CHAPTER 2 ANCIENT TAMILAKAM : INDIA, HINDUTVA AND HISTORY
CHAPTER 2: ANCIENT TAMILAKAM
Megalith at Mottur, Chengam, Tamil Nadu. Photo Credit: Joanna Sudyka, University of Groningen, NetherlandsIn the Beginning
South India had pre-historic inhabitants going back
tens of thousands of years. They had a tribal lifestyle and worshipped
megaliths, trees and hills. The age of settlements, written records and kings,
which is the age that this paper deals with, had arrived in Tamil country by
the 3rd century BC, and may even go back to the 6th century
BC (12).
Some historians believe that the famous ancient royal
dynasties of South India - the Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras - began as tribes of
these names that occupied, respectively, the Kaveri River valley, the coastal
areas, and the hills of that region (13).
Katyayana, a grammarian of the 4th century
BC mentions Chola, Pandya and Kerala (whose other names were “Chera” and
“Keralaputra”) as countries of the extreme South (14). Ashoka’s inscriptions of
the 3rd century BC mention a number of South Indian kings, including
the Cholas, Pandyas, Bhojas (said to have ruled over Karnataka) and Andhras (thought
to have ruled in the region of that name) (15). A Pallava inscription mentions
an “Ashokavarman” as among the earliest rulers of Kanchipuram.
An inscription in Odisha (the “Hathigumpa”
inscription) dated to the first half of the 2nd century BC mentions
a 113-year-old league of Tamil states (16). The existence of Cheras, Cholas and
Pandyas in Tamil country from about the 3rd century BC is also
corroborated by coinage bearing their names and emblems, and accounts of
travelling chroniclers and merchants (17).
Chera territory comprised of modern-day Kerala, and
extended eastwards into parts of today’s Tamil Nadu. It was bounded on the
north by the River Kaveri, near which lay the Chera capital of Karur, also known
as “Kuravur” or “Vanji”. The primary Chera ports were on the western Malabar
coast at Muchiri and Tondi (18). Chera lands lay along the western borders of
Pandya lands, and the southern borders of Chola lands.
The Pandyas ruled in the south-east of Tamil country. Their domains stretched up to the sea, running along the Bay of Bengal on the east, and the Indian Ocean on the south. Their capital was the city of Madurai.
The Cholas ruled over the rest of Tamil country, with
their capital in Uraiyur, in today’s Trichy (also, “Tiruchirappalli” or
“Trichinopoly’). The settlement of Uraiyur may go back to the 3rd
century BC (19). The River Kaveri flowed through Chola lands.
This is the broad picture. Boundaries moved frequently,
as the Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras battled each other throughout their
existence. The three capitals were in a triangle, with the Chera’s on the west,
the Chola’s on the east and the Pandya’s to the south.
As the reader can see from the map, the three kingdoms
were packed next to each other. They shared borders on most sides, and their
capitals were relatively close, about 1 or 2 hours’ drive apart in today’s
terms.
The Sangam Age
Historians rely heavily on Sangam poetry to piece
together the early story of Tamil country. Sangam poetry is so-named as it is
supposed to have come out of three legendary literary gatherings
- the “sangams” – held far back in time by the Pandyas in their historic
capital of Madurai.
There is a magnificent body of Tamil poetry, both
written and oral, that tradition attributes to the legendary sangams of Madurai
(20). Historians generally date the Sangam poems to between the 3rd
century BC and the 3rd century AD (20A).
The Sangam poems are set in ancient “Tamilakam” which
stretches from the area around the Tirupati Hills in today’s Andhra Pradesh to
Kanyakumari, the farthest end of the Southern Peninsula. The poems speak of the
Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas as the “three crowned kings” of the land. They also refer
to warrior chieftains who dined and hunted with their Chola and Pandya overlords.
These chieftains fought by the side of the Cholas and Pandyas in battle, and
gave their women in marriage to them.
An interesting window into life in the Sangam Age is
the reference to a form of village panchayat called “manram” (21). This is
possibly one of the earliest literary references in India to panchayats, an
ancient form of village self-governance, that is practiced till today.
