wisdom and responsiveness to the needs of the Gandhian period in an earlier paragraph. When the States of India develop library service in full measure, and produce regional bibliographies periodically, they will surely be availed of by the compilers of the National Bibliography. But we are far from that happy state of things, and the attempt that has begun well in the published fasciculus of the National Bibliography should, in the best national interest, go on in the very helpful manner in which it has started. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri. Nilesvar.

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28/12/1958

Place of English in higher teaching

Research in the humanities

O

f late, the opinion has been expressed sometimes that though it may be necessary to keep English for the study of scientific subjects at the University stage, it should be possible to discard it for the mother tongue or the regional language for education in the humanities. The distinction between the mother tongue and regional language is a minor question and need not be allowed to trouble the present argument as in practice it is bound to be faced and solved in all places at all levels. This discussion is confined to higher teaching and research at the University level, because there is a general consensus among educationalists that though there is a good case for the study of English as a language in the school stage, the teaching in all other subjects must be carried on in the mother tongue and whatever difficulties this may involve must be faced and overcome with energy and speed. It is matter for some gratification that the strong wave of sentiment against the use of the English language for any purpose in India which threatened not long ago to sweep everything before it has now subsided, and wise second thoughts have led to a more or less general recognition that the happy end of English rule in India would result in much unhappiness it is meant also the end of the English language in India, that as English ceases to be the medium of instruction in schools the case for the teaching of English as a second language to a good standard is much stronger now than before, and that we would be ill-advised to forgo the advantages of the use of English for inter-State and international communication. A recent study has shown that in the decade that followed the attainment of Independence, English newspapers and journals produced in India have improved their circulation even more than those in the Indian languages. The meddlesome interference of hasty and ill-equipped politicians has been the bane of Indian education at all stages, particularly since the attainment of Independence. Patriotism is not the monopoly of noisy busybodies whose dynamic ignorance is - 182 -

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both ubiquitous and destructive. The education of generations of innocent children bas been already much impaired by ill- considered experiments each worse than its predecessor. It is time we recognised that those who do not believe in making much noise, but quietly pursue their own chosen lines of work and thought, have the good of the country at least as much at heart, and that this good is best promoted by their being left free to pursue their objectives, without undue interference from the rest. The teachers in our schools and colleges have, in general, suffered not only by the low scales of their salaries and material prospects, but by their having been constrained to work out schemes and policies in the making of which they have had little or no part. This must change and educational policy must become predominantly the responsibility of teachers informed by the general objectives of contemporary society set forth by leaders in other walks of life. The teacher must become the hub of education and his views based on his direct experience in his field must prevail against hasty patriotic nostrums. The system of University education built up in the century after 1857 is by no means perfect; but on the whole, it has served the country quite well. At an incredibly low cost in material resources, it has kept its alumni reasonably up-to-date in their knowledge and equipment and provided the groundwork for advanced study and research in many important fields of knowledge: at the present, when so many schemes for the rapid betterment, material, moral and spiritual, of all sections of the entire nation are being actively pursued, the need for responsible leadership based on knowledge, character and initiative has multiplied a hundred fold: and this means that we car hardly exaggerate the urgency of not only maintaining but vastly improving the standards of teaching and research at the University level. It is significant that the Chairman of the University Grants Commission has been repeatedly drawing attention to the inadequacy of the expenditure on University education and to the fact that we are as yet counting our Universities by the tens while our requirements could be met only by hundreds of them. Handicapped as we are by the lack of resources in the expansion of the volume of study and research in Universities to meet current demands, it is of vital importance that nothing should be done that is likely to affect their quality by a lowering of standards of achievement which are by no means as high as would be desirable. Fortunately, it seems to be generally well recognised - 183 -

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that in scientific and technical subjects, any attempt to give up the use of English as the medium of instruction will spell danger to our industrial and technical equipment which we have just begun seriously to build up. There seems to be, however, a good proportion among those who think and speak about such things, who hold that we may embark on such a change in the humanities by adopting compulsory methods if necessary and that if we do not effect it now, we shall never be able to do it. There, is no means of forming a correct estimate of the extent to which this view actually prevails and how far teachers of the subjects concerned subscribe to the view; in the view of the present writer, who has been a teacher of history and allied subjects for many years and who claims some acquaintance with fellow teachers and knowledge of their views, there are not very many teachers who favour a change from the English medium to that of the mother tongue, and that the change is advocated largely by others who are not teachers, who will not have to face the effects of the change the directly as the teachers have to, and who are influenced more by a priori and doctrinaire considerations than by the hard facts of the current situation in the country. Several years ago, it is more than two decades now, the regulations of the Madras University were changed with a view to allowing colleges the option of teaching the Humanities in the mother tongue; a couple of colleges which bravely started doing so very soon found themselves obliged to abandon the effort. The option is still there in theory, but no one is inclined to consider it seriously. This is not due to wantonness, but the difficulty in the change over is really serious. You have only to look at the few books in Tamil for instance on world history or politics and the reviews they evoke in the press to realise that we are still very far from having reached the stage when modern thought can be intelligibly, not to say felicitously, expressed in that language. And has not our Prime Minister said that Hindi translations of news and documents are often obscure to a degree? We must frankly recognise that to-day, at the University level, low as it is in India when compared with the best universities of the advanced countries, we find English is the most serviceable language not only as a medium of expression but as an instrument of thought. Almost every book on a modern subject is thought out in English, and mentally, if not physically, written in English and then translated into the chosen language, it must take time for that language to grow accustomed to its new - 184 -

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uses and become flexible in them. Let the change in the schools begin to work smoothly and satisfactorily, which is not now the case, before the change is sought to be effected higher up. We sometimes hear it said that teachers are lazy and disinclined to put forth the effort necessary to find clear expression in our own languages for modern thoughts. It is argued that in mediaeval Europe similar arguments were advanced for the retention of Latin in schools and Universities, but that the rising tide of national sentiment bore down the objections and the vernaculars came into their own. We are not concerned to deny the element of truth in the charge against the teachers or the aptness of the analogy from mediaeval Europe so far as it goes. It is true that not only inertia, but other causes like differences between purists and the opponents of purism who would readily enrich a language by suitable borrowings have unduly delayed progress; but the fact remains that there is much leeway to be made and that at a modest estimate some decades must elapse before we consolidate the new medium of modern thought in our schools sufficiently for us to think of the next step. In Europe also, the change from Latin to the vernaculars did not occur overnight; it was a matter of centuries, and Latin left its unmistakable impress on all the languages that displaced it. But the question arises whether we want India to remain one country as it has been for a century and a half now, or want it to fall apart into a number of different countries, frequently flying at one another’s throats, which was the normal state of India for centuries upon centuries before any foreign power entered the scene to whose policy of ‘divide and rule’ we are too apt to ascribe all our differences. If we want to keep the hard-won unity of India we shall do well to hug for a good long time yet the tangible benefits of English as a common medium of thought and communication which is a powerful aid cooperating with the modern means of transport and tele communications in maintaining India as a united nation. The time may come when long usage in close co-operation in politics and administration places the country above the danger of disruption and the ripe and dispassionate love of one’s own language will have shed the traits of fanaticism and the distrust and even hatred of other languages that are now all too evident to be underestimated. But that time will call for long and studied preparation all round, and its advent cannot be assumed as a matter of course. And English has a dominant role to play in - 185 -

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this preparation as the bond of union and the basis of mutual understanding among the intellectual elite of the nation. There is above all yet another deeper and more abiding significance of the English language and the English tradition not only for us in India but for all the nations of Asia. The great values of Asian cultures such as the exaltation of equipoise and spiritual harmony based on conformity to Dharma or Tao or whatever you call it are admitted, and the West is beginning to realize the vantage ground held by Asia in this regard; but the great complementary ideals of practical life such as constitutional liberty and the rule of law, justice and fair play in every detail of daily social life and all the qualities that go with them are intimately bound up with that language and that tradition, both still very much alive and growing; and all lovers of humanism and progress in the affairs of the mind and spirit would wish that present contacts should grow deeper and more abiding rather than weaken and fade out with the lapse of time.

