17. Kingdoms in Deep South: Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas

The Megalith Background

• The megaliths are found in all upland areas of the peninsula, but their concentration seems to be in eastern AP and in Tamil Nadu.
• The Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas mentioned in Asokan inscriptions were probably in megalith phase of material culture.
• The megalith people in Tamil Nadu were different than the rest as they buried the skeletons of the dead in urns made of red pottery in pits.
• In many cases these pits were not surrounded by stone circles and grave goods were not too many.
• Although they produced ragi and rice but in a limited area only and generally didn't settle on the plains or the low lands.
• By the beginning of the Christian era, these people moved from the uplands into fertile river basins and reclaimed marshy deltaic areas.
• Under the stimulus of contact with the elements of material culture brought from the north they came to practice paddy cultivation, founded numerous villages and towns and came to have social classes.
• All this lead to rise of state systems in deep south whose history can be constructed from Greek and Roman accounts and by archaeology from the first century A.D.

 

Three Early Kingdoms

• The southern end of the Indian peninsula situated south of the Krishna river was divided into three kingdoms- Chola, Pandya and Chera or Kerala and all are mentioned in Asokan inscriptions in 3rd century B.C.
• The Pandya occupied the southernmost and south-eastern portion of Indian peninsula and included todays districts of Tinnevelly, Ramnad and Madurai (Tamil for Mathura).
• The Pandya kings profited from the trade with the Roman empire and sent embassies to Roman emperor Augustus.
• The Brahamanas enjoyed considerable influence and the Pandya kings performed Vedic sacrifices in early centuries of Christian era. And their society was matriarchal.
• The Chola kingdom was called Cholamandalam or Coromandal situated northeast of the territory of the Pandyas between the Pennar and Velur rivers.
• Their main history begins in 2nd century A.D., when their king Karikala founded Puhar(Kaveripattanam), the Chola capital and constructed 160 km of embankment along the Kaveri river.
• One of the main source of wealth for the Chola people was the trade in cotton cloth as they maintained efficient navy which sailed upto the mouth of Ganga and the Iravadi and later to Malaya archipelago too.
• Under Karikala successors the Chola power declined, as they were defeated by the Cheras and Pandyas and later almost wiped out by Pallavas from the north.
• The Chera or the Kerala country was situated to the west and north of the Pandyas and they traded with Romans who set up two regiments at Muziris (todays Cranganore) in Chera country to protect their interests.
• The greatest Chera king was Senguttuvan, the Red Chera but after 2nd century A.D. Their power declined.
• They grew spices, especially pepper, which was in great demand in western world and their elephants supplied ivory, their seas yielded pearls and mines produced precious stones.
• As a result of trade the words for rice, ginger, cinnamon and several other articles were derived from Tamil language.
• For the first two and a half centuries A.D., these kingdoms carried on lucrative trade with the Romans but with the decline of this trade, these kingdoms also began to decay.

The Purse and the Sword

• There were custom officials in Puhar and transit duties were collected from merchants who moved their goods from place to place. Spoils of war added to the royal income.
• The land produced paddy, ragi, sugarcane, fruits, pepper and turmeric and king had a share in all this produce.
• Apparently out of the taxes collected from the peasantry the state maintained a regular army which consisted of oxen, elephants, infantry and cavalry.

 

Rise of Social Classes

• Taxes enabled the king not only to maintain a professional army but also to pay the poets and priests, who were mainly brahamanas, who first appeared in Sangam age.
• The kshatriyas and vaisyas do not appear as regular varnas in Sangam texts but there was a warrior class.
• Captains of the army were invested with the title of enadi at a formal ceremony. Civil and military offices were held by vallalas or rich peasants.
• The ruling caste were called the arasar and its members had marriage relations with the vallalas, who consisted the fourth caste.
• Vallalas held the bulk of the land but divided into rich and poor. Agricultural operations were generally carried out by women of the lowest class called kadaisiyar, slightly different from the slave.
• Besides agricultural labourers, there were low class artisans, to this category belonged the pulaiyans, who made rope charpaiys and used animal skin as mats.
• There were sharp social inequalities in the age of Sangam. The rich lived in the houses of brick and mortar and the poor in huts and humbler structures.

 

Beginning of Brahmanism

• The state and society that were formed in the Tamil land in the early century of Christian era developed under the impact of brahmanism.
• But the brahmanical influence was confined to only a small part of Tamil territory and only to the upper levels of the Tamil society in that area.
• The kings performed the Vedic sacrifices. But the chief local god worshipped by the people was Murugan, also called Subramaniya, though Vishnu was also worshipped.
• The megalith practice of providing for the dead continued and people offered paddy to the dead.
• Cremation was introduced but inhumation followed in the megalith phase was not abandoned.

 

Tamil Language and Sangam Literarture

• The sangam was a college or assembly of Tamil poets held probably under royal patronage in Madurai.
• The available sangam literature produced by these assemblies was compiled in circa A.D. 300-600.
• More than 75 short inscriptions in the Brahmi script have been found in natural caves, mainly in Madurai region providing the specimen for earliest form of Tamil mixed with Prakrit words.