History
See also: History of Tamil Nadu
Pre-historic period
The Great Temple at Thanjavur
built by Rajaraja Chola I
The origins of the Tamil people, like those of the other Dravidian
peoples, are unknown, although genetic and archaeological
evidence suggests a possible migration into India around 6000 BCE.[7] The
earliest clear evidence of the presence of the Tamil people in modern Tamil Nadu
are the megalithic
urn burials, dating from around 1000 BCE and onwards, which have been
discovered at various locations in Tamil Nadu, notably in Adichanallur.[8][9] These
burials conform to the descriptions of funerals in classical Tamil
literature in a number of details, and appear to be concrete evidence of
the existence of Tamils in southern India during that period.[10]
In modern times, ancient Tamil literature like Sangam poetry and
epics like Silapthigaaram have been interpreted as making references to a lost
land known as Kumari Kandam.[11]
Classical period
From around the third century BCE onwards, three royal
dynasties—the Cholas, the Cheras
and the Pandyas—rose to dominate the ancient Tamil country.[9] Each of
these dynasties had its own realm within the Tamil-speaking region. Classical
literature and inscriptions also describe a number of Velirs, or
minor chieftains, who collectively ruled over large parts of central Tamil Nadu.[12] Wars
between the kings and the chieftains were frequent, as were conflicts with
ancient Sri
Lanka.[13][14] These
wars appear to have been fought to assert hegemony and demand tribute, rather
than to subjugate and annex those territories. The kings and chieftains were
patrons of the arts, and a significant volume of literature exists from this
period.[12]
The literature shows that many of the cultural practices that are considered
peculiarly Tamil date back to the classical period.[12]
Agriculture was important during this period, and there
is evidence that irrigation networks were built as early as 2nd century CE.[15]
Internal and external trade flourished, and evidence exists of significant
contact with Ancient Rome.[16] Large
quantities of Roman coins and signs of the presence of Roman
traders have been discovered at Karur and Arikamedu.[16] There
is also evidence that at least two embassies were sent to the Roman
Emperor Augustus
by Pandya kings.[17] Potsherds with Tamil writing have also been found in excavations
on the Red Sea,
suggesting the presence of Tamil merchants there.[18] An
anonymous first century traveler's account written in Greek,
Periplus Maris Erytraei, describes the ports of the Pandya and
Chera kingdoms and their commercial activity in great detail. Periplus
also indicates that the chief exports of the ancient Tamils were pepper,
malabathrum,
pearls, ivory, silk, spikenard, diamonds, sapphires,
and tortoiseshell.[19]
The classical period ended around the
fourth century CE with invasions by the Kalabhra,
referred to as the kalappirar in Tamil literature and inscriptions.[20] These
invaders are described as evil kings and barbarians coming from lands to the
north of the Tamil country.[21] This period, commonly referred to as the Dark Age
of the Tamil country, ended with the rise of the Pallava
dynasty.[20][22][23]
Imperial and post-imperial
periods
Detail from a temple in Chidambaram.
The Tamil kings were patrons of the arts, and built many ornate temples.
Although the Pallava records
can be traced from the second century CE, they did not rise to prominence as an
imperial dynasty until the sixth century.[24]
The dynasty does not appear to have been Tamil in origin, although they rapidly
adopted the local culture and the Tamil
language. The Pallavas sought to model themselves after great northern
dynasties such as the Mauryas and Guptas.[25]
They therefore transformed the institution of the kingship into an imperial
one, and sought to bring vast amounts of territory under their direct rule. The
Pallavas were initially Buddhists, but later converted to Hinduism. They
encouraged the Bhakti movement, which had risen to counter the
growing influence of Jainism and Buddhism.[26]
The Pallavas pioneered the building of large, ornate temples in stone which
formed the basis of the Dravidian temple architecture.
The Pallava dynasty was overthrown in the 9th century by the
resurgent Cholas.[24]
The Cholas become dominant in the 10th century and established an empire
covering most of southern India and Sri Lanka.[24]
The empire had strong trading links with China and Southeast
Asia.[27][28] The
Cholas' navy
conquered the South Asian kingdom of Sri Vijaya
in Sumatra and
continued as far as Thailand and Burma.[24]
Chola power declined in the 12th and 13th centuries, and the Pandya dynasty
enjoyed a brief period of resurgence thereafter during the rule of Sundara
Pandya.[24]
However, repeated Muslim invasions from the 15th century
onwards placed a huge strain on the empire's resources, and the dynasty came to
an end in the 16th century.[29]
The western Tamil lands became increasingly politically
distinct from the rest of the Tamil lands after the Chola and Pandya empires
lost control over them in the 13th century[citation needed]. They
developed their own distinct language and literature, which increasingly grew
apart from Tamil, evolving into the modern Malayalam language by the 15th century.[30]
The remains of a palace of
Ettappan, a Nayak
who ruled Ettayapuram.
No major empires arose thereafter, and parts of Tamil
Nadu were for a while ruled by a number of different local chiefs, such as the Nayaks of the modern Maharashtra
(see Serfoji
II) and Andhra Pradesh regions. From the 17th century
onwards, European powers began establishing
settlements and trading outposts in the region. A number of battles were fought
between the British, French and Danish in the
18th century, and by the end of the 18th century most of Tamil Nadu was under
British rule.
Tamils in Sri Lanka
See also: Sri
Lankan Tamils, History of Eastern Tamils, and Jaffna
Kingdom
The Nallur Kandaswamy temple in Jaffna
There is little consensus on the history of the
Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka prior to the Chola
period. Some Sinhala historians
argue that there was no organized Tamil presence in Sri Lanka until the
invasions from southern India in the 10th century, whereas many
Tamil historians contend that Tamils are the original inhabitants of the
island. A theory by historian K. Indrapala concludes that the Sinhalese and
Tamil languages were spread due to cultural diffusion from peninsular India into an
already existing Mesolithic population with minimal population transfer by
the activities of traders and others.[31][32]
The historical record does establish that the Tamil
kingdoms of India
were closely involved in Sri Lankan affairs from about the 2nd century BCE.[13][14] There
is epigraphic
evidence of of traders and others self identifying as Damelas (or Damedas) in Anuradhapura
and other areas of Sri Lanka as early as 2nd century BCE.[33]. According
to the primary source Mahavamsa, ethnic Tamil adventurers such as Elara
invaded the island as far back as 200 BCE.[34] Tamil wars
against Sri Lanka culminated in the Chola annexation of the island in the 10th
century, which lasted until the latter half of the eleventh century.[35][36][37]
The decline of Chola
power in Sri Lanka was followed by the re-establishment of the Polonnaruwa
monarchy in the late eleventh century.[38] In 1215,
the Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty established an
independent Jaffna kingdom[39] in the Jaffna peninsula
and parts of northern Sri Lanka. The Arya Chakaravarthi expansion into the
south was halted by Alagakkonara,[40] a man
from a family of merchants from Kanchipuram
in present day Tamil Nadu, who had become the chief minister of the
Sinhalese king Parakramabahu V (1344–1359). Alagakkonara built a fortress at Kotte,[41] and held
the Arya Chakravarthi army there while he defeated the invading fleet at
Panadura, southwest of Kotte. A descendant of Alagakkonara, Vira Alakeshwara later
became King of the Sinhalese,[42] but this
line was deposed by the Ming admiral Cheng Ho (Zheng He) in
1409. The Arya Chakaravarthi dynasty ruled over large parts of northeast Sri
Lanka until 1619, when it was conquered by the Portuguese. The
coastal areas of the island was then taken by the Dutch,
and in 1796 these became part of the British
Empire.
