Sangam Age and South Indian Kingdoms

South of the Vindhyas lay a land the Tamils called Tamilakam, stretching from the Venkatam hills (Tirupati) to Cape Comorin. Its early history is known mainly from poems. These poems are called Sangam literature, and the age is the Sangam Age (roughly 300 BCE to 300 CE). The word sangam means an assembly or ‘meeting together’: by tradition, learned Tamil poets met in assemblies at Madurai under the patronage of the Pandya kings and judged each other’s verses. The poems themselves are about 2,300 years old in their earliest layer, and they tell us about love, war, kings, markets, ports and everyday village life.

Sangam poems were written in two ‘moods’. Akam (inner) poems are about love and family life: the feelings of lovers, their meeting and parting. Puram (outer) poems are about the outer world: war, kings, generosity and death. If you remember this one split, you can place any anthology quickly.

Society and belief. Sangam society was not divided by the Vedic varna scheme in the north-Indian way; it was grouped by the five tinais (regions) and by occupation. The Tolkappiyam mentions four groups: Arasar (rulers), Anthanar (Brahmins/priests), Vanigar (traders) and Vellalar (cultivators). Other tribes included the Paratavar (fishermen), Panar (bards and singers), Eyinar (hunters), Maravar (warriors) and Kuravar (hill people). Women poets like Avvaiyar are known. People worshipped Murugan (the chief Tamil god), Mayon, Korravai, Indra and Varuna; kings performed Vedic sacrifices; fallen heroes were honoured with memorial stones (nadukal). Jainism and Buddhism also had followers.

Three kingdoms ruled Tamilakam in the Sangam Age: the Cheras in the west, the Cholas in the Kaveri delta and the Pandyas in the far south. Ashoka’s edicts already name them as friendly neighbours outside his empire (Cholas, Pandyas, Keralaputra/Chera), which tells us they were well known by the 3rd century BCE. Each kingdom had an emblem on its flag and coins, and each had a capital town and a famous port.

Polity. Kingship was hereditary. The king was helped by a council of five great assemblies (Aimperumkuzhu) and eight groups of attendants (Enperayam). He was supported by tribute from chiefs, by tolls and by a land tax, and by war booty. Poets and bards (Panar) lived at the courts. Chiefs such as the Velir held smaller territories, and the poems praise their generosity.

Economy and Roman trade. Rice and millets were grown, and the Kaveri delta was the granary. Pearls from the Korkai coast, pepper from the Western Ghats (called ‘black gold’), ivory, spices, fine cotton cloth and gems such as beryl were exported to the Roman world, which paid in gold. Ports such as Muziris (Chera), Puhar (Chola), Korkai (Pandya) and Arikamedu (near Pondicherry; the ancient Poduke, excavated by Mortimer Wheeler in 1945) grew rich. Roman gold coins and wine jars (amphorae) have been found in many Tamil sites. The Roman writer Pliny complained that India was draining Rome of gold. The Greek guidebook Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE) describes these ports.

When the Kalabhra age ended, the Pallavas rose in the northern Tamil country with their capital at Kanchipuram (Kanchi), one of the seven sacred cities of India and a great centre of Sanskrit learning (its ghatika or college was famous). Their real power began with Simhavishnu (c. 575-600 CE), who defeated the Kalabhras. For two centuries (c. 575-900 CE) they struggled with the Chalukyas of Badami in the north-west and the Pandyas in the south, and they left behind the finest early temples of South India.

Administration and land. Pallava rule was a monarchy with ministers and a chain of local units, from the kingdom down to the village (ur). Two kinds of land grants were common: Brahmadeya (to Brahmins, who often formed their own village assembly, the sabha) and Devadana (to temples). There were grants to schools and Jain institutions too. The Pallavas used the Prakrit and Sanskrit languages in their early charters and Tamil later, and their script (the Pallava Grantha) became the parent of many scripts in Southeast Asia. Under them the Bhakti movement began: the Nayanars (Shaiva saints) and Alvars (Vaishnava saints) sang in Tamil.

The Pancha Rathas. The five rathas at Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram) are named Dharmaraja, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula-Sahadeva and Draupadi. The names are only popular labels, for they were never temples of the Pandavas; each is a monolithic structure, carved top-down from a single rock. The Mamallapuram group is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1984). Its Shore Temple was built by Narasimhavarman II and is made of carved granite blocks, which shows the shift from cave temples to structural ones.