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12/8/1930

Study of South Indian history

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nder the auspices of the University of Madras, Mr. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, University Professor of Indian History and Archaeology, delivered his inaugural address last evening at the new Senate room at the Senate House, Chepauk, on the subject of “The Study of South Indian History”. Dewan Bahadur K. Ramunni Menon, Vice-Chancellor, presided. The meeting was largely attended. In the course of his interesting address, the lecturer dwelt at length on the state of historical studies in South India, the methods followed and the results obtained from such studies and also indicated the ways in which the department of Indian History and Archaeology in the Madras University could further those studies. The following are extracts from his address: After Mackenzie’s heroic but for the time fruitless effort in the early nineteenth century, Southern India was for two generations more or less completely ignored by students of Indian Antiquities. One reason for this neglect was that Indian antiquarian studies properly began with Sanskrit and Pali and for a long time were chiefly occupied with these languages; for in historical times the culture and civilisation of the whole country, with the exception of the extreme South, was Sanskritic in origin and development. Another reason might be the peculiar difficulties of script, structure and idiom which the Dravidian languages would present to the foreign scholars who initiated the critical study of Indian Antiquities. Though the modern study of Dravidian Languages had begun in the days of the Company, the motive underlying these early efforts was furnished either by the zeal of the European missionary for the Christianisation of the country or the desire of the Company to provide cheap methods of enabling junior civilians to gain a working knowledge of the languages of South India. But like the progressive Aryanisation of Ancient India, Oriental scholarship of the disinterested kind extended in course of time to the farthest. The appointment (in 1886) of Hultzsch as Epigraphist marks the beginning of a new epoch in the study of South Indian Archaeology. Fourteen years later Madras became a separate circle of the Archaeological Survey. - 191 -

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Sumerian world and the most ancient Indo-European – these are clearly more significant than the fortuitous resemblances that are always to be traced between two great cultures. The evidence already available is sufficient, however, to furnish conclusive proof of the origin and development of an independent Tamil culture which flourished for centuries before it was touched by extraneous influences. However difficult it may now be to define, in a scientific manner, the content of that culture, to deny its existence altogether can only be the result of ignorance or prejudice. It is equally certain that at a time before recorded history begins this indigenous Tamil culture came under strong influences from Northern India which, for the sake of convenience and without any implications of race, may well continue to be called Aryan. It seems not unlikely that the literary dialect of Tamil was born and grew under Aryan influences; in any event there can be no question that that dialect was enriched and vivified by these influences.”

ANCIENT TAMIL LITERATURE The Literature of the Sangam Age formed the earliest body of Tamil literature. The Sangam Literature like the Rig Veda consists of separate poems composed on various occasions by different poets and grouped together in a schematic manner by later anthologists. The language and culture enshrined in either collection are unmistakably at the root of the late literature and civilisation of historical times, but still differ from them sufficiently to be assigned to an earlier epoch and to merit separate study. The suggestion may, therefore, be ventured that the philological and linguistic line of approach, which has proved so fruitful in Vedic studies, will yield in competent hands results equally valuable in the history of Ancient Tamil Culture. Once we leave this early period of Tamil History epigraphy comes to our aid, and as we advance through the centuries we suffer not so much from a dearth as from a deluge of authentic material to work with. Hundreds of inscriptions have been copied annually for the last 50 years by the Epigraphical Department and more are being copied every year. It is extremely unfortunate that the texts of only a small proportion of them should be available for general study. It is admitted that already the copies of several inscriptions have irredeemably decayed while of some the originals themselves have disappeared. - 192 -

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It is further necessary that Government should make it a rule that, in future the inscriptions copied every year are published in full as they are in Mysore together with each annual report. In the inscriptions of South India are to be found many technical terms bearing on social, economic, military and administrative matters. A correct understanding of these terms is an essential preliminary to the reconstruction of the social life of the period. It is obviously within the province of the Tamil Lexicon to take up the systematic study of such terms and the omission to do this has caused some disappointment. It may be hoped, however, that the Lexicon authorities will make arrangements for the issue of a supplement in the preparation of which the Oriental Research Institute and the Department of Indian History may furnish useful assistance. A Research Fellow of our university has studied the Economic condition of Southern India from A.D. 1000-A.D. 1500; and despite the difficulties of a pioneer undertaking, he has brought together much useful and authentic information which can serve as a good basis for further work.

SOUTH INDIAN MONUMENTS The study of South Indian monuments is in no better case than that of our epigraphs. There is still ample scope for making excavations in selected sites in various parts of the presidency. Ancient Madura, Uraiyur and the neighbourhood of Kancipuram, to mention only a few of these sites, hold, in all probability, hidden treasures of great value to the historian. The vexed question of the site of Vanji has hitherto been discussed entirely on the basis of literary evidence of an inconclusive nature; and it may not be a vain hope that, as in Kushan chronology, scientific excavation of the alternative sites of the ancient Cera capital might lead to more decisive results. There is also a great need for a systematic survey, excavation and description of pre-historic sites; only a few of these, like Adiccanallur and Perumbair, have so far been scientifically studied. The wealth of manuscript material in Madras and Tanjore libraries deserves the most careful attention. It is hoped that systematic work on this section of the manuscript library, which has been lying practically idle for over a century, will soon begin and that as a first step an accurate descriptive catalogue will be prepared. - 193 -

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The scientific study and interpretation of the sources of South Indian history has not advanced far beyond the elementary stages. The temptation is very strong to force ahead with sweeping conclusions drawn from stray facts without waiting for the chain of evidence to be completed. This temptation must be resisted. Some amongst us are apt to grudge what they consider to be the undue amount of attention devoted to political history. They say that the names of kings and their monotonous victories are of less consequence to us than a picture of the daily life of the people, their religious observances and their literary and artistic achievements. Such criticism, whatever its validity at other times, appears to be somewhat inopportune at the present moment, because it is yet too soon to turn our attention away from the study of political history. The stress on political history is not accidental or perverse and it does not proceed from a failure to realise the value or importance of social history. Any picture of social life, if it is to be of real significance, must have a firmly established framework of chronology to fit into. And this framework, which alone could support and hold together the reconstructions of social and religious history, cannot be built up except by fixing the details of political history. This is true in some measure of the history of all countries and is especially so of our own. Most of the dates and sometimes even the names of our poets and artists are irrecoverably lost to us; but events in which kings and chieftains took part are oftener and better preserved in records which either bear their own dates or can be easily dated. Very much then remains yet to be done before we can arrive at a definite political history of the South Indian kingdoms. The mute grandeur of our numerous temples is a constant invitation to the study of local history. A study of each of these ancient foundations is bound to reveal how the rich and many-sided life of the people centred round the temple as its nucleus. In India as in Greece art was the handmaid of religion and the genius of the people, their ideas and aspirations attained exuberant expression in the houses of the gods.

SOME STRIKING FEATURES Among the most striking features of the ancient and mediaeval polity of Southern India were the management of local affairs by the people themselves and the richness and stability and the cultured fullness of the rural life of the country. But no serious attempt has - 194 -

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yet been made to study the structure of rural institutions and the details of administration. Few would be led to expect, from the current writings on the subject, that there was any evidence on rural institutions other than the celebrated Uttaramerur record. In reality, however, a great many other inscriptions furnish data which, if analysed and co-ordinated, would yield a comprehensive view of the classes of villages, the constitution and functions of the sabhas, their relations as between themselves and with the central administration and similar matters. We hear now-a-days a great deal too much of things Dravidian and things Aryan, it is to be wished that persons who talk with such assurance on these difficult matters make clear to themselves as well as to others by what methods and with what criteria they effect this distinction. The study of the modern history of South India touches us most intimately and is to be approached, partly for this very reason, with due caution. The records of the Madras Government are the primary source of our knowledge after the advent of the European powers. Much information of value can also be gathered from the publications of the India Office and the Imperial Records Department and for the period of the French struggles from the archives of Pondicherry. These sources are to be supplemented by the diaries, memoirs and biographies that are published from time to time. Of all the Indian record offices Madras has the largest collection of Dutch records and a Research Fellow of our university is at present engaged in writing the history of the Dutch in India. The study of all History is an ennobling discipline and to us that of South Indian History is an inspiration as well, for in high endeavour and worthy achievement we can look back on a great and glorious past. Though in the organisation of free government, Ancient India must rank below some other lands and far below ancient Greece, yet even here the continued vigour of the village institutions of the South mitigated for many centuries the evils of a weak central government. In all the other arts of civilised life Southern India was the peer of any other country. History is often said to furnish lessons for the future. It can however offer no direct or specific guidance to present-day politics and statesmanship. But the memory of what was good and great in olden days may serve to fill us with hope and inspire us with patriotic energy. Considered merely as a discipline the study of history is indeed ennobling. For the task of the historian is two- 195 -

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fold; it is severely scientific as well as genuinely artistic; first to make sure of his facts by patient investigation and close analysis, and then by the light of imagination and the living touch of sympathy to make clear the significance of these facts to himself and to his generation. The Vice-Chancellor congratulated the lecturer on his illuminating address and said that the lecturer had done well in calling attention to the study of ancient history of South India free from narrow patriotism. He hoped that some benefactor from the Nattukottai community would come forward with an endowment for encouraging the study of anthropology in connection with the study of the ancient history of South India. The meeting then terminated.