Modern period
A colonial-era photograph of a
Tamil couple.
British colonists consolidated the Tamil territory in
southern India into the Madras Presidency, which was integrated into British
India. Similarly, the Tamil parts of Sri Lanka joined with the other
regions of the island in 1802 to form the Ceylon colony. They remained in
political union with India
and Sri
Lanka after their independence, in 1947 and 1948 respectively.
When India became independent in 1947, Madras Presidency
became the Madras State, comprised of present-day Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra
Pradesh, northern Kerala, and the southwest coast of Karnataka.
The state was subsequently split along linguistic
lines. In 1953, the northern districts formed Andhra Pradesh. Under the States Reorganization Act in 1956, Madras
State lost its western coastal districts. The Bellary and South
Kanara districts were ceded to Mysore
state, and Kerala was formed from the Malabar
district and the former princely
states of Travancore and Cochin.
In 1968, Madras State was renamed Tamil Nadu.
There was some initial demand for an independent Tamil
state following the adoption of the federal system.[43] However,
the Indian constitution granted significant
autonomy to the states, and protests by Tamils in 1963 led to the government
adopting a new policy called the "three language formula". This has
led to Tamils in India becoming increasingly satisfied with the federal
arrangement, and there is very little support for secession or independence
today.
In Sri Lanka, however, the unitary arrangement led to a
growing belief among some Tamils of discrimination by the Sinhalese
majority. This resulted in a demand for federalism,
which in the 1970s grew into a movement for an autonomous Tamil country. The
situation deteriorated into civil war in the early 1980s. A ceasefire in
effect since 2002 broke down in August 2006 amid shelling and bombing from both
sides. Today Tamils make up 18% of Sri Lankas population.
Geographic distribution
Indian Tamils
Most Indian Tamils live in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Tamils are the majority in the union
territory of Pondicherry, a former French colony.
Pondicherry is a subnational
enclave situated within Tamil Nadu. There are also Tamil communities in
other parts of India. Most of these have emerged fairly recently, dating to the
colonial and post-colonial periods, but some—particularly the Hebbar and
Mandyam Tamils of southern Karnataka, the Tamils of Palakkad in Kerala, and the
Tamils of Pune, Maharashtra—date
back to at least the medieval period.
Sri Lankan Tamils
See also: Sri Lankan Civil War, Sri
Lankan Tamils, and Hill Country Tamils
A Hill Country Tamil woman working on a tea
plantation in upcountry Sri Lanka.
There are today two groups of Tamils in Sri Lanka. The
first are the Sri Lankan Tamils, who either descend from
the Tamils of the old Jaffna kingdom or who migrated to the East coast.
The second are the Indian Tamils or Hill Country Tamils, who are descendants of
bonded labourers sent from Tamil Nadu
to Sri Lanka in the 19th century to work in tea plantations.[44] Ceylon
Tamils mostly live in the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the capital
of Colombo, whereas hill-country Tamils largely live in the central highlands.[45] The Hill
Country Tamils and Ceylon Tamils historically have seen themselves as separate
communities. In 1949, the United National Party Government, which
included G. G. Ponnambalam, a leader of the Tamil
Congress and of the Sri Lankan Tamils, stripped the Indian Tamils
of their nationality, including their right to vote. Prominent Tamil political
leaders such as S. J. V. Chelvanayakam and his Tamil
opposition party opposed this move.[46]
Under an agreement between the Sri Lankan and Indian
governments in the 1960s, around 40% of Hill Country Tamils were granted Sri
Lankan nationality, and many of the remainder were repatriated to India.[47] However,
the ethnic conflict has led to the growth of a greater sense of common Tamil
identity, and the two groups are now more supportive of each other.[48] By the
1990s most Indian Tamils had received Sri Lankan citizenship.[49]
There is also a significant Tamil-speaking Muslim population in Sri Lanka.
Unlike Tamil-speaking Muslims from India, however, they do not identify
themselves as ethnic Tamils and are therefore usually listed as a separate
ethnic group in official statistics.[50][51]
Tamil emigrant communities
See also: Tamil
diaspora and Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora
Significant Tamil emigration began in the 18th century,
when the British colonial government sent many poor Tamils as indentured labourers to far-off parts of the Empire,
especially Malaya,
South
Africa, Fiji, Mauritius and
the Caribbean.
At about the same time, many Tamil businessmen also immigrated to other parts
of the British Empire, particularly to Burma and East Africa.[52] Many
Tamils still live in these countries, and the Tamil communities in Singapore, Reunion
Island, Malaysia
and South Africa have retained much of their
culture and language. Many Malaysian children attend Tamil schools, and a
significant portion of Tamil children in Mauritius and Reunion are brought up
with Tamil as their first language. In Singapore, Tamil
students learn Tamil as their second language in school, with English as the
first. To preserve the Tamil language, the Singapore government has made it
a national language despite Tamils comprising only about 10% of the population,
and has also introduced compulsory instruction of the language for Tamils.
Other Tamil communities, such as those in South Africa and Fiji, no longer
speak Tamil as a first language, but still retain a strong Tamil identity, and
are able to understand the language, while most elders speak it as a first
language.[53]
A large emigration also began in the 1980s, as Sri Lankan
Tamils sought to escape the ethnic conflict there. These recent emigrants have
most often fled to Australia, Europe, North America and Southeast
Asia.[54]
Today, the largest concentration of Tamils outside southern Asia is in Toronto, Canada.[55]
Many young Tamil professionals from India have also
immigrated to Europe and the United
States in recent times in search of better opportunities. These new
immigrant communities have established cultural associations
to protect and promote Tamil culture and language in their adopted homes.
Culture
Language and literature
Main
articles : Tamil language, Tamil
literature
An idol in Madurai
representing the Tamil language as a goddess; The caption on the pedestal reads
Tamil Annai ("Mother Tamil").
Tamils have strong feelings towards the Tamil
language, which is often venerated in literature as "Tamil̲an̲n̲ai",
"the Tamil mother".[56] It has
historically been, and to large extent still is, central to the Tamil identity.[57] Like the
other languages of South India, it is a Dravidian language, unrelated to the Indo-European languages of northern India.
The language has been far less influenced by Sanskrit than
the other Dravidian languages, and preserves many features of Proto-Dravidian,
though modern-day spoken Tamil in Tamil Nadu, freely uses loanwords from
Sanskrit and English.[58] Tamil
literature is of considerable antiquity, and was recognised as a classical language by the government of India.