War and Plunder
The Sangam poems are filled with tales of battles,
raids, and the sacking of conquered lands. The ancient South Indian rajas were always
trying to extend into each other’s lands, and raiding each other for cattle and
other booty.
Contrary to Hindutva-notions of a past where Indians
were one people from Kanyakumari to the Himalayas, they were not even united in
the narrowest strip of the Southern Peninsula. Society of the time was not
constituted in a manner to which such notions of unity or religion-based
allegiance applied. Allegiances were
tribal- and clan-based; and grouping under this or that king was a matter of
circumstance and strategy, and not one of identity or nationhood in the modern
sense.
The Sangam poems have the notion of the “digvijaya” -
this was a conquering expedition that took a clockwise course across the whole
of India. Some rajas are praised as having conquered all the land till the
Himalayas. They are called “Imayavarambam”, meaning “one whose lands reach the
Himalayas”.
The historian PTS Iyengar quotes the “Silappadikaram”,
a famous Tamil work from the end of the Sangam Age, as referring to the Pandyas
as having conquered “the Gangai and the Himalayam in the North” (22). The Cheras
are said to have engraved their emblem on the Himalayas (23).
These references in ancient Tamil literature and lore to
the Himalayas demonstrate that there was a general understanding that the
entire land forming the sub-continent was there for the taking. Conquest was
the badge, even the duty, of kingship.
The tut-tutting at war and conquest of the proponents
of Hindutva today would have been incomprehensible to the kings and peoples of
ancient India. In the age of kings, war and raids were how treasuries were filled
and rivals kept at bay.
War was a necessary tool of statecraft, but not the
only one. While the Sangam poems describe many battles between the Cheras,
Cholas and Pandyas, they also refer to matrimonial alliances among them. As we
will see in the chapters to come, the proposal of a matrimonial alliance by one
royal house to another was tantamount to an offer of a choice between alliance and
battle.
Brahmins
The Sangam poems mention Brahmins, but with a very
different culture to that of the Tamil Brahmins today. The poems refer, without
reproach, to Brahmins as consuming meat and toddy (alcohol). This would
indicate that the rise of strict vegetarianism among Brahmins was a later
phenomenon.
Some scholars believe that Tamil Brahmins adopted
vegetarianism under the influence of Jainism which, as we will see in later
chapters, was the dominant religion in ancient Tamil country for several
centuries (24).
The whole atmosphere of the Sangam Age is completely
different to that of the puritanical, rigid and rather dull ideal of Hindu life
as drawn by the “veg-and-no-drinks” votaries of Hindutva today. Take this description
of life as sketched in the Sangam poems:
“One poet declares to his patron: ‘I came to see you
that we might eat succulent chops of meat, cooled after boiling and soft like
the carded cotton of the spinning-women, and drink large pots of toddy
together.’ Another speaks of wine poured into golden goblets by smiling women
decked with jewels…The flesh of animals cooked whole, such as pork from a pig
which had been kept away from its female mate for many days and fattened for
the occasion….
The flesh of tortoises and particular kinds of fish
are mentioned as delicacies…. Among the drinks particular mention is made of
foreign liquor in green bottles, of ‘munnir’ (‘triple water’) – a mixture of
milk from unripe coconut, palm fruit juice and the juice of sugar-cane, and of
toddy well-matured by being buried underground for a long time in bamboo
barrels (25).” Coconut milk, palm juice and sugar cane juice are used to brew
toddies in the Indian countryside till today.
Yavanas
The Sangam poems refer to the presence of “Yavanas”, a
term used for foreigners of all sorts - Greeks, Romans and Arabs. Ancient
Tamilakam had sea trade with them all. The poems describe them as people who
could not speak Tamil. Typically, they lived at quarters made for them at the sea-ports.
Yavanas were recruited as royal guards by the Pandyas in Madurai (26).