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27/11/1930

Ywan Chwang’s account of India

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nder the auspices of the Presidency College Historical Association Mr. K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, Professor of Indian History, University of Madras, delivered last evening an interesting lecture on “Southern India at the time of Ywan Chwang’s visit”, Prof. Joseph Franco presiding. In the course of his lecture Mr. Nilakanta Sastri said that almost every historian of India mentioned Yuan Chwang’s visit to India for unlike other visitors to India, Yuan Chwang had kept an accurate record of everything of importance that he saw in India. Within a period of four years after his return to China in 649 A. D. Ywan Chwang completed his record of travels in India from the notes that he was regularly taking whilst in India. As for this record itself, it contained minute details giving even the bearings and distances of various places. As an ardent Buddhist, Ywan Chwang’s interest in India lay in Buddhism and consequently his impressions of India were coloured by his Buddhistic attitude. The lecturer then read Yuwan Chwang’s account of South Kosala, Andhra, Hanacaraka, Celaya, Davida Malamute, Konkan Pura and Maharashtra and pointed out how accurately those places had been described barring a few facts here and there which were not verifiable. The record kept by Ywan Chwang, the lecturer continued, gave a fairly good account of the political, social and religious conditions in the various parts of India during the period of his stay in India. That the social conditions prevailing in the different parts of India varied from one another was indicated by the fact that Yuwan Chwang took the conditions in what he termed the ‘mid-India’ as his stand and criticised on this basis the conditions in other parts of India. A good deal of attention was also paid in the record to an account of the various kingdoms in South India and the position of each with reference to the others. Above all the most important thing that had been brought to light, concluded the lecturer related to the foreign trade of India with Burma, Sumatra, Java and Indo-China and there was every reason to believe that the foreign trade was also very large. - 197 -

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Prof. Franco in the course of his concluding remarks said that many Indians would at least be glad to know that there was a period long ago in India when the people were leading a contented life and attached much importance to trade with foreign countries. India in those days was the centre of attraction to all foreigners on account of her wealth and culture. But for the fact that India was worthwhile visiting it was impossible to think of foreigners coming to India at a time when travel was beset with grave dangers and numerous difficulties. With a vote of thanks, the meeting terminated.

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29/3/1931

Spread of Ramayana outside India

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he members of the Madras Sanskrit Academy celebrated the Valmeeki Day last evening in the premises of the Sanskrit College, Mylapore. Mahamahopadhyaya S. Kuppuswami Sastrigal presided. After prayer was over, prizes were distributed to the winners in the essay competition for the best sketch of characters in Ramayana other than Rama and Sita, essays to be written in English, Sanskrit and Tamil. Mr. V. Raghavan won the first prize in the English and Sanskrit essays. Srimathi K. Savitri Ammal won the second prize in the English essay, Srimathi Kamakshi Bai was second in the Sanskrit essay. Mr. R.V. Ramaswami got the first prize in the Tamil essay. Brahmasri S. K. Ramanatha Sastri then delivered a lecture in Sanskrit on “Sowbhrathra” with reference to the characters in the Ramayana. Afterwards Professor K. A. Nilakanta Sastri who delivered an interesting lecture on the “Spread of Ramayana outside India”. He said that the mighty influence that Ramayana had on the literatures and the morals in India was very well known. This great poem had not, after tens of centuries after its composition, ceased to exercise their thoughts on the fundamental relations of human life. It was also found that the attractive name of ‘Vanara Sena’ had been able to enlist the services of even little children in the cause, rightly or wrongly supposed to be a national one. Proceeding, the speaker said that it was only of late the thing was becoming more and more evident how much Ramayana had been contributing to the cultural capital of lands which were undoubtedly colonised by the Indians at a very early time. The spread of Ramayana had been the result, partly of such colonisation and partly from a conscious borrowing from Indian literature, primarily through Buddhist sources. This influence had been at once literary and artistic in its exhibition. Many versions of the Ramayana had been unearthed in recent years and the influence of the Ramayana could be seen in the art, sculpture and architecture - 199 -

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of the various foreign countries. There were Javanese (Kawi) and Balinese versions of the Ramayana. Investigations had shown that early sculptures in Central Asia were Indian in character though the story represented by them did not follow Valmiki. On the other hand, the sculptures in East Java belonging to a later age, were clearly Javanese in dress, etc., but the characters depicted resembled those in Ramayana. The lecturer, proceeding, said that there was other evidence of the Ramayana having spread to different places. A Tibetan version of the story was unearthed in Central Asia. On the Buddhist side, the evidence was very great. One form of the story commonly called Dasaratha Jathaka was the Southern Pali account. Another version had been brought to light some 20 years ago by Professor Sylvan Levi from a Chinese translation. This translation was set to have taken place in A.D. 472. The influence of Ramayana had also been found in Anam and Champa (a portion of Indo-China). The evidence of archaeology, proceeded the speaker, confirmed the literary evidence. In Kambhoja and in Champa there were various inscriptions which went to show that Valmiki’s word was known in those places about to 7th century of the Christian Era. Kambhoja furnished tremendous proof of the influence of the Ramayana on painting and sculpture. In Siam, Ramayana was even now very popular, especially on the stage. But in India, painting and sculpture bearing on the Ramayana was rather meagre. However, it was shaping the conduct of the people and the speaker expressed the hope that the Ramayana would continue to be popular for quite a long time. Brahmasri R. Raghava Iyengar, Samasthana Vidwan of Ramnad then spoke in Tamil on ‘Valmiki and Avatar’. At the end of his lecture Mr. K. S. Krishna Sastrigal, Principal of the Sanskrit College, presented the lecturer with a shawl. With a vote of thanks to the speaker, the meeting terminated.

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28/7/1933

The human factor in industrial arts, trade and craft guilds in ancient India

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t the Kellett Hall last evening Professor K A Nilakanta Sastriar delivered a lecture on “The Trade and Craft Guilds in ancient India.” The lecturer prefaced his remarks with saying that the problem of social organisation was to procure and retain the conditions under which the existing level of culture could be maintained and improved. It was an overpresent problem in all societies where men had come together to live and lead a civilized life. The trend of modern European history, which was really expanding into the history of the world, was to solve the problem more and more on a democratic basis. For instance, in the sphere of education they had at the present day the democratic ideal of mass Education and all modern States were straining – and if they did not do so, they were subject to criticism – every nerve to attain that ideal. A glance at the organisation of modern industry and trade revealed the same sense of mass production of things. That again was ultimately traceable to the notion “that one man is as good an another and it should be the aim of social endeavour to treat all equally.”

