South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c6.3

c6.3

The Dravidian people who have been in possession of the Deccan for centuries previous to the Christian era are supposed to be the representatives of the Pre-Aryan races who were in possession of the tract south of the Vindhya mountains before the Aryan migration and probably belonged to the Turanian group who occupied Southern and Eastern Persia in ancient times, and who either by sea or by land passed to the Western shores of India.² Whatever may be the origin of the Dravidian races it is beyond doubt that the two divisions of the country indicated by the Vindhya ranges were occupied by people essentially different in blood and temperament. This is also evidenced by the language and physical peculiarities of the two races and the literature and the character of their religious worship. Yet the civilization that we meet with in South India to-day is essentially Aryan in its general features and there is no record whatsoever, except now and then in minor social practices, mythological details and the non-Sanskrit Tamil literature, of the civilization which existed there before South India was Aryanised. The Tamil kingdoms of Chera, Chola and Pandya which existed as early as 1000 B.C. had attained a considerable degree of civilization independent of Aryan influences, and the genius of this Dravidian civilization and its literature was utterly distinct from that of Sanskrit. The Dravidian tribes were gradually brought to know and accept the Aryan civilization, (chiefly by the influence of Brahmin pilgrims or adventurers who travelled southward), and to adopt their religion, polity and arts. The first Aryan missionary to the South was the great sage Agastya whose advent to the South has added a new chapter to the history of Dravidian civilization, the customs, beliefs and institutions of which were either recast or adapted gradually on the model of the Aryans. "In the centuries of either side of 750 B.C. the Aryans began to penetrate into the *mahā kāntāra* (the great forests) round about the Vindhyās, the memory of which is preserved in the tradition regarding Agastya’s advent into the South. The forest is supposed to have extended up to Pampa Sarobar near modern Hampe. The advent of Agastya introduces reclamation of the jungles into arable land. Agastya is also the reputed author of the first Tamil Grammar. Whoever this Agastya was, *Rishi* or some one else by that name, he does for Tamil what Panini did for Sanskrit."