History of the Pallavas of Kanchi c5.13.3

c5.13.3

Whether the Śaṅgam actually existed or no, the existence of something like a Śaṅgam and of a body of literature known as Śaṅgam literature came to be an accepted article of faith among the Tamils at the commencement of the seventh century A.D. among the Tevāram hymners like Appar and Sambandar. For a tradition like that to grow and for a body of literature to get thus distinctly classified, we do require a certain efflux of time, and that could not be less than half a dozen generations or more, and thus the indication seems to be that the period of the Śaṅgam literature will have to be referred to a time anterior to the advent of the Pallavas of the Sanskrit charters into the region of Kanchi. A Chola interregnum associated with the name of Karikāla in the generations immediately preceding Kumāraviṣṇu II seems impossible of justification.