THE ANCIENT SYSTEM Those were not the ideals of ancient India, Mr. Sastriar said, they were almost the opposite of what he had just mentioned. The first and the most fundamental principle to which allegiance was given at every stage was the principle of the differential capacity of men. The dogma of equality not only was not asserted, but it was definitely opposed. One of the manifestations of such a social structure was the introduction of the principle of heredity into social and industrial organisation. The principle of heredity was intended to be and was, as a matter of fact, the means of preserving a certain cultural atmosphere. The system, no doubt, ran the risk – the risk that original minds born in a particular caste had to be compelled to stay where they wore born. But it was felt in those days, - 201 -

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so it seemed to him, that it was much safer to run that risk than to assume the opposite risk of building on the basis that one man was as good as another. It must, however, be pointed out, Mr. Sastriar said, that though in theory, caste and occupation were hereditary, in practice departures there from ware not unknown. The second fundamental idea was as regards the rights of individuals. In ancient society, it was something less individual in character. The decision on such matters was generally sought in the sayings of wise men, in the books of the sages and what was more, in the practice of good men. That was why legislation, as it was understood at the present day, played so little a part in ancient Indian administration and State life and why even at the present day their courts of law have got the recognised ‘customary practice.’ In the practice of art and industry, the individual craftsman was left absolutely free to devise his own patterns, with the result that there was ample scope for thought and the free exercise of individual aptitudes and talents. What a contrast was it to the conditions prevailing in the labour world to-day where the workers had been dehumanised thoroughly, so to say. Let God forbid, said the lecturer, the Indian craftsman, poor though he may be, sinking to that level.

THE GUILDS SYSTEM Mr. Sastriar, continuing, said that besides the hereditary caste organisation which had only very casual connection with professions and occupations, there was ample evidence of the existence of groups devoted to particular crafts. They were organisations of craftsmen and sometimes of merchants and they occupied a very definite place in society. There was much evidence from Northern India on craft guilds while most of the evidence from the South related to trade guilds. The evidence obtained clearly showed that their trade organisations were very powerful, had a continuous existence and had very wide ramifications indeed, commanding a sea-trade from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea and from the very earliest times Tamil shipping was a very powerful factor in the maritime commerce of the Indian Ocean. Then there wore trade organisations, mentioned in their South Indian records by such names as Manigramam, Anjuvannam and Valanjiyar – the last mentioned seemed to have been the biggest corporations in mediaeval South India and they owned a large number of cities and had armed forces to safeguard their proper- 202 -

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ties and had free access in all kingdoms. The articles in which they were trading, the means of transport that they employed and their trade routes over land and sea were all described in the legendary inscriptions which they had left. Those banded merchants, the lecturer concluded by saying, were a power in the land, built temples, constructed roads and were very serviceable to the country, as traders were in all countries. The hon. Mr. G. A. Natesan, who presided, thanked the lecturer for having thrown some light on a vast and interesting subject. It was true that the trade guilds in ancient India served very well the needs of those days but how far they could be adapted to modern requirements must be a subject well worth the study by those interested in the problem. He hoped that the lecturer would take another opportunity of controlling the topic at another meeting. With a vote of thanks to the Chairman and the lecturer proposed by the Rev. C. W. Ranson, the meeting terminated.

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INDEX

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INDEX

A

Aays, 36 Abhiras, 95 Abhisheka of Siva, 130 Abhisheka, 137, 139 AccutaVikkanta, 98 Achaemenid traditions, 167 Adichanallur (or Adiccanallur), 73, 193 Adigaiman Anji. See Adiyamaan, 41 Adi Mandi, 33, 39 Adiyamaan, 36 Adiyarkkunallar, 68 Adulis, 84 Aethiopia, 84 Agamas, 133 Agastya, 29, 30, 37, 69, 163, 167 Agathyar. See Agastya, 29 Agattiyam, 30 Agriculture, 41, 72 Aham collections, 46, Ahananuru, 44 Ahapporul (Kalaviyal) commentary on, 68 Ahapporul (Kalaviyal), 29 Aihole inscription, 101, 103, 105, 106 Ainguru-nuru, 30 Aitareya Brahmana, 167 Ajanta, 103 Akkad, 55 Alavay, 137 Alberuni, 153 Aludaiya Nambi. See Sundarar (Aludaiya Nambi), 138 Aludaiya Pillai. See Gnanasambandar ( Jnanasambandar), 138

Alupas, 102 Alvars, 129, 136, 139, 140, 164 Amaravati styles, 81 Anaimangalam, 87 Anandaranga Pillai, 154, 155, 156 Anandarangarat Chandamu, 156 Anandaranga Vijaya Champu, 156 Andhrabhrityas, 90 Andhra kings of the Deccan, 42 Andhras, 90 An-hsi (Parthians), 82 Anjuvannam, 202 Anklet Epic, 83 Anti-Brahmin movement, 161 Anti-North movement, 161 Anton, 82 Antoninus Pius, 82 Appar (Tirunavakkarasu) and Saivism, 114; hymns, 123, 138; persecution, 116 Appar (Tirunavakkarasu), 114, 121, 137,125, 126, 128 Appayika, 101 Arabs, 40, 77, 79 Archaeological evidence, 76, 81 Argaritic, 57, 79 Argaru (Uraiyur), 64 Arikamedu (Arikumedu), 18, 58, 66, 67 Arivudaiyaran, 30 Arjuna, 37, 123 Arupattumuvar, 118 Arur, 139 Aruvalar, 46 Aryadeva, 93

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Aryanisation, 69, 167, 191 Aryans, 71, 73, 74, 168 Aryavarta, 63 Aryo-Dravidian civilisation, 33 Asoka, 33, 34, 74 Atiranachandesvara temple, 131 Attan Atti, 48, 55 Atyantakamapallavesvara griham, 130 Avalokitesvara, 30, 163 Avanibhajanapallavesvara, 126 Avani-Naaranam, 85 Avani-Nararanam, 58 Avani-Narayana, 58 Avanti country, 54 Avur Mulangizhar, 163 Avvaiyar, 38, 41

B

Babita (Varkalai), 79 Babylon, 56, 76 Bacare (Por-kad), 78 Bactria, 150, 151 Badami inscription, 108 Balarama, 43 Bali, 113 Balinese, Ramayana in, 200 Baluchistan, 31 Bana, 57, 76, 92, 107 Bandar, 78 Bangalore, 99 Barygaza (Broach), 78, 151 Basham, A. L., 63, 74 Battle of Pullalur, 106 Battle of Vakaipparandalai, 46 Battle of Venni, 46 Bautisos, 151

Bellary, 72 Beveridge, H., 177 Bhadrabahu, 90 Bhagavadajjukam, 116 Bhaktavatsalam, M., 161 Bhandarkar, Sir R. G., 69, 74 Bharasiva, 128 Bharatavarsha, 167 Bhikshu, 162 Bhimarthi river, 101 Bhoja prabanda, 97 Bhotiya Kosi, 152 Bindusara, 90 Boat designs, 75 Boats, 56 Bopp, 64 Boro Budur, 76 Brahmagiri, 74 Brahman, 96 Brahmapuram (Shiyali), 136 Brahmaputra, 150 Brahmi characters, 33, 163 Brahmi inscriptions, 81 Brahmins as declaration of war messengers, 41; brain-trust of society, 162; foreign travellers’ records on, 164; Indo-Aryan culture expansion, 164; in Tolkappiyam, 44, 163; religious worship, 43; role in cultural and civilization development, 164 Brahmins, 40, 163, 152 Brahui speech, 31 Brhatphalayanas, 95 Brihadbanas, 96 Brihatkatha, 93

- 208 -

INDEX

Broach. See Barygaza (Broach), 78 Brown, C. P., 30, 64 Buddhism Aryadeva, 93; Dharma, 34; in Ceylon, 58; in Dekkan, 90; in Kanchi, 140 Buddhism, 93, 98-99, 164 Buddhist Bhikshu, 125 Buddhists, 30 Burma, 86, 197 Butapuranam, 29

C

Caldwell, R., 30, 64 Calliana, 84 Camara (Kaveripattinam), 79 Carnatic, 154 Casal, J. M., 80 Castes, 40, 168 Cave temples, 129, 131 Central Asia, 69, 150, 200 Ceylon and Cholas, 37, 58, 85; and Pallavas, 107; Buddhism in, 58 Ceylon and Pallavas, 136 Ceylon, 47, 85 Chakora bird, 38 Chakravartikshetram, 167 Chakravarti ruling, 41 Chalcolithic, 72 Chalukyas of Badami, 97, 100, 101, 102, 106, 113 Chalukya Vallabhesvara, 100 Chalukya Vijayaraja, 102 Chamaras, 151 Champu, 168 Chanakya. See Kautilya, 167