Nilakanta Sastri says that “trade between South India
and Egypt was carried on in the Hellenistic period and continued more actively
under the Roman Empire (27)”. Large numbers of Roman coins have been found all
over the Deccan from the River Godavri to Kanyakumari (28). Ruins of an ancient
settlement have been found in Arikkamedu in Pondicherry (in Tamil country) with
Romanesque structures that may have been quarters for Greek and Roman seamen
and merchants (29).
Trade and communication between China and South India by sea began in the 2nd century BC. The South East Asian kingdoms of the 3rd to 5th centuries AD had contact with South India via the sea trade that was carried on along their ports all the way to China (30).
The Pallava court in the 8th century AD,
and the Chola court in the 11th century AD were in touch with the
Chinese Empire through diplomatic embassies and trade. In the 13th
century AD, Kublai Khan (the grandson of the famous Mongol warrior-chief Chengiz
Khan) who had conquered China to found the Yuan Empire, had established
correspondence with the South Indian rajas (31).
The Chalukyas sent an embassy to the Persian court of Khusrau
I in 625-6 AD (32). The Rashtrakutas and Lata Chalukyas of Gujarat appointed Arabs
and Tajiks to administer their ports and coastal areas (33, 60). All the
South Indian rajas vied with each other to make trade agreements first with the
Arabs, and later with the Portuguese, in order to gain access to their prized
horses that were so important in their endless battles with each other.
Religion
Sangam literature has references to Jainism and
Buddhism, as well as Hinduism. The oldest religious structures in Tamil country
after the age of pre-historic megaliths, are Buddhist and Jain cave sites going back to the 3rd
century BC.
Many of the early South Indian rajas were Buddhist and
Jain. According to legend, Jainism came to South India with the ancient Mauryan
king, Chandragupta, who is said to have settled in the Karnataka area with his
Jain preceptor. Ashoka is famous for his patronage of Buddhism, which would
have come with him to South India, if it had not reached here earlier.
We will study about Jainism and Buddhism in South India
in greater detail in later chapters. Suffice it to say for the moment that we
are looking at a cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic and multi-religious society in
ancient Tamilakam that is worlds apart from the closeted, purely “Hindu” world
that Hindutva-thinking would have you believe existed there in history.
Greek and Gandhara Art in Ancient South
India
This cosmopolitanism left a striking impression on the
arts and culture of South India. One legacy was the emergence of the Amaravati
School of Art under the Satvahanas. They were a dynasty that rose in
Maharashtra in the mid-2nd century BC, and spread southwards all the
way into Andhra country.
The Satvahanas made their southern capital at
Amaravati in Andhra country from where this school of art gets its name. Other
names of the Satvahana capital were Dhanyakataka, Dharanikota and Dhenukakata.
Amaravati art bears a striking resemblance to Gandhara
art. The depiction of the Buddha with curls gathered into a topknot, and the folds
of his robes carved in successive flowing lines is a famous example of the
Gandhara School, whose influence is clearly visible in the Amaravati one. The
stylistic influence of Gandhara art can also be seen in North India, in the
Mathura School of Art.
contd. after photos below
The story of how an art form associated with far-off Gandhara found its way to Andhra is a good lesson in the connectedness of South India to the history and culture of places beyond today’s India going very far back in time.
The Gandhara School emerged around the kingdom of that
name in northern Pakistan and northern Afghanistan under the influence of the Achaemenid
(Persian), Macedonian (Hellenic or Greco-Roman), Seleucid (also Greco-Roman) and
Mauryan Empires that successively ruled there from the 6th century
BC. All these Empires either included, or had significant trade and
communication with Gandhara.
In the 4th century BC, the famous Greek
Emperor, Alexander of Macedonia, took Gandhara and Bactria (modern day Balkh in
northern Afghanistan) from the Persians who had ruled there since the 6th
century BC.
Emperor Alexander also conquered Punjab to the east of
the River Indus. As a consequence, Greeks and Romans settled in Bactria and
Gandhara, bringing their art and culture to South Asia, including the Indian
sub-continent.