Classical Tamil literature, which ranges from lyric
poetry to works on poetics and ethical philosophy, is remarkably different from contemporary
and later literature in other Indian languages, and represents the oldest body
of secular literature in South Asia.[59] Notable
works in classical Tamil literature include the Tirukkural,
by Tiruvalluvar,
the five great Tamil epics,
and the works of Auvaiyar.
Modern Tamil literature is diverse. It includes Indian Nationalism, in the works of Subramanya Bharathi; historical romanticism, by
Kalki Krishnamurthy; radical and moderate social
realism, by Pudhumaipithan and Jayakanthan;
and feminism,
by Malathi Maithri
and Kutti Revathi. Sujatha, an
author whose works range from romance
novels to science fiction, is one of the most popular modern
writers in Tamil. Sri Lankan Tamil literature has produced several works
reflecting the civilian tragedy caused by decades of war. There is also an
emerging diaspora
literature in Tamil.
There are a number of regional dialects in use by the
Tamil people. These dialects vary among regions and communities. Tamil dialects
are mainly differentiated by the disparate phonological changes and sound
shifts that have evolved from Old Tamil. Although most Tamil dialects do not
differ significantly in their vocabulary, there are a few exceptions. The dialects spoken in Sri Lanka retain many
words that are not in everyday use in India, and use many
other words slightly differently. The dialect of the Iyers of Palakkad has a
large number of Malayalam loanwords, has been influenced by
Malayalam syntax, and has a distinct Malayalam accent. The Sankethi,
Hebbar,
and Mandyam
dialects, the former spoken by groups of Tamil Iyers, and the latter
two by Vaishnavites
who migrated to Karnataka in the 11th century, retains many Vaishnavite
religious and spiritual values. Although not a dialect, the Tamil spoken in Chennai infuses English
words, and is called Madras Bashai (Madras language).[citation needed]
Visual art and architecture
See also: Chola Art
Most traditional Tamil art is religious in some form and
usually centres on Hinduism, although the religious element is often only a
means to represent universal—and, occasionally, humanist—themes.[60]
The most important form of Tamil painting is Tanjore
painting, which originated in Thanjavur in
the ninth century. The painting's base is made of cloth and coated with zinc oxide,
over which the image is painted using dyes; it is then decorated with
semi-precious stones, as well as silver or gold thread.[61] A style
which is related in origin, but which exhibits significant differences in
execution, is used for painting murals on temple walls; the most notable example are the murals
on the Meenakshi temple, of Madurai.[62] Tamil
art, in general, is known for its stylistic elegance, rich colours, and
attention to small details.
A gopuram of the Meenakshi
temple in Madurai.
Tamil sculpture ranges from elegant stone sculptures in temples,
to bronze icons
with exquisite details.[63] The medieaval Chola bronzes are considered to be one of
India's greatest contributions to the world art.[64][65]
Unlike most Western art, the material in Tamil sculpture does not influence the
form taken by the sculpture; instead, the artist imposes his/her vision of the
form on the material.[66] As a result, one often sees in stone sculptures flowing
forms that are usually reserved for metal.[67] As with
painting, these sculptures show a fine eye for detail; great care is taken in
sculpting the minute details of jewelery, worn by the subjects of the
sculpture. The lines tend to be smooth and flowing, and many pieces skillfully
capture movement. The cave sculptures at Mamallapuram
are a particularly fine example of the technique, as are the bronzes of the Chola
period. A particularly popular motif in the bronzes was the depiction of Shiva as Nataraja, in a
dance posture with one leg upraised, and a fiery circular halo surrounding his
body.
An inside view of a traditional
Tamil house
Tamil temples were often simply treated as sculptures on
a grand scale. The temples are most notable for their high spires, known as Gopura,
consisting of a number of stepped levels, and the vimanam,
which rises above the sanctum
sanctorum. During the Chola period, the vimanams had more prominence, as seen
in the Brihadīsvara temple of Thanjavur.
During the Nayak period, the spires became progressively more
elaborate and ornate, as exemplified by the Meenakshi
Temple in Madurai,
while the vimanam became much smaller. From the 13th century onwards,
the entrance gates to the temples, called gopurams in
Tamil, also began to grow bigger, and more elaborate. The temples at Chidambaram
and Srirangam
have particularly impressive gopurams, covered with sculptures and reliefs of
various scenes and characters from Hindu
mythology.
As with Indian art in general, Tamil art does not traditionally
aspire to portraiture
or realism. Much more emphasis is placed on the
representation of ideal prototypes, and on depicting the symbols with which the
theme of the artistic work is associated. This means that small details, such
as the direction which a hand faces, the animals or trees portrayed, or the
time of day depicted, are often of critical importance to understanding the
meaning of a work of art.[68]
Performing arts
See also: Music of Tamil Nadu and Ancient Tamil music
The traditional Tamil performing
arts have ancient roots.[69] The
royal courts and temples have been centres for the performing arts since the
classical period, and possibly earlier. Descriptions of performances in
classical Tamil literature and the Natya
Shastra, a Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts, indicate a close
relationship between the ancient and modern artforms. The aim of a performance
in Tamil tradition, is to bring out the rasa, the flavor, mood, or
feeling, inherent in the text, and its quality is measured by the extent to
which it induces the mood in the audience.[69]
Tamil folk artists
presenting a Villuppattu near Tirunelveli
during a festival (panguni uththiram) at an Ayyanar temple.
Folk artists performing at a
funeral Video clip (file info) — Watch
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Tamil shares a classical musical tradition, called carnatic
music, with the rest of South India. It is primarily oriented towards vocal
music, with instruments functioning either as accompaniments,
or as imitations of the singer's role. Ancient Tamil music, stemming from the long
traditions of classical literature and Cilappatikaram,
played a major part in the evolution of Carnatic music.[70] Carnatic
music is organized around the twin notions of melody types (rāgam), and
cyclical rhythm types (thāḷam). Unlike the northern Hindustani
music tradition, carnatic music is almost exclusively religious. In sharp
contrast with the restrained and intellectual nature of carnatic music, Tamil folk music
tends to be much more exuberant. Popular forms of Tamil folk music include the Villuppattu,
a form of music performed with a bow, and the Naattupurapaattu,
ballads that
convey folklore
and folk history.
The dominant classical dance amongst Tamils is Bharatanatyam.
Bharatanatyam is performative, rather than participative. The dance is an
exposition of the story contained in a song, and is usually performed by one
performer on stage, with an orchestra of drums, a drone, and one or more
singers backstage. The story is told through a complicated combination of mudras
(hand gestures), facial expressions, and body postures. Dancers used to be
exclusively female, but the dance now also has several well-known male
practitioners.[69]
The most notable of Tamil folk dances
is karakattam. In its
religious form, the dance is performed in front of an image of the goddess Mariamma. The
dancer bears, on his or her head, a brass pot filled with uncooked rice,
decorated with flowers and surrounded by a bamboo frame, and tumbles and leaps
to the rhythm of a song without spilling a grain. Karakāṭṭam is usually
performed to a special type of song, known as temmanguppattu,
or thevar pattu, a
folk song in the mode of a lover speaking to his beloved, to the accompaniment
of a nadaswaram
and melam.