Chandragupta Maurya, 90 Changadam of Malabar, 57 Chang-kien, 150 Chavundaraya, 120 Chavundarya-purana, 120 Cheng Ho, 88 Chera Kanaikkaal Irumporai, 37 Cheras Battle of Venni, 46 Chera kingdom, 36 country, 36, 39 emblem, 54 naval victories, 57 Senguttuvan, 97 Cheras, 45, 54, 68, 167 Chevalier Guruva Pillai, 156 Children, 42 China, 56, 82, 153, 167 Chittoor, 99 Cholas and story of Rama, 163; Puhar, 83 Cholas Chalukya, 140; country, 35, 50, 127, 139, 140; naval power, 59, 85, 87; sea-faring, 85; thalassocracy, 58, 85-86; Tiruppuvanam worship, 140 Cholas, 37, 38, 68, 99, 170 Chryse, 57 Chudamani Vihara, 59 Chutus, 95 Citrasena, 113 Clothing, 40 Cochin, 32 Coedes, George, 86 Coins, 82

- 209 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Colair. See Kunala (Colair), 106 Colandia, 57, 79, 83 Colchi (Kor-kai), 79 Comari, 79 Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Languages, 30, 64 Constantinople, 79 Copper Age, 70 Copperplates, 29, 54, 96, 98 Cosmas Indicopleustes, 84 Cottonara, 78 Craft guilds, 201 Cuddalore, 76

D

Daksha, 146, 147 Dakshinapathesvara, 105, 114 Dalavanur, 126, 134 Dar Report, 171 Darukavana, 146 Dasaratha Jathaka, 200 Dekkan, 90-94 Devadaruvana, 146 Devaram (Tevaram) current manuscript resources, 122; Rajaraja Chola, 121; Saivism, 121, 122, 123, 126, 129, 134; Devaram (Tevaram), 118, 120, 121 Devaraya II, 88 Dhanayakataka, 93 Dharma, 165, 186 Dharmasastra, 44 Dharmasutras, 69 Digvijaya, 105-106 Divakaram, 83 Divyaprabandham. See

Nalayira Divyaprabhandam, 137 Divyasuri Carita, 136, 137 Dosarnae, 79 Dravidian civilisation, 33; languages, 64, 191; speech, 31, 73 Dravidians, 31, 71, 73, 166 Dubreuil, Jouveau, 156 Dupleix, Madame, 155 Durvinita, 102 Dushyanta, 132

E

Early History of India, 63 Education, 182-83 Egypt, 59, 76, 77 Elam, 71 English, 182, 184, 185, 186 Enodi, 42 Epics, 145 Epigraphia Carnatica, 64 Equality, 201 Ethics and religion, 124 Ettutogai, 34 Eyinar, 40 Ezra, 76

F

Fall of the Mughal Empire, 172 Fleet, J. F., 64 Food and drink, 41 Foucher, A., 103 Franco, Joseph, 197

G

Gajabahu, 50 Gajabahu I, 97 Ganapati, worship of, 136 Gandhara Buddhist styles, 81

- 210 -

INDEX

Ganga, 150 Ganga Rajamalla IV, 120 Gangas, 95, 102 Ganges, 164 Gangetic plain, 166 Garudaeayana, 47 Gathasaptasats, 93 Gautamiputra, 93 Gautamiputra Satakarni, 92, 95 Gingee, 134 Gnanasambandar ( Jnanasambandar [Aludaiya Pillai]) at Kuranganilrnuttam, 126; Brahmapuram (Shiyali), 136; meeting with Tirumangai Alvar, 137; reference in Appar’s hymns, 137; references to abhisheka, 139; Saivism, 138; suppression of the Jainas, 137; Tirukkadaikkappu, 137; Tiruvidaivayil inscription, 122; worship method, 125 Gnanasambandar ( Jnanasambandar [Aludaiya Pillai]), 121, 126, 137,138 Gondi, 74 Gooty inscription,107 Gopinatha Rao, 148 Govinda, 101 Govinda III, 170 Graeco-Romans, 40, 80 Grantha characters, 108, 116, 164

Greek, 84, 151 Grimm, 64 Gudimallam, 148 Gudimallam lingam, 115 Gulf of Mannar, 36 Gulf of Siam, 82 Gunadara-ichehuran, 114 Gunadhya, 93 Gundert, H., 30, 64 Gupta, Hari Ram, 175 Gurjaras, 102

H

Haharashtri, 93 Haimendorf, C.V. Furer, 73 Hala, 93 Han Annals, 82 Harappa, 76 Harappan culture, 71 Harshavardhana, 103, 105, 114, 169 Heard, Gerald, 162 Heine-Geldern, R., 68 Heras, Father, 31 High Aswan Dam project, 96 Himalayan border, 150 Hindi, 177 Hinduism, 145 Hindu Renaissance, 119, 126, 139 Hindu revival, 136 Hindustan history of, 63 Hippalus, 77, 78 Hiuen Tsang, 103, 108, 126 Hiung-nu, 150 Homerites, 84 Hornell, J., 56, 75 Horses, 88 Hsia Wu-ti (Emperor), 150 Hsing-Su-hai. See Star-Lake (Hsing-Su-hai), 152

- 211 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Huan-ti, 82 Hultzsch, E., 64, 86, 98, 127, 132 Humanities, research in, 182

I

Ikshvakus, 95 Ilandiraiyan. See Thondaiman Ilandiraiyan, 48 Ilandirumaran, 30 Ilanjetchenni, 46, 52 India unity of, 185; Indian Antiquary, 64; Indian Archipelago, 75; Indo-Aryan, 31, 168; Indo-China Champa, 200; foreign trade, 197; Hindu colonization, 82, 149; Indian migration, 57; Indo-Aryan culture expansion, 164; Indo-China, 57, 69, 114 Indo-European, 192 Indonesia Hindu colonization, 82; Indo-Aryan culture expansion, 164; naval power, 59 Indonesia, 32, 56, 58, 69, 82, 114, 180 Indra III, 170 Industrial organisation, 201 Indus-Valley cultures, 31, 71, 76, 145 Innambar, 138 Inscriptions Asoka inscriptions, 33,34, 36, 19,90; Champa, 200



Dekkan, 90; epigraphy, 192; Indian Antiquary, 64; Nagarjunakonda, 96; of Cholas, 52; of Pallavas, 125, 129; of Pandyas, 53; of Paramesvaravarman, 129; of Rajasimha, 131; stone inscriptions, 96, 102, 163; Trichinopoly cave, 115; Udupi, 102; Uttaramerur, 195 Inscriptions, 121, 123, 203 Iraiyanar (God Shiva), 29 Iran, 71 Irungovel, 46 Isainunukkam, 29

J

Jadunath Sarkar and Rabindranath Tagore, 177 and Sardesai, 175, 176 critic of Bengali literature, 177 Noyce’s comments on, 175 Premchand Roychand Scholarship, 174 Jadunath Sarkar, 172-78 Jaffna, 58 Jainas, 137 Jainism, 98, 119, 164 Jain, 33 Jamaluddin, Malik-ul Islam, 88 Jambudvipa, 92, 167 Jambunadi, 151 Java, 75, 197

- 212 -

INDEX

Javanese (Kawi) Ramayana in, 200; Jih-nan (Annaur), 82 Jivakacintamani, 119 Jnanasambandar. See Gnanasambandar ( Jnanasambandar [Aludaiya Pillai]), 138 Jouveau-Dubreuil, 80

K

Kaalagam, 83 Kadalpirakkottiya. See Senguttuvan, 85; Kadamba Mayurasarman, 96 Kadamba power, 96 Kadambas, 99, 102 Kadaram, 57, 59, 86 Kadaram. See Kedah (Kadaram), 86; Kadava king, 132 Kadungon, 29 Kaikkilai, 44 Kailasanatha inscription, 132 Kailasanatha temple, 131 Kais (Kis), 88 Kakatiya Ganapati, 87 Kakatiyas, 45 Kalabharan, 98 Kalabharas, 99 Kalabhra revolution, 98, 85; Kalabhras, 98 Kalappala, 98-99 Kalariyavriai, 29 Kalavazhi Naarpadu, 37 Kalaviyal. See Ahapporul, 29 Kalavu, 44 Kalhana, 153 Kali, 30, 98 Kalikula, 98 Kalinad, 99