Greeks and Romans continued to come to these regions
under the Seleucid Empire, another Greek Empire that rose after the death of
Alexander, and which included his Eastern possessions. Seleucus was a commander
of Alexander’s who rose to power after his death.
Empire
of Alexander the Great. Thomas Lessman via Wikimedia Commons.
Chandragupta Maurya, who founded the Mauryan Empire, is said to have met Alexander. He had close contact with the Seleucids, marrying a Greek princess to seal a treaty with them. Megasthenes is said to have been a Seleucid ambassador who was sent to the court of Chandragupta.
Ashoka’s Empire extended to Gandhara. The Mauryans
brought Buddhism to Gandhara and Bactria, if it had not come here with
wandering ascetics already. These religions spread from here to the whole
region around Afghanistan and Central Asia.
Buddhism also went from the Tibetans to China and back
towards Persia through the Huns. This is the context for the Buddhist statues
and icons that have been found in Persia and Afghanistan in the distinctive
Gandhara style.
Bactria lay south of the River Oxus or Amu Darya, and
north-west of the Hindu Kush. The Hindu Kush is a mountain range that runs from
Central Asia through eastern Afghanistan, into northwest Pakistan and the south
of Tajikistan.
Map showing Bactria,
Hindu Kush and Amu Darya, Wikimedia Commons
The Greeks or “Bactrians” who came with Alexander stayed
on in Bactria as tributaries of the Seleucid Empire. They eventually declared
independence in the mid-3rd century BC.
The Bactrians crossed over the Hindu Kush into northern Pakistan and India by the mid-2nd century BC. From time to time the borders of this kingdom extended north of the Amu Darya upto the Syr Darya and even reached Sindh, Multan, Lahore, and parts of Kashmir. They reached Gandhara and Taxila in northern Punjab, bringing with them the style of art known as the Gandhara School of Art.
Other entrants from across the Hindu Kush into India were the Scythians or Shakas, the Kushans and the Parthians (or “Pahlavas”). These peoples were originally nomadic tribes of the Eurasian Steppes who originated in Mongolia and northern China.
From the 3rd century BC onwards, they began
to move west and southwards into Central, West and finally South Asia, founding
empires or settling in Persia, Bactria, Gandhara, Transoxiana, Multan and Sindh
(34).
Transoxiana, also known as “Sogdania” and “Sogdiana”,
lay between the Amu and Syr rivers in the region that includes today’s
Uzbekistan, with its famous silk-route centres of Bukhara and Samarqand. We
will read more about this region and its influence on India in later chapters.
The Shakas, Kushans and Parthians came into conflict with each other and successively occupied Gandhara and Bactria, absorbing Buddhism and the Gandhara School of Art. Eventually, like the Bactrians, these peoples came over the Hindu Kush into today’s India.
By the end of the 1st century BC, as the
Mauryan Empire waned, the Shakas spread from Gandhara into Punjab, Rajasthan
and Gujarat, and extended eastwards up to Mathura.
By this time, another Buddhist power, the Satvahanas, had
established itself from Maharashtra through Central India to Andhra. The
Satvahanas first rose in Maharashtra around 230 BC. It is believed that they
may have been feudatories of the Mauryas in Andhra at the time of Ashoka.
The Shakas in Gandhara were replaced by the Persia-based Parthians or Pahlavas from Pars in the 1st century AD (34). The Parthians were able to expand into north-west India. There is a belief that the Pallavas of Tamil country were related to the Parthians, or that they atleast had some North Indian origin (35).
The Parthians were in turn ousted in Gandhara-Bactria by
the Kushans, whose rule extended at its height from Afghanistan upto Kashmir in
the north, to Mathura and Patliputra (Bihar) in the east, and to Malwa in Central
India to the south (34).
Gandhara Art continued to spread its influence in
India with the Shakas, Parthians and Kushans, leading to the emergence of the
Mathura School of Art (36).