Other Tamil folk dances include mayilattam,
where the dancers tie a string of peacock feathers around their waists; oyilattam, danced in
a circle while waving small pieces of cloth of various colors; poykkal
kuthiraiyaattam, in which the dancers use dummy horses; manaattam, in which
the dancers imitate the graceful leaping of deer; paraiyattam, a
dance to the sound of rhythmical drumbeats; and thippanthattam,
a dance involving playing with burning torches.[71] The kuravanci
is a type of dance-drama, performed by four to eight women. The drama is opened
by a woman playing the part of a female soothsayer
of a wandering kurava tribe, who tells
the story of a lady pining for her lover.
The therukoothu, literally
meaning "street play", is a form of village theater or folk opera. It
is traditionally performed in village squares,
with no sets and very simple props. The performances involve songs and dances,
and the stories can be either religious or secular.[72] The
performances are not formal, and performers often interact with the audience,
mocking them, or involving them in the dialogue. Therukkūthu has, in recent
times, been very successfully adapted to convey social messages, such as abstinence
and anti-caste
criticism, as well as information about legal rights, and has spread to other
parts of India.[73]
The village of Melatur, in Tamil Nadu,
has a special type of performance, called the bhagavatamela, in
honour of the local deity, which is performed once a year, and lasts all night.
Tamil Nadu also has a well developed stage theater tradition, which has been
heavily influenced by western theatre. A number of theatrical companies exist,
with repertoires including absurdist,
realist,
and humorous
plays.[74]
Both classical and folk performing arts survive in modern
Tamil society. Tamil people in Tamil Nadu are also passionate about films. The Tamil film
industry, commonly dubbed Kollywood, is the second-largest film industry in India.[75] Tamil
cinema is appreciated both for its technical accomplishments, and for its
artistic and entertainment value. The overwhelming majority of Tamil films
contain song and dance sequences, and Tamil film music is a popular genre in
its own right, often liberally fusing elements of carnatic,
Tamil folk, North Indian styles, hip-hop, and heavy
metal. Famous music directors of the late 20th century included M.
S. Viswanathan, Ilayaraaja, and A. R.
Rahman.
Religion
About 90% of the population of Tamil Nadu are Hindu.
Christians and Muslims account for 5% each. Most of the Christians are Roman
Catholics. About one-third of the Muslim population speak Urdu and two-thirds
speak Tamil. Tamil Jains number only a few thousand now.[76] Tamil
Hinduism, like other regional varieties of Hinduism, has
many peculiarities. The most popular deity is Murugan, who is
probably same as Karthikeya, the son of Siva, but who may in
origin have been a different deity, and has taken on a distinctly local
character.[77]
The worship of Amman, also called Mariamman,
thought to have been derived from an ancient mother
goddess, also is very common.[78] Kan̲n̲agi, the
heroine of the Cilappatikār̲am, is worshipped as Paṭṭin̲i by
many Tamils, particularly in Sri Lanka.[79] There are
also many followers of Ayyavazhi in Tamil Nadu, mainly in the southern districts.[80] In
addition, there are many temples and devotees of Vishnu, Siva, Ganapathi,
and the other common Hindu deities.
The most important Tamil festivals are Pongal, a harvest
festival that occurs in mid-January, and Varudapirappu, the Tamil New Year,
which occurs around mid-April. Both are celebrated by almost all Tamils,
regardless of religion. The Hindu festival Deepavali is celebrated with fanfare; other local Hindu festivals
include Thaipusam,
Panguni Uttiram, and Adiperukku. While Adiperukku is celebrated with more pomp
in the Cauvery region than in others, the Ayyavazhi Festival, Ayya Vaikunda Avataram, is predominantly
celebrated in the southern districts of Kanyakumari, Tirunelveli,
and Thoothukudi.[81]
Local deities Vandimalaisaami and
Vandimalaichchiamman in Ettayapuram
In rural Tamil Nadu, many local deities, called aiyyan̲ārs, are
thought to be the spirits of local heroes who protect the village from harm.
Their worship often centers around nadukkal, stones erected in memory of heroes
who died in battle. This form of worship is mentioned frequently in classical
literature and appears to be the surviving remnants of an ancient Tamil
tradition.[82]
Saivism is particularly strong, although most of its bases
are in the North. The Alvars and Nayanars, who were predominantly Tamils, played a key role
in the renaissance of Bhakti tradition in South India.
In the 10th century, the philosopher Ramanuja, who
propagated the theory of Visishtadvaitam, brought many changes to worshiping
practices, creating new regulations on temple worship, and accepted lower-caste
Hindus as his prime disciples.[83]
Christianity is believed to have come to Tamil Nadu with
the arrival of St. Thomas the apostle, but the number of Tamil Christians grew
during the colonial period. Many Tamils are Catholic, Protestant,
and Syrian Orthodox. Tamil
muslims are mostly either mainstream Sunni or can also be Sufi.
Cuisine
Main article: Tamil
cuisine
Tamil cuisine is one of the oldest vegetarian culinary
heritages in the world. Rice, the major staple food
in most of Tamil, is usually steamed and served with about two to six
accompanying items, which typically include sambar,
dry curry, rasam, kootu, and thayir
(curd) or moru
(whey or buttermilk).
Tiffin or Light meals usually include one or more of Pongal, Dosai, idli, Vadai along with sambar,
Chutney is
often served as either breakfast or as an evening snack. Ghee Clarified butter
called neyyi in
Tamil, is used to flavor the rice when eaten with dhal or sambar,
but not with curds or buttermilk. Morkulambu, a dish
which can be spiced with moru, is also popular with steamed rice.
Each geographical area where Tamils live has developed
its own distinct variant of the common dishes plus a few dishes distinctly
native to itself. The Chettinad region, comprising of Karaikudi and
adjoining areas, is known for both traditional vegetarian dishes, like appam, uthappam, paal paniyaram,
and non-vegetarian dishes, made primarily using chicken.
Martial arts
Main article: Dravidian martial arts
Various martial
arts including Kuttu Varisai, Varma Kalai,
Silambam Nillaikalakki, Maankombukkalai
(Madhu) and Kalarippayattu, are practised in Tamil Nadu
and Kerala[citation needed]. The weapons
used include Silambam, Maankombukkalai, Yeratthai Mulangkol
(double stick), Surul Pattai (spring sword), Val Vitchi (single
sword), and Yeretthai Val (double sword)[citation needed].
The ancient Tamil art of unarmed bullfighting,
popular amongst warriors in the classical period[84][85],
has also survived in parts of Tamil Nadu, notably Alanganallur
near Madurai,
where it is known as Jallikaṭṭu or mañcuviraṭṭu and is held once a
year around the time of the Pongal festival. Also in northern part of tamilnadu the
celebrate as erudhu vidum viza
Institutions
The global spread of the Tamil
diaspora has hindered the formation of formal pan-Tamil institutions. The
most important national institutions for Tamils have been the governments of
the states where they live, particularly the government of
Tamil Nadu and the government of Sri Lanka[citation needed], which have
collaborated in developing technical and scientific terminology in Tamil
and promoting its use since the 1950s.