Kalinga, 70, 105 Kalingattupparani, 49 Kalvarnad, 99 Kalyani Chalukyas grants, 101 Kamakkuttam, 44 Kamban, 168 Kambuja (Kambhoja), 113, 200 Kanakkayanar, 29 Kanchi and Karikala, 48, 54; and Pulakesin, 100, 101; Buddhism, 140; Kadava’s stone temple, 132; Kailasanatha temple, 131; Pallavas, 113; Vishnukundin Kingdom, 106 Kanchi, 95, 149 Kankas, 151 Kannada, 36, 64 Kannada Jaina, 120 Kannagi, 49 Kapalika, 125 Kapatapuram, 30 Kapilar, 41, 163 Karaikkal Ammaiyar, 136 Karikala Chola administration, 47; battle at Venni, 52; battle of Vahaipparandalai, 53; death of, 54; explanation of the name, 47; literature on, 46; personal life, 45; ruling, 52 Karikala Chola, 45 Karpu, 44 Karur (Vanjimaanagaram), 36

- 213 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Kasakudi plates, 134 Kasturi Rangayya, 156 Katavapra (Kalabappu) hill, 99 Kautilya, 167 Kaveri, 35, 39, 48, 49, 139 Kaveripattinam. See Puhar, 83 Kavi, 163 Kavirippumpattinam, 53 Kayal, 88 Kaysina-Valudi, 29 Kedah (Kadaram), 59 Kerala, 35, 56 Khasas, 151 Khondi, 74 Khukhu-nor, 152 Khusru, 103 Khusru II, 103 Ki-Chu, 152 Kilkkanakku, 39 Killivalavan, 48 Kim river, 102 Kiratas, 152, 166 Kittel, F., 30, 64 Kochchenganan, 123 Kolaantara pota, 84 Kolami, 74 Kolandiphonto, 84 Kolar, 99 Koleh panjail, 83 Kongu Velvi, 93 Konkan, 102 Kootu, 30 Kopperunjolan, 41 Korkai, 35 Kor-kai. See Colchi (Kor-kai), 79 Korura, 36 Kosi river, 152 Kovalan, 49

Krishna, 43 Krishna Deva Raya, 165 Krishna III, 170 Krishna Sastri, 98 Krishna valley, 96 Kubera, 29 Kubja Vishnuvardhana, 105 Kublai Khan, 87 Kudumiyamalai, 116, 129 Kulaccirai, 137 Kulindas, 151 Kulottunga II, 119 Kulottungan Pillaittamil, 49 Kunala (Colair), 106 Kuranganilrnuttam, 126 Kurruva Nayanar, 99 Kuruku, 29 Kurundogai, 55 Kurundogai-nanuru, 30 Kushanas, 147, 148

L

Laccadives, 59 Laksharchana, 125 Lalitankurapallavesvara griham, 127 Languages of India, The, 179 Lanka, 69 Larger Leyden grant, 87 Latas, 102 Later Mughals, 172 Lemuria, 68 Levi, Sylvain, 75, 200 Limyrika, 151-52 Linga, 124, 127 Lingapuranam, 123; lingapurana 124, 138, 147 Linga worship, 115,145, 146,148 Lingayats, 147 Linguistic regional

- 214 -

INDEX

organisation, 171 Linschoten,Van, 165 Literary chronology, 69 Local affairs management, by people, 194

M

Maabar, 88 Madagascar, 75 Mada-kovil (madakkoyil), 126, 137 Madhavi, 49 Madura Pandyas, 113 Madurai, 29, 35 Maduraikkaanji, 38; Maduraik-Kanakkayanar, 29; Maduraiyasiriyan, 30; Madura Sangam, 29; Magadha country, 54; Maganar, 30 Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram) monolithic rathas at, 132 Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), 113, 133, 134, 136 Mahabharata, 146, 147, 163, 164 Ma-ha-la-ch-’a (Maharashtra), 103 Mahanadi, 166 Mahapurana, 120 Maharashtra, 105, 108 Maharashtri, 168 Mahavamsa, 85 Mahayana Buddhism, 120 Mahendra Pallavachari, 107 Mahendrapalli, 136 Mahendravadi, 126 Mahendravarman

Mattavilasa of, 122, 125; rock-cut temple, 126; Saivism, 121, 126; temple at Mandagapattu, 126; Trichinopoly inscription, 148; worship of Mahesvara, 149 Mahendravarman, 106, 113, 121,138,140 MahendraVarman, 126 Mahendravarman I, 106, 129 Mahendravarman II, 131-32 Mahendravarman III, 131 Mahi, 102 Mahimana Chola, 49 Mahi river, 89 Malabar Rock-cut tomb, 73; Malabar, 57 Malabar Coast, 83, 151 Malacca, 77 Malaprabha, 96 Malavas, 102 Malaya, 47 Malayalam, 36, 168 Malay, 85 Malaysia, 57 Maldives, 59, 86 Male, 84 Malepadu plates, 49, 54 Malleret, M. L., 81 Mamallapuram. See Mahabalipuram, 113 Mamandur, 126 Mamandur inscription, 116 Manas, 150 Manavamma, 107 Mandagappattu inscription, 115, 125 Mangaiyarkkarasi, 137 Mangalesa, 100-01

- 215 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Manigramam, 85, 202 Manikkavasagar, 120, 140 Manimangala, 107 Manimekalai, 73, 97 Manram, 42 Manu, 69 Mapappalam, 86 Mapuranam, 29 Marathi Riyasat, 176 Marava, 41 Mara Vijayottunga Varman, 59 Maraya, 42 Marcus Aurelius, 82 Marinu, 77 Maritime power, 76 Maritime trade. See sea trade, 85 Marriage custom, 44 Marudan llanaganar, 30 Marudi, 55 Maski, 74 Matangesvaram, 133 Mathura museum, 147 Mattavilasa, 116, 122, 125 Mauryan Empire, 34, 70, 74, 76, 91 Mauryas, 167, 169 Megalithic, 73,74 Megalithic tombs, 73 Megasthenes, 34 Mekong river, 80, 81, 82 Microliths, 72 Mid-India, 197 Ming emperor, 88 Mohenjo Daro, 32, 76 Monuments, 193 Mother tongue teaching in, 184; Mother tongue, 182 Motupalli, 87

Mount Kailasa, 150 Mudanarai, 29 Mudattirumaran, 30 Mudinagarayar of Murinijiyur, 29 Mudukurugus, 29 Mughals, 167, 172 Mukari, 49 Mukha-lingas, 148 Mukham, 58Mukherji, Sir Asutosh, 176 Mukkichchuram, 136 Mukkol. See Tri-dandi (mukkol), 43 Muktesvaram, 133 Muruga, 29, 43 Musical inscription, 116,129 Music and dancing, 42 Musiri, 36,78 Muziris, 36, 151

N

Nabonidus, 76 Nachchinarkkiniyar (Naccinarkkiniyar), 48, 55 Naganika, 91 Nagarayan, 136 Nagarjuna, 93 Nagarjunakonda, 96 Nagarjunasagar, 96 Nakkirar, 29, 68 Nalavai, 41 Nalayira Divyaprabhandam, 134 Nallanduvanar, 30 Nambi Andar Nambi, 119, 122, 123 Nanaghat, 91 Nandan, 136, 140 Nanded, 90 Nandikkalambakam, 85