The Shakas defeated the Satvahanas, appointing feudatories
known as Kshatrapas and Mahakshatrapas in the regions of Maharashtra and Ujjain
(Central India). Around the turn of the first millennium, the Satvahahas fought
back to defeat the Shakas, Bactrians or Yavanas, who had also settled here, as
well as the Kshatrapas and Mahakshatrapas.
In the convention of the time, of the victorious dynasty
marrying into the family of defeated one, the Satvahanas married into Shaka,
Kshatrapa and Mahakshatrapa families. These marriages and other interactions brought
the Gandhara style of art with the Satvahanas into Andhra country, where
Buddhism had already acquired a stronghold under the Mauryans.
The Satvahanas and their successors, the Andhra
Ishkavakus, commissioned Buddhist rock carvings, temples and monasteries in
their capitals of Amaravati and Nagarjunkonda, respectively, which bear the
clear stamp of Gandhara Art. As stated above, the style thus evolved was named
the Amaravati School of Art (41, 42). The Satvahanas also built Gandhara-style
works in the caves of Nasik and Ajanta in Maharashtra.
The Vakatakas, who succeeded the Satvahanas in
Maharashtra, entered into matrimonial alliances with the Buddhist royal houses
in their neighbourhood. In this way, as in the case of the Satvahanas and
Andhra Ishkavakus, Buddhism and the associated Gandhara-influenced aesthetic
remained alive with the Vakatakas. Magnificent Buddhist structures came up in
their time in the caves of Ajanta in Maharashtra (43). Chapters 6 and 7 have a
detailed discussion of Buddhism in the Deccan.
The Greek influence on our arts may well extend beyond sculpture into traditional Indian drama, dance and music. For instance, there are a number of similarities between the dramatic form of the Natyashastra, which is the base for all Indian classical performance art forms, and the theatre of ancient Greece. The Natyashastra is generally dated to between the 3rd century BC and the 4th century AD, which is the time of contact with Greece and the flourishing of the Gandhara style in South India.
The Greek Chorus consisted of dancers and singers who
would accompany the performance of the actors on the stage. The Natyashastra
too combined music and song (“sangeet”, which comes from “sangat” meaning
“combination”, here: the combination of instrumental and vocal music) with
dance or “nritya”, to develop the dramatic form of “natya”.
The songs for the natyas in the Natyashastra, called
“dhruvapadas”, have melodies that sound like chants, consisting of short musical
phrases with elongated notes. These were used to underscore the mood of the
action in the dramatic performance, which is similar to the part that was
played by the chorus in ancient Greek theatre.
The “sutradhar”, a key part in ancient Indian drama,
also hints at Greek influence. The sutradhar, like the Greek Chorus, would
comment on the action or string parts of the story together in the course of
the enactment of the play.
Besides these possible stylistic links, archaeological findings in Nagarjunkonda of a number of Roman-type amphitheatres also tantalisingly hint at a connection between our Indian performance arts and those of ancient Greece and Rome (37).
Nagarjunkonda
Amphitheatre, Archaeological Survey of India.
Gandhara may also have influenced our music. The third note in Indian classical music - Hindustani and Carnatic - is called “Gandhara”. There is also reference in ancient musical treatises to a lost scale called the “Gandhara Grama” (44).
Music-history can be a good source for tracing the evolution of Indian aesthetics to show how cultures evolve in conversation with each other. Much work is being done in Western universities with ancient Egyptian, Syrian and Greek music. Since Indian music is a living tradition going back hundreds of years, our classical music ustads, gurus and artists could be a tremendous resource for historians in this regard.
An understanding that a culture can remain coherent and distinctive, while still engaging with other cultures is needed in India to dispel the insularity and parochialism that Hindutva-thinking propagates in the name of protecting cultural identity.
This is serious high quality research that brings insight to pluralistic nature of cultures of India. It provides evidence of how India's diverse culture has evolved from and enriched by broader roots reaching out from Europe and Central Asia.
ReplyDeleteThis research explodes Hindutva manufactured-myth of parochial character of Hindu culture. Instead,
we should be proud of diversity which goes back to several centuries before CE.