Politics in Tamil Nadu is dominated by the Self-respect movement (also called the
Dravidian movement), founded by E.V.
Ramasami, popularly known as Periyar, to promote self-respect
and rationalism,
and to fight casteism
and the oppression of the lowest castes. Every major political party in Tamil
Nadu bases its ideology on the Self-respect Movement, and the national
political parties play a very small role in Tamil politics.
The Tamil flag adopted by the
World Tamil Confederation to represent Tamil people everywhere.
In Sri Lanka, Tamil politics was dominated by the federalist
movements, led by the Federal Party (later the Tamil United Liberation Front), until
the early 1980s. In the 1980s, the political movement was largely succeeded by
a violent military campaign conducted by several militant
groups. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which emerged as the
most important force amongst these groups in the 1990s, controls portions of
northern Sri Lanka, and has attempted to establish its own government there,
which it calls the government of Tamil Eelam.
In the 1960s, the government of Tamil Nadu
held a World Tamil
Conference, which has continued to meet periodically since then. In
1999, a World Tamil
Confederation was established to protect and foster Tamil culture
and further a sense of togetherness amongst Tamils in different countries. The
Confederation has since adopted a Tamil flag and Tamil
song[86]
to act as trans-national symbols for the Tamil people; the words on the flag
quote the opening line of a poem by the classical poet Kanian Poongundranaar,
and means "Everyone is our kin; Everyplace is our home".
Number 2
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Vedic Roots of Early
Tamil Culture
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In recent years attempts have been made to
cast a new look at ancient India. For too long the picture has been distorted
by myopic colonial readings of India s prehistory and early history, and more
recently by ill-suited Marxist models. One such distortion was the Aryan invasion
theory, now definitively on its way out, although its watered-down avatars
are still struggling to survive. It will no doubt take some more time and
much more effort on the archaeological front for a new perspective of the
earliest civilization in the North of the subcontinent to take firm shape,
but a beginning has been made.
We have a peculiar situation too as regards
Southern India, and particularly Tamil Nadu. Take any classic account of
Indian history and you will see how little space the South gets in comparison
with the North. While rightly complaining that Hitherto most historians of
ancient India have written as if the south did not exist, [ 1]Vincent Smith in his Oxford
History of India hardly devotes a few pages to civilization in the South,
that too with the usual stereotypes to which I will return shortly. R. C.
Majumdar s Advanced History of India,[2] or A. L. Basham s
The Wonder That Was India[3] are hardly better in
that respect. The first serious History of South India,[4] that of K. A. Nilakanta
Sastri, appeared only in 1947. Even recent surveys of Indian archaeology
generally give the South a rather cursory treatment.
The Context
It is a fact that archaeology in the South has so far unearthed little that can compare to findings in the North in terms of ancientness, massiveness or sophistication : the emergence of urban civilization in Tamil Nadu is now fixed at the second or third century BC, about two and a half millennia after the appearance of Indus cities. Moreover, we do not have any fully or largely excavated city or even medium-sized town : Madurai, the ancient capital of the Pandya kingdom, has hardly been explored at all ; Uraiyur, that of the early Cholas, saw a dozen trenches ;[5] Kanchipuram, the Pallavas capital, had seventeen, and Karur, that of the Cheras, hardly more ; Kaveripattinam,[6] part of the famous ancient city of Puhar (the first setting of the Shilappadikaram epic), saw more widespread excavations, yet limited with regard to the potential the site offers. The same may be said of Arikamedu (just south of Pondicherry), despite excavations by Jouveau-Dubreuil, Wheeler, and several other teams right up to the 1990s.[7]
All in all, the archaeological record
scarcely measures up to what emerges from the Indo-Gangetic plains which is
one reason why awareness of these excavations has hardly reached the general
public, even in Tamil Nadu ; it has heard more about the still superficial
exploration of submerged Poompuhar than about the painstaking work done in
recent decades at dozens of sites. (See a map of Tamil Nadu s important
archaeological sites below.)
But there is a second reason for this poor
awareness : scholars and politicians drawing inspiration from the Dravidian
movement launched by E. V. Ramaswamy Naicker ( Periyar ) have very rigid
ideas about the ancient history of Tamil Nadu. First, despite all evidence to
the contrary, they still insist on the Aryan invasion theory in its most
violent version, turning most North Indians and upper-caste Indians into
descendants of the invading Aryans who overran the indigenous Dravidians, and
Sanskrit into a deadly rival of Tamil. Consequently, they assert that Tamil
is more ancient than Sanskrit, and civilization in the South older than in
the North. Thus recently, Tamil Nadu s Education minister decried in the
State Assembly those who go to the extent of saying that Dravidian
civilization is part of Hinduism and declared, The Dravidian civilization is
older than the Aryan. [8]
It is not uncommon to hear even good Tamil scholars utter such claims.
Now, it so happens that archaeological
findings in Tamil Nadu, though scanty, are nevertheless decisive. Indeed, we
now have a broad convergence between literary, epigraphic and archaeological
evidence.[9]
Thus names of cities, kings and chieftains mentioned in Sangam literature
have often been confirmed by inscriptions and coins dating back to the second
and third centuries BC. Kautilya speaks in his Arthashastra (c. fourth
century BC) of the easily travelled southern land route, with diamonds,
precious stones and pearls from the Pandya country ;[10] two Ashokan rock edicts
(II and XIII[11])
respectfully refer to Chola, Pandya and Chera kingdoms as neighbours,
therefore placing them firmly in the third century BC ; we also have
Kharavela s cave inscription near Bhubaneswar in which the Kalinga king (c.
150 BC) boasts of having broken up a confederacy of the Dravida countries
which had lasted for 113 years. [12] From all these, it
appears that the earliest Tamil kingdoms must have been established around
the fourth century BC ; again, archaeological findings date urban
developments a century or two later, but this small gap will likely be filled
by more extensive excavations. But there s the rub : beyond the fourth
century BC and back to 700 or 1000 BC, all we find is a megalithic period,
and going still further back, a neolithic period starting from about the
third millennium BC. While those two prehistoric periods are as important as
they are enigmatic, they show little sign of a complex culture,[*] and no clear connection
with the dawn of urban civilization in the South.
Therefore the good minister s assertion as
to the greater ancientness of the Dravidian civilization finds no support on
the ground. In order to test his second assertion that that civilization is
outside Hinduism, or the common claim that so-called Dravidian culture is
wholly separate from so-called Aryan culture, let us take an unbiased look at
the cultural backdrop of early Tamil society and try to make out some of its
mainstays. That is what I propose to do briefly, using not only literary
evidence, but first, material evidence from archaeological and numismatic
sources as regards the dawn of the Sangam age. I may add that I have left out
the Buddhist and Jain elements, already sufficiently well known, to
concentrate on the Vedic and Puranic ones, which are usually underemphasized.
Also, I will not deal here with the origin of South Indian people and
languages, or with the nature of the process often called Aryanization of the
South (I prefer the word Indianization, used in this context by an
archaeologist[13]). Those
complex questions have been debated for decades, and will only reach firm
conclusions, I believe, with ampler archaeological evidence.