- 216 -

INDEX

Nandi (Nambi Nandi), 137 Nandivarman II, 134 Nandivarman III, 85 Naradapancharatra, 146 Narasimhan,V. K., 179 Narasimhavarman, 107, 113 Narasimhavarman I, 131, 133 Narasimhavarman Mahamalla, 107 Narmada, 71, 103, 166, 170 Narrinai-nanuru, 30 Nasik, 108 National Honour Bill, 161 Naura, 78 Naval power, 57, 59 Navasarika (Nausari), 102 Nayanars, 118, 120, 122, 132, 134, 137 Nedundogai-nanuru, 30 Nedunjeral Adan, 85 Neo-Brahmins, 163 Neolithic, 72-73 New History of the Marathas, 176 Nicobars, 59 Nishadas, 166 Noyce, Sir Frank, 175 Nunniz, P., 88

O

Occupation, 202 Official language, 171 Oliyar, 46 Oxford History of India, 63, 64

P

Paari, 36 Padigam, 40, 97 Padinenkilkanakku, 97 Padirrunpattu, 40

Padirruppattu, 30, 97 Pahlavas, 148 Pahruli, 68 Paisachi language, 93 Paithan (Pratishthana), 90 Palamoli, 46 Palembang (SriVijaya), 59, 87 Pali, 49 Pallava Grantha characters, 108, 116, 164 Pallava Nandivarman III, 58 Pallavanichchuram, 136 Pallavaram cave inscriptions, 128; Pallavaram, 126; Pallavas conflict with Pulakesin, 106; Hindu renaissance, 119, 126; Kanchi, 107; maritime tradition, 57; relations with China, 58; religious worship, 123, 124, 125; Saivism, 122, 123, 126, 129; sea-faring, 57; temples, 131; Vishnukundin Kingdom, 106 Pallavas, 102, 107, 113 Palyaga Mudukadami Peruvaludi, 98 Panamalai inscription, 134 Panar, 40 Panchatantra, 152 Pandyas and Jainism; Jain, 137; battle at Venni, 52; Cape Comorin, 68;

- 217 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

country, 78; emblem, 54; Madura, 113; maritime tradition, 57; Megasthenes’ report, 34; Pandyan kingdom, 87; Sangam. See Sangam, 29; translation of Mahabharata, 163 Pandyas, 36, 45, 68, 97, 167 Panini, 30, 70 Paradas, 151 Paramesvaravarman I, 129, 131, 132 Paranjoti, 139 Parantaka I, 86 Paratanganas, 151 Pari, 39, 41 Parimel Alagar, 45, 68 Paripadal, 29 Pariyala, 107 Parthians. See An-hsi (Parthians), 82 Pasupata, 125 Pataliputra, 152 Patna, 152, 174 Pattinappalai, 47, 77 Pattuppaattu (Ten Idylls), 34, 46 Pegu, 86 Peninsular India, 63, 71 Peninsular south, 166 Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, The, 32, 56, 78, 79, 81, 83, 151 Perisai, 30 Periyapuranam, 14, 114 Periya Puranam, 118, 120, 136, 137 Periyar river, 36 Periya Tirumoli, 137

Perlva Puranam, 136 Persia, 81, 84, 167 Persian language, 167 Perumal Tirumoli, 137 Perumbair, 193 Perumbanarruppadai, 48 Perundevanar, 163 Perundinai, 44 Perundirukkoyil, 137 Perungadai, 93 Perungunrurkizhar, 30 Perunjeral Adan, 52 Peruvalattan, 47 Peruvaludi, 163 Phallicism. See Linga worship, 146-7 Pidarttalai, 46 Pilivalai, 48 Pishtapuram (Pithapuram), 105 Pisir Andai, 41 Pliny, 79, 97, 151 Podiya mountain, 163 Poduca (Pondichery), 79 Poduke, 81 Polo, Marco, 88, 164 Polyglot Indian National Bibliography, 179 Pondichery, 79-81 PongTuk, 82 Por-kad. See Bacare (Por- kad), 78 Ports, 88 Post-Alexandrian Hellenistic kingdoms, 167 Pottery, 72, 73 Prakrit copperplate grants, 96 Prakrit, 90, 148 Pramod Chandra, 148 Pratishthana. See (Paithan), 90 Pre-Aryan civilisation, 70

- 218 -

INDEX

Pre-Aryan elements, 65 Prehara river, 96 Pre-history, 67, 166 Proto Dravidians, 71, 74 Ptolemy, Claudius Cattigara, 77; on Chera capital, 36; on Vilivayakura capital, 92 Ptolemy, Claudius, 32, 81, 97, 152, 167 Puducheri. See Pondichery, 79, 80 Puhar (Kaveripattinam) sea trade, 47, 77; worship by fishermen, 40 Puhar (Kaveripattinam), 47, 57, 77, 83 Pulaiyar, 40 Pulakesin conflict with Pallavas, 106-8 Pulakesin, 100, 102, 103 Pulakesin I, 100, 107 Pulakesin II, 100, 114 Puram collections, 46 Puranaanuru, 37, 38; Purananuru 163 Puranas interpretations, 69 Puranas, 70, 90, 145, 162, 168; Puranic Hinduism, 120 Puri, 102 Pusalar, 132-3

Q

Quilon, 88, 89

R

Raghavan, V., 156 Raichur, 72 Raigir (Hyderabad), 73

Rajaraja Chola Anaimangalam, 87 Saivism, 118,121 sea trade, 59 Rajaraja Chola, 58, 86, 87, 118, Rajasimha II, 137 Rajasimha (Narasimhavarman II), 130-33 Rajatarangini, 153 Rajavali, 49 Rajavihara, 125 Rajendra I, 59, 86, 170 Rajendralala Mitra, 84 Ramalingam Pillai, 161, 165 Ramayana across countries, 199, 200; Ramayana, 69, 164, 168, 199; Ramnad, 35 Ranavikrama, 107 Ranganathan, S. R., 179, 180 Rashtrakuta, 86, Ravikirti, 100, 101, 103, 105 Real Encyclopaedia of Indo- Germanic Archaeology, 68 Reddi chieftain Anapota, 87 Regional language, 171 Religious worship, 40 Revakhanda, 146 Rig Veda, 166 Risley, H., 33 Roberts, P. E., 177 Rock-cut temple, 115 Rock paintings and engravings, 72 Roman coins, 79, 80, 97 Roman script, 179, 180 Roman trade, 82 Rottler, P., 64 Rudraksha

- 219 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

(Ruttirangannanar), 127 Russia, 180

S

Saaliyur, 35 Sahyadri range, 35 Sailendras, 59, 87 Saivism Chola, 118, 121; Kailasanatha, 131; Pallava, 122, 126, 129, 134; Pre-Aryan civilisation, 70; Pre-Aryan elements, 65; Saiva Kapalika, 125; Saiva Pasupata, 125; Saiva Siddhanta, 121; Siva, 29, 37, 123; sixty-three saints, 118; syncretism of, 147; Tevaram, 128 Saivism, 118, 120, 123, 129, 138,147 Sakas, 78, 92,148,151 Saktas, 145 Sakti, 148 Salankayanas, 95 Salem, 36 Saliyur, 78 Samayakuravar, 121 Sambandar. See Gnanasambandar, 121 Samudragupta, 95, 98, 169 Sanchi, 148 Sanchi sculptures, 115 Sangam Age monarchy in, 41 society in, 40 Sangam Age, 51, 77 Sangams and Sanskrit, 167 on Karikala’s administra

tion efficiency, 47 references to Yavana traders, 85 Sangams First Sangam, 29; idea of, 32; Last Sangam, 29; Madura Sangam, 29; Middle Sangam, 29 Sangams, 29, 30, 31, 32, 68 Sangara, 57, 79 Sangrama Vijayottunga Var man, 87 Sankara, 121, 128, 130 Sanskrit, 122, 127, 134, 156, 161, 163 Santanakuravan, 121 Saptamatrika, 137 Sardesai, G. S., 175, 176 Sarkar. See Jadunath Sarkar, 172 Satakarni, 92 Satakarni I, 91 Satavahana-Kula, 91 Satavahanas and Sakas; Sakas, 92; city life, 93; Dekkan, 92; naval power, 57, 59, 92; seafaring, 76 Satavahanas, 76, 90, 91, 92, 169 Sati, 43 Satiya, 36 Satiyaputa, 36 Satrumallesvara, 126 Satyasandha, 127 Satyasraya, 101 Sayee, A. H., 76 Schoff, W. H., 77 Schrader, Otto, 68 Sea trade boats, 79;

