The Colas c12.2

c12.2

In the present state of our knowledge it is not possible for us to view the political events of the Śaṅgam age as a connected whole and study them in their sequence. They pass before us in kaleidoscopic confusion, more or less the same accidental results of the ambitions and fears, the hopes and blunders of kings and chieftains that they must have appeared to their contemporaries. We totally miss the mutual connection and the perspective in which it is the task of history to set the events of the past. What we lack in this direction seems, however, to be more than made good in another. There is no age without its peculiar background of social and cultural ideas and ideals, a kind of communal psychology which possesses men's minds and to a large extent supports their institutions and determines their actions. Of this psychological background, the literature of the Śaṅgam gives us an unusually complete and true picture.