 Map of some settlements of archelogical importance in Tamil Nadu
Vedic & Puranic Culture Material Evidence
Culturally, the megalithic people of the South shared many beliefs and practices with megalithic builders elsewhere in the subcontinent and beyond. Yet certain practices and artefacts were at least compatible with the Vedic world and may well have prepared for a ready acceptance of Vedic concepts a natural assimilative process still observable in what has been called the Hinduization of tribals. Thus several cists surrounded by stone-circles have four vertical slabs arranged in the shape of a swastika.[14] The famous 3.5 metre-high figure of Mottur (in North Arcot district), carved out of a granite slab, is perhaps the first anthropomorphic representation of a god in stone in Tamil Nadu. [15] Some megalithic burials have yielded iron or bronze objects such as mother goddess, horned masks, the trishul etc. As the archaeologist I. K. Sarma observes, such objects are
intimately connected with the worship of
brahmanical Gods of the historical period, such as Siva, Kartikeya and later
Amba. The diadems of Adichanallur burials are like the mouth-pieces used by
the devotees of Murugan.[ 16]
The archaeologist K. V. Raman also notes :
Some form of Mother-Goddess worship was
prevalent in the Megalithic period ... as suggested by the discovery of a
small copper image of a Goddess in the urn-burials of Adichchanallur. More
recently, in Megalithic burials the headstone, shaped like the seated Mother,
has been located at two places in Tamil Nadu.[17]
Megalithic culture attached great
importance to the cult of the dead and ancestors, which parallels that in
Vedic culture. It is also likely that certain gods later absorbed into the
Hindu pantheon, such as Aiyanar (or Sastha), Murugan (the later Kartik),
Korravai (Durga), Naga deities, etc., were originally tribal gods of that
period. Though probably of later date, certain megalithic sites in the
Nilgiris were actually dolmen shrines, some of them holding Ganesh-like
images, others lingams.[ 18] Megalithic practices
evocative of later Hinduism are thus summarized by the British archaeologists
Bridget and Raymond Allchin :
The orientation of port-holes and entrances
on the cist graves is frequently towards the south. ... This demands comparison
with later Indian tradition where south is the quarter of Yama. Among the
grave goods, iron is almost universal, and the occasional iron spears and
tridents (trisulas) suggest an association with the god Siva. The
discovery in one grave of a trident with a wrought-iron buffalo fixed to the
shaft is likewise suggestive, for the buffalo is also associated with Yama,
and the buffalo demon was slain by the goddess Durga, consort of Siva,
with a trident. ... The picture which we obtain from this evidence, slight as
it is, is suggestive of some form of worship of Siva.[ 19]
About the third century BC, cities and
towns appear owing to yet little understood factors ; exchanges with the
Mauryan and Roman empires seem to have played an important catalytic role, as
also the advent of iron. From the very beginning, Buddhist, Jain and Hindu[*] streaks are all clear.
Among the earliest evidences, a
stratigraphic dig by I. K. Sarma within the garbagriha of the
Parasuramesvara temple at Gudimallam,[*] brought to light the
foundation of a remarkable Shivalingam of the Mauryan period (possibly third
century BC) : it was fixed within two circular pithas at the centre of
a square vastu-mandala. The deity on the frontal face of the
tall linga reveals himself as a proto-puranic Agni-Rudra [20] standing on a kneeling devayana.
If this early date, which Sarma established on stratigraphic grounds and from
pottery sherds, is correct, this fearsome image could well be the earliest
such representation in the South.
Then we find terracotta figures like Mother
Goddess, Naga-linga etc., from Tirukkampuliyur ; a seated Ganesa from
Alagarai ; Vriskshadevata and Mother Goddess from Kaveripakkam and
Kanchipuram, in almost certainly a pre-Pallava sequence. [21] Cult of a Mother
goddess is also noticed in the early levels at Uraiyur,[22] and at Kaveripattinam,
Kanchipuram and Arikamedu.[ 23] Excavations at
Kaveripattinam have brought to light many Buddhist artefacts, but also,
though of later date, a few figurines of Yakshas, of Garuda and Ganesh.[24] Evidence of the Yaksha
cult also comes from pottery inscriptions at Arikamedu.[25]
The same site also yielded one square
copper coin of the early Cholas, depicting on the obverse an elephant, a
ritual umbrella, the Srivatsa symbol, and the front portion of a horse.[ 26] This is in fact an
important theme which recurs on many coins of the Sangam age[27] recovered mostly from
river beds near Karur, Madurai etc. Besides the Srivatsa (also found among
artefacts at Kanchipuram[28]), many coins depict a
swastika, a trishul, a conch, a shadarachakra, a damaru, a
crescent moon, and a sun with four, eight or twelve rays. Quite a few coins
clearly show a yagnakunda. That is mostly the case with the Pandyas
coins, some of which also portray a yubastambha to which a horse is
tied as part of the ashvamedha sacrifice. As the numismatist R. Krishnamurthy
puts it, The importance of Pandya coins of Vedic sacrifice series lies in the
fact that these coins corroborate what we know from Sangam literature about
the performance of Vedic sacrifices by a Pandya king of this age. [29]
Finally, it is remarkable how a single coin
often depicts symbols normally associated with Lord Vishnu (the conch, the srivatsa,
the chakra) together with symbols normally associated with Lord Shiva (the
trishul, the crescent moon, the damaru).[30] Clearly, the two sects
a very clumsy word got along well enough. Interestingly, other symbols
depicted on these coins, such as the three- or six-arched hill, the
tree-in-railing, and the ritual stand in front of a horse, are frequently
found in Mauryan iconography.[31]
All in all, the material evidence, though
still meagre, makes it clear that Hindu concepts and cults were already
integrated in the society of the early historic period of Tamil Nadu side by
side with Buddhist and Jain elements. More excavations, for which there is
great scope, are certain to confirm this, especially if they concentrate on
ancient places of worship, as at Gudimallam. Let us now see the picture we
get from Sangam literature.
Vedic & Puranic Culture Literary Evidence
It is unfortunate that the most ancient Sangam compositions are probably lost for ever ; we only know of them through brief quotations in later works. An early text, the Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam, dated by most scholars to the first or second century AD,[*] is said to have been modelled on the Sanskrit grammar of the Aindra school. [32] Its content, says N. Raghunathan, shows that the great literature of Sanskrit and the work of its grammarians and rhetoricians were well known and provided stimulus to creative writers in Tamil.... The Tolkappiyam adopts the entire Rasa theory as worked out in the Natya Sastra of Bharata. [33] It also refers to rituals and customs coming from the Aryans, a word which in Sangam literature simply means North Indians of Vedic culture ; for instance, the Tolkappiyam states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas, [ 34] and it uses the same eight forms of marriage found in the Dharmashastras. Moreover, it mentions the caste system or fourfold jathis in the form of Brahmins, Kings, Vaishyas and Vellalas, [35] and calls Vedic mantras the exalted expression of great sages. [36]
The Tolkappiyam also formulates the
captivating division of the Tamil land into five regions (tinai ),
each associated with one particular aspect of love, one poetical expression,
and also one deity : thus the hills (kuriꩼ/i> ) with union and with
Cheyon (Murugan) ; the desert (palai ) with separation and Korravai (Durga) ;
the forests (mullai ) with awaiting and Mayon (Vishnu-Krishna) ; the seashore
(neytal ) with wailing and Varuna ; and the cultivated lands (marutam) with
quarrel and Ventan (Indra). Thus from the beginning we have a fusion of
non-Vedic deities (Murugan or Korravai), Vedic gods (Indra, Varuna) and later
Puranic deities such as Vishnu (Mal or Tirumal). Such a synthesis is quite
typical of the Hindu temperament and cannot be the result of an overnight or
superficial influence ; it is also as remote as possible from the
separateness we are told is at the root of so-called Dravidian culture.