- 220 -

INDEX

exports and imports, 87, 77; Puhar, 77, 83 Sea trade, 56, 76, 202 Secunderabad, 73 Sekkilar hagiography, 114; Perlva Puranam, 114; puranam, 118; record on Appar’s persecution, 114; story of Pusalar, 132; works, 119, 120, 132 Sekkilar, 114, 115, 118 Sembiyan. See Cholas, 38 Senamukham, 55 Sendampudanar, 30 Senguttuvan, 85, 97 Seric, 151 Sesha Aiyar, K. G., 36 Shin-tu, 150 Shipbuilding, 57 Shipping, 56, 202 Ships, 57 Shiyali. See Brahmapuram (Shiyali), 136 Siam Ramayana in, 200 Siam, 82 Sibi, 38 Sikh, 172 Siladitya (Harsha), 103 Silappadikaram and Karikala, 48, 51 Silappadikaram, 55, 68, 83, 97 Simhavishnu, 106, 113, 114 Simuka, 90 Sindhu, 76, 150 Singapore, 84 Single political unit, 169

Sinnananur copperplates, 29 Sirrisai, 30 Sirumedaviyar, 30 Siruttondar, 139 Siva, 29 Sivakachintamani. See Jivakacintamani, 119 Siva temples, 123 Siyamangalam, 126 Skandapurana, 146 Smith,V. A., 50, 63, 64 Smritis, 69 Social structure, 168, 201 Somaskanda, 131, 132 Sopatma (Markanam), 79 Sources of history, 194 South Africa, 56 South Arcot, 73 South India civilisation, 113; South India, 30-35 South Indian Inscriptions, 64 Sravana Belagola, 90, 98, 99, 120 Srinivasa Kavi, 156 Srinivasan, K. R., 128-9 Srisailam, 96 SriVijaya. See Palemban, 59 Star-Lake (Hsing-Su-hai), 152 State systems, 169 Stone Age, 71 Stupi, 133 Subrahmanya (Muruga), 43 Suhrillekha, 93 Sumatra, 197 Sumatran empire, 87 Sumer, 71 Sumerian, 192 Sundaram Pillai, 65, 114, 119 Sundaramurti, 118-21, 138-39 - 221 -

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Sundarar (Aludaiya Nambi), 138, 140 Sungs, 87 Suramara, 107 Sutlej, 150 Swaminatha Aiyar, V., 55

T

Taanu, 137 Tabari, Muhammad ibn Jarir, 103 Tagadur, 36 Taittiriya Aranyaka, 38 Takua-pa inscriptions, 58, 85 Talagunda pillar inscription, 96 Tamil and Sanskrit, 29; lexicon, 64, 193; literature, 31-3, 82, 163, 192; origin of, 30 Tamil, 29, 30, 32, 82, 164, 168 Tamil Buddhists, 163 Tamil maritime power, 58 Tamraparni, 35 Tanga-nas, 151 Tanjore inscriptions, 121 Tantric times, 145 Tao, 186 Tapti, 166 Tarim basins, 150 Ta-ts’in, 82 Teachers, 183, 184 Tejas, 146 Telugu, 36, 45, 49, 55, 82 Telugu Cholas copper plates, 54; Telugu Cholas, 45, 49 Tennaserim, 59 Terracotta, 81

Tevaram. See Devaram, 122 Thailand, 180 Tibetan Ramayana in, 200; Tibet, 150-52 Tien-Chu (India), 82 Tillai Muvayiravar, 99 Tillai-tiruchchitrakutam, 138 Tiraiyan, 48 Tiruchi, 127 Tirumandiram, 121 Tirumangai Alvar, 55, 137, 138, 140 Tirumavalavan, 47 Tirumayyam, 129 Tirumullaivayil, 136 Tirunavakkarasu. See Appar (Tirunavakkarasu), 114 Tirunelveli, 35 Tirupati. See Vengadam (Tirupati), 36 Tiruppuvanam, 136, 140 Tiruttondar Puranam, 118, 120 Tiruttondattogai, 118, 121, 138, 139 Tiruvadigai temple, 114 Tiruvarur, 139 Tiruvasagam, 120-1 Tiruvengadam Pillai, 154 Tiruvidaivayil inscription, 124 Tolkappiyam, 29, 39, 44, Tolkaappiyam, 34 Tolkappiyar, 163 Tondaimandalam, 36, 48, 54, 139 Tondaiman Ilandiraiyan, 48, 54 Tondaiman kings, 36 Tondainad, 138-9

- 222 -

INDEX

Tondamana, 49 Tondi, 36, 78, 83 Trade, 41, 43, 53, 152 Trade guilds, 202 Traikutakas, 95 Trichi inscription, 115 Trichinopoly cave inscription musical inscription, 116; religious worship, 116; rock-cut shrine, 127; Saivism, 115, 134; Sanskrit verse in, 127 Trichinopoly cave inscription, 115 Tri-dandi (mukkol), 43 Trilocana, 49 Trimurti cave temple, 132 Trinetra, 49, 54 Trishasti-lakshana Mahapurana, 120 Tsinitza, 84 Tukharas, 151 Tulasi Das, 168 Tungabhadra, 86, 90, 102 Tunganaimaadam, 137 Tunhuang, 150 Two-nation theory, 166 Tyndis, 78 Tyndis. See also Tondi, 36

U

Udupi, 102 Ugarapperu Valudi, 30 Umapatisivacharya, 118 University education, 183 University of Madras, 64 Upanishads, 145 Uraiyur, 35, 45, 47, 51, 52 Uraiyur. See Argaru (Uraiyur), 79 Uruthirangannanar

(Rudraksha), 47, 163 Usanas, 163 Uttarakurus, 151 Uttaramadurai, 30 Uttaramerur, 195

V

Vaalakhilya sages, 38 Vadugu, 36 Vaidurya, 57 Vaigai, 35 Vaishnavism, 118, 125 Vajra, 54 Vajra country, 48 Vakatakas, 95, 169 Valanjiyar, 202 Valmiki, 200 Vamachara, 145 Vanavasi, 101-2 Vanigapparisilan, 41 Vanji, 36, 193 Vanjimaanagaram. See Karur (Vanjimaanagaram), 36 Varada river, 101 Varaha cave temple, 113 Vari, 30 Varkalai. See Babita (Varkalai), 79 Varnas, 161 Vatapi, 108, 136, 139 Vayalur inscription, 134 Vedas, 133 Vedic culture, 31 Velan-adal, 43 Velir group, 36 Vellaar, 35 Velliambala Vana Tambiran, 122 Velli Padaikal, 122 Velvikudi grant, 98 Vendali, 29

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K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI: Writings in the hindu

Venderccezhiyan, 29 Vengadam (Tirupati), 36 Vengidesa, 106 Vengi Kingdom, 106 Venkayya, V., 114, 119 Vichitra-chitta, 115 Vietnam, 180 Vijayalaya, 45, 58 Vijayanagar empire, 35, 88 Vikramaditya I, 102 Vimana, 134 Vindhyas, 69, 70, 90, 167 Vipakshavritteh paravrttam, 149 Viralis, 40 Virampatnam, 80 Virarajendra, 59 Vishnu, 38, 43 Vishnukundin Kingdom, 106 Vishnukundins, 95, 106 Vishnuvardhana, 105-7 Viyazhamalaiyahaval, 29

W

Warfare, 42 Wassaf, 88-9 Wheeler, R. E. M., 74, 80, 81 Winslow, M., 64 Women, 40-3 Worship, 136-38

Y

Yama, 38 Yamuna, 150 Yavanas, 40, 57, 78 Yen-hsi, 82 Yoni, 145, 146 Yuan Chwang, 197 Yupa, 38 Yuvaraja, 101 - 224 -

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K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN THE HINDU

A collection of articles that Professor K.A. Nilakanta Sastri contributed to The Hindu between 1930 and 1961, curated and thematically arranged. These deal with a range of issues in South Indian history and provide insights into the thoughts, views and research methods of this foremost scholar in the field

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HISTORY SERIES

K.A. NILAKANTA SASTRI WRITINGS IN THE HINDU