The Chalukyas of Badami (Vatapi), in Karnataka, were the great power of the Deccan between about 543 and 753 CE. Pulakeshin I made the hill-fort of Vatapi his capital and performed the Ashvamedha; Kirtivarman I pushed the kingdom to the coast; and Pulakeshin II (c. 610-642 CE) made it an empire that stopped Harshavardhana on the Narmada. Their story also joins the Pallava story, because the two kingdoms fought for two centuries over the land between the Krishna-Tungabhadra and the Kaveri.

Pulakeshin II, the greatest Chalukya. He won his throne after a struggle with his uncle Mangalesha and then fought on every side. The Aihole inscription, composed in Sanskrit by the Jain poet Ravikirti (634 CE), says that Harsha’s elephant troops lost heart before him, and that he defeated the Pallavas, the Kadambas, the Gangas and the Latas. He took the title Dakshinapatheshvara (‘lord of the southern region’). The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang visited his kingdom and praised his army and the proud spirit of its people. His brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana was made governor of Vengi (c. 624), from which the Eastern Chalukyas descended. After his death in 642 the kingdom fell into confusion for about 13 years until Vikramaditya I restored it.

The Vesara style. Chalukya temples were built in a style of their own, usually called Vesara (the Deccan or Karnataka-Dravida style), which mixes features of the northern Nagara style (a curved tower, shikhara) and the southern Dravida style (a stepped tower, vimana). It was begun in the Chalukya age at Aihole and Pattadakal and was refined later by the Rashtrakutas and the Hoysalas. The Virupaksha temple at Pattadakal was built by Queen Lokamahadevi to celebrate her husband Vikramaditya II’s victory over the Pallavas of Kanchi, and it is said to have inspired the Kailasa temple at Ellora.

The Rashtrakutas were a Kannada-speaking dynasty of the Deccan who rose in the middle of the 8th century on the ruins of the Chalukyas of Badami and ruled until about 973 CE. They are remembered for three things: they were one of the three powers in the Tripartite Struggle for Kannauj, they patronised Kannada and Sanskrit scholars, and they carved the Kailasa temple at Ellora, one of the wonders of Indian art. Their capital was Manyakheta (modern Malkhed in Karnataka) from the time of Amoghavarsha I.

The Tripartite Struggle. From the late 8th to the 10th century the three powers fought over Kannauj, then the symbol of imperial power in the Gangetic plain, and its fertile region. Vatsaraja (Pratihara) defeated the Pala Dharmapala, but the Rashtrakuta Dhruva defeated both. Later Nagabhata II took Kannauj, and Govinda III defeated him. The Rashtrakutas raided the north repeatedly but, living in the Deccan, never held Kannauj for long; Indra III sacked it again in the early 10th century. The long struggle drained all three, and none could resist the later invaders from the north-west. Arab travellers such as Sulaiman and Al-Masudi mention the Rashtrakuta king as ‘Balhara’ and praise him as one of the greatest kings of the world, and the Rashtrakutas traded actively with the Arabs.

The Kailasa temple at Ellora. Begun in the reign of Krishna I, the Kailasa temple (Cave 16) is a Shaiva temple cut downward from a single hillside of basalt; it is the largest monolithic rock-cut structure in the world and a Dravida-style temple built to represent Mount Kailasa. Ellora has 34 caves (Buddhist, Hindu and Jain), and the site is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1983). Under the Rashtrakutas, Jainism flourished: Amoghavarsha I, Jinasena (author of the Adipurana) and the mathematician Mahaviracharya (Ganitasarasangraha) belong to this age. The Rashtrakutas also patronised Kannada, and Kannada became a language of literature and inscriptions alongside Sanskrit.

After a long gap the Cholas rose again in the Kaveri delta in the 9th century. Vijayalaya, a feudatory of the Pallavas, took Thanjavur from the Muttaraiyars (c. 850 CE) and built a temple for the goddess Nishumbhasudini. His son Aditya I defeated the last Pallava, Aparajita (c. 893-897), and from then on the Cholas were an imperial power that lasted until about 1279 CE. At their height under Rajaraja I and Rajendra I they ruled most of South India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and their navy crossed the sea to Southeast Asia.