Expectedly, this fusion grows by leaps and
bounds in classical Sangam poetry whose composers were Brahmins, princes,
merchants, farmers, including a number of women. The Eight Anthologies of
poetry (or ettuttokai ) abound in references to many gods : Shiva,
Uma, Murugan, Vishnu, Lakshmi (named Tiru, which corresponds to Sri) and
several other Saktis.[37]
The Paripadal, one of those anthologies, consists almost entirely of
devotional poetry to Vishnu. One poem[38] begins with a homage to
him and Lakshmi, and goes on to praise Garuda, Shiva on his majestic bull,
the four-faced Brahma, the twelve Adityas, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the
Saptarishis, Indra with his dreaded thunderbolt, the devas and asuras, etc.,
and makes glowing references to the Vedas and Vedic scholars.[39] So does the Purananuru,[40] another of the eight
anthologies, which in addition sees Lord Shiva as the source of the four
Vedas (166) and describes Lord Vishnu as blue-hued (174) and Garuda-bannered
(56).[41]
Similarly, a poem (360) of a third anthology, the Akananuru, declares
that Shiva and Vishnu are the greatest of gods[42]
Not only deities or scriptures, landmarks sacred
in the North, such as the Himalayas or Ganga, also become objects of great
veneration in Tamil poetry. North Indian cities are referred to, such as
Ujjain, or Mathura after which Madurai was named. Court poets proudly claim
that the Chera kings conquered North Indian kingdoms and carved their emblem
onto the Himalayas. They clearly saw the subcontinent as one entity ; thus
the Purananuru says they ruled over the whole land / With regions of hills,
mountains, / Forests and inhabited lands / Having the Southern Kumari / And
the great Northern Mount / And the Eastern and Western seas / As their
borders.... [43]
The Kural (second to seventh century
AD), authored by the celebrated Tiruvalluvar, is often described as an
atheistic text, a hasty misconception. True, Valluvar s 1,330 pithy aphorisms
mostly deal with ethics (aram), polity (porul) and love (inbam),
following the traditional Sanskritic pattern of the four objects of human
life : dharma, artha, kama, and moksha the last implied rather
than explicit. Still, the very first decade is an invocation to Bhagavan :
The ocean of births can be crossed by those who clasp God s feet, and none
else [44]
(10) ; the same idea recurs later, for instance in this profound thought :
Cling to the One who clings to nothing ; and so clinging, cease to cling
(350). The Kural also refers to Indra (25), to Vishnu s avatar of
Vamana (610), and to Lakshmi (e.g. 167), asserting that she will shower her
grace only on those who follow the path of dharma (179, 920). There is
nothing very atheistic in all this, and in reality the values of the Kural
are perfectly in tune with those found in several shastras or in the Gita.[45]
Let us briefly turn to the famous Tamil
epic Shilappadikaram (second to sixth century ad), which relates the
beautiful and tragic story of Kannagi and Kovalan ; it opens with invocations
to Chandra, Surya, and Indra, all of them Vedic Gods, and frequently praises
Agni, Varuna, Shiva, Subrahmanya, Vishnu-Krishna, Uma, Kali, Yama and so
forth. There are mentions of the four Vedas and of Vedic sacrifices being
faultlessly performed. In more than one place, writes V. Ramachandra
Dikshitar, the first translator of the epic into English, there are
references to Vedic Brahmans, their fire rites, and their chanting of the
Vedic hymns. The Brahman received much respect from the king and was often
given gifts of wealth and cattle. [46] When Kovalan and
Kannagi are married, they walk around the holy fire, a typically Vedic rite
still at the centre of the Hindu wedding. Welcomed by a tribe of fierce
hunters on their way to Madurai, they witness a striking apparition of Durga,
who is addressed equally as Lakshmi and Sarasvati the three Shaktis of the
Hindu trinity. There are numerous references to legends from the Mahabharata,
the Ramayana, and the Puranas. After worshipping at two temples, one of
Vishnu and the other of Shiva, the Chera king Shenguttuvan goes to the
Himalayas in search of a stone for Kannagi s idol, and bathes it in the
Ganges in fact, the waters of Ganga and those of Cauvery were said to be
equally sacred. Similar examples could be given from the Manimekhalai
: even though it is a predominantly Buddhist work, it also mentions many
Vedic and Puranic gods, and attributes the submergence of Puhar to the
neglect of a festival to Indra.
As the archaeologist and epigraphist R.
Nagaswamy remarks, The fact that the literature of the Sangam age
refers more to Vedic sacrifices than to temples is a pointer to the
popularity of the Vedic cults among the Sangam Tamils. [47]
I should also make a mention of the
tradition that regards Agastya, the great Vedic Rishi, as the originator of
the Tamil language. He is said to have written a Tamil grammar, Agattiyam,
to have presided over the first two Sangams, and is even now honoured in many
temples of Tamil Nadu and worshipped in many homes. One of his traditional
names is Tamil muni. The Shilappadikaram refers to him as the great
sage of the Podiyil hill, and a hill is still today named after him at the
southernmost tip of the Western Ghats.
It would be tempting to continue with this
enumeration, which could easily fill a whole anthology. As a matter of fact,
P. S. Subrahmanya Sastri showed with a wealth of examples how a knowledge of
Sanskrit literature from the Vedic period to the Classical period is
essential to understand and appreciate a large number of passages scattered
among the poems of Tamil literature. [48] Others have added to
the long list of such examples.[ 49] In other words, Vedic
and Puranic themes are inextricably woven into Sangam literature and
therefore into the most ancient culture of the Tamil land known to us.
Historical Period
The historical period naturally takes us to the great Pallava, Chola and Pandya temples and to an overflowing of devotional literature by the Alwars, the Nayanmars and other seekers of the Divine who wandered over the length and breadth of the Tamil land, filling it with bhakti. But here let us just take a look at the rulers. An inscription records that a Pandya king led the elephant force in the Mahabharata War on behalf of the Pandavas, and that early Pandyas translated the epic into Tamil.[50] The first named Chera king, Udiyanjeral, is said to have sumptuously fed the armies on both sides during the War at Kurukshetra ; Chola and Pandya kings also voiced such claims of course they may be devoid of historical basis, but they show how those kings sought to enhance their glory by connecting their lineage to heroes of the Mahabharata. So too, Chola and Chera kings proudly claimed descent from Lord Rama or from kings of the Lunar dynasty in other words, an Aryan descent.
