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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12: Chapter VII. The Age of the Śaṅgam and After

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12

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Chapter VII. The Age of the Śaṅgam and After

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Kalinga and the Tamil states—Śangam literature—its age—The Cheras—