Rajaraja I (985-1014 CE) is called the real founder of the Chola empire. He defeated the Chera king in a naval battle at Kandalur Salai, humbled the Pandyas, conquered northern Sri Lanka (the capital was moved to Polonnaruwa) and sent a fleet to the Maldives. His daughter Kundavai was given to the Eastern Chalukya prince Vimaladitya, which linked the two houses. He took titles such as Mummudi Chola, Jayankonda and Sivapadasekhara, ordered a great land survey (c. 1000 CE) and built the Rajarajesvaram (Brihadeeswarar) temple at Thanjavur, finished in 1010 CE.

Rajendra I (1014-1044 CE), son of Rajaraja I, took the empire to its peak. His army marched north through Kalinga and crossed the Ganga (c. 1022 CE), defeating the Pala king Mahipala I; to mark this he took the title Gangaikonda (‘Conqueror of the Ganga’) and built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, with a temple and a tank called Cholagangam. Around 1025 CE his navy attacked the Srivijaya empire (Sumatra) and its ports, winning the title Kadaram-konda, and he occupied the whole of Sri Lanka. The aim was to protect the sea trade with China and Southeast Asia and to break Srivijaya’s hold on it.

The Chola state was not only a conquering power but also a well-organised state with a strong king, a royal secretariat, a survey of land, and, most remarkable of all, local self-government in its villages. The king was the head of the army, the courts and the temples; he was advised by officers who wrote down his oral orders (tirumandira olai). Land revenue, called Kadamai, was the main income, but it was supported by many other levies, including Vetti, the forced labour that peasants and the lower classes owed. Revenue and records were kept in the royal office and in the temples, which also acted as banks and storehouses.

Village assemblies. Three kinds of local bodies ran the Chola countryside. The Ur was the general assembly of a village of ordinary landowners. The Sabha or Mahasabha was the assembly of a brahmadeya village, a village gifted to Brahmins. The Nagaram was the assembly of merchants in a trading town. The best evidence is the pair of inscriptions at Uttaramerur (Chengalpattu district) from the time of Parantaka I (c. 919 and 921 CE): they show that the village was divided into 30 wards, a member was chosen from each ward by a draw of lots (kudavolai, with names on palm-leaf tickets put in a pot), and the members worked in committees (variyams) for the tank, gardens, justice and so on. A candidate had to own land, live in his own house, be of the right age (about 35 to 70) and know the sacred texts, and anyone who had been convicted of certain crimes or who had not accounted for earlier funds was barred.

Economy and trade. Agriculture was the base: the Cholas improved the Kaveri irrigation system and dug tanks and wells, and Rajendra I created the large tank Cholagangam near his capital. Weaving, especially the silk of Kanchipuram, metalwork and the making of bronzes were major crafts. Trade was handled by guilds such as the Manigramam, Nanadesi, Valanjiyar and Ayyavole (the ‘Five Hundred’), which carried goods across the sea to Southeast Asia and China; ports like Nagapattinam and Kaveripattinam prospered. Gold coins (kasu) and weights like the kalanju were used. Temples were also the biggest employers, hiring priests, musicians, temple dancers and craftsmen, and lending money.

Religion, learning and literature. Shaivism was dominant and the Cholas built many temples for Shiva, though Vaishnavism and Jainism also had followers. The Shaiva hymns of the Nayanars were collected as the Tirumurai in the age of Rajaraja I (by Nambiyandar Nambi), and Sekkizhar wrote the Periya Puranam on their lives under Kulottunga II. The Vaishnava Ramanuja (born 1017 at Sriperumbudur) taught Vishishtadvaita, qualified non-dualism. Kamban composed the Tamil Ramayana (Ramavataram), and Jayamkondar the Kalingattuparani. Colleges at places like Ennayiram and Tirumukkudal (which also records a hospital) taught the Vedas and other subjects, and society had two large divisions of castes, Valangai (right-hand) and Idangai (left-hand), who sometimes clashed.

Art and architecture. The Chola temple is the climax of the Dravida style: a gateway (gopura), a pillared hall (mandapa) and a tall pyramid-shaped tower (vimana) over the sanctum. The Brihadeeswarar temple at Thanjavur has a vimana about 66 metres high, topped by a massive single-stone capital. The three temples at Thanjavur, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and Darasuram (Airavatesvara) form the UNESCO World Heritage site ‘Great Living Chola Temples’. Chola sculptors cast superb bronzes by the lost-wax method; the Nataraja (Shiva as the Lord of Dance) is the most famous, and Swamimalai is still a centre of this craft.