As regards religious practices, the
greatest Chola king, Karikala, was a patron of both the Vedic religion and
Tamil literature, while the Pandya king Nedunjelyan performed many Vedic
sacrifices, and the dynasty of the Pallavas made their capital Kanchi into a
great centre of Sanskrit learning and culture. K. V. Raman summarizes the
religious inheritance of the Pandyas in these words :
The Pandyan kings were great champions of
the Vedic religion from very early times.... According to the Sinnamanur
plates, one of the early Pandyan kings performed a thousand velvi or
yagas Vedic sacrifices.... Though the majority of the Pandyan kings were
Saivites, they extended equal patronage to the other faiths ... and included
invocatory verses to the Hindu Trinity uniformly in all their copper-plate
grants. The Pandyas patronised all the six systems or schools of Hinduism....
Their religion was not one of narrow sectarian nature but broad-based with
Vedic roots. They were free from linguistic or regional bias and took pride
in saying that they considered Tamil and Sanskritic studies as complementary
and equally valuable.[51]
This pluralism can already be seen in the
two epics Shilappadikaram and Manimekhalai, which amply testify
that what we call today Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism coexisted
harmoniously. The sectarian spirit was totally absent, [52] writes Ramachandra
Dikshitar. Either the people did not look upon religious distinctions
seriously, or there were no fundamental differences between one sect and
another. [53]
That is also a
reason why I have not stressed Buddhism and Jainism here. Those two faiths
were no doubt significant in the early stages of Tamil society, but not as
dominant as certain scholars insist upon in an attempt to eclipse the Vedic
and Puranic elements. Buddhism and Jainism did contribute greatly in terms of
religious thought, art and science, but faded centuries later under the flood
of Hindu bhakti ; their insistence on world-shunning monasticism also did not
agree very well with the Tamil temperament, its cult of heroism and its zest
for life.
In any case, this superficial glance at
Sangam literature makes it clear at the very least that, in the words of John
R. Marr, these poems show that the synthesis between Tamil culture and what
may loosely be termed Aryan culture was already far advanced.[ 54] Nilakanta Sastri goes
a step further and opines, There does not exist a single line of Tamil
literature written before the Tamils came into contact with, and let us add accepted
with genuine appreciation, the Indo-Aryan culture of North Indian origin.
[55]
The Myth of Dravidian Culture
And yet, such statements do not go deep enough, as they still imply a North-South contrast and an unknown Dravidian substratum over which the layer of Aryan culture was deposited. This view is only milder than that of the proponents of a separate and secular Dravidian culture, who insist on a physical and cultural Aryan-Dravidian clash as a result of which the pure Dravidian culture got swamped. As we have seen, archaeology, literature and Tamil tradition all fail to come up with the slightest hint of such a conflict. Rather, as far as the eye can see into the past there is every sign of a deep cultural interaction between North and South, which blossomed not through any imposition but in a natural and peaceful manner, as everywhere else in the subcontinent and beyond.
As regards an imaginary Dravidian
secularism (another quite inept word to use in the Indian context), it has
been posited by many scholars : Marr,[56] Zvelebil[57] and others characterize
Sangam poetry as secular and pre-Aryan [58] after severing its
heroic or love themes from its strong spiritual undercurrents, in a feat
typical of Western scholarship whose scrutiny always depends more on the
magnifying glass than on the wide-angle lens. A far more insightful view
comes from the historian M. G. S. Narayanan, who finds in Sangam literature
no trace of another, indigenous, culture other than what may be designated as
tribal and primitive. [ 59]
He concludes :
The Aryan-Dravidian or Aryan-Tamil
dichotomy envisaged by some scholars may have to be given up since we are
unable to come across anything which could be designated as purely Aryan or
purely Dravidian in the character of South India of the Sangam Age. In view
of this, the Sangam culture has to be looked upon as expressing in a local
idiom all the essential features of classical Hindu culture.[ 60]
However, it is not as if the Tamil land
passively received this culture : in exchange it generously gave elements
from its own rich temperament and spirit. In fact, all four Southern States
massively added to every genre of Sanskrit literature, not to speak of the
signal contributions of a Shankara, a Ramanuja or a Madhwa. Cultural kinship
does not mean that there is nothing distinctive about South Indian tradition
; the Tamil land can justly be proud of its ancient language, culture and
genius, which have a strong stamp and character of their own, as anyone who
browses through Sangam texts can immediately see : for all the mentions of
gods, more often than not they just provide a backdrop ; what occupies the
mind of the poets is the human side, its heroism or delicate emotions, its
bouncy vitality, refined sensualism or its sweet love of Nature. Vivid pictures
of full-blooded life exhibiting itself in all its varied moods, as
Raghunathan puts it. One cannot but be impressed by the extraordinary
vitality, variety and richness of the poetic achievement of the old Tamil. [61] Ganapathy Subbiah adds,
The aesthetic quality of many of the poems is breathtakingly refined. [62] It is true also that
the Tamil language developed its own literature along certain independent
lines ; conventions of poetry, for instance, are strikingly original and more
often than not different from those of Sanskrit literature.
More importantly, many scholars suggest
that the bhakti movement began in the Tamil country and later spread to North
India. [63]
Subbiah, in a profound study, not only challenges the misconceived secular
portrayal of the Sangam texts, but also the attribution of the Tamil bhakti
to a northern origin ; rather, he suggests, it was distinctly a creation of
Tamil culture, and Sangam literature a reflection of the religious culture of
the Tamils. [64]
As regards the fundamental contributions of
the South to temple architecture, music, dance and to the spread of Hindu
culture to other South Asian countries, they are too well known to be
repeated here. Besides, the region played a crucial role in preserving many
important Sanskrit texts (a few Vedic recensions, Bhasa s dramas, the Arthashastra
for instance) better than the North was able to do, and even today some of
India s best Vedic scholars are found in Tamil Nadu and Kerala.[*] As Swami Vivekananda put
it, The South had been the repository of Vedic learning. [65]
In other words, what is loosely called
Hinduism would not be what it is without the South. To use the proverbial but
apt image, the outflow from the Tamil land was a major tributary to the great
river of Indian culture.
Conclusion
It should now be crystal clear that anyone claiming a separate, pre-Aryan or secular Dravidian culture has no evidence to show for it, except his own ignorance of archaeology, numismatics and ancient Tamil literature. Not only was there never such a culture, there is in fact no meaning in the word Dravidian except either in the old geographical sense or in the modern linguistic sense ; racial and cultural meanings are as unscientific as they are irrational, although some scholars in India remain obstinately rooted in a colonial mindset.
The simple reality is that every region of
India has developed according to its own genius, creating in its own bent,
but while remaining faithful to the central Indian spirit. The Tamil land was
certainly one of the most creative, and we must hope to see more of its
generosity once warped notions about its ancient culture are out of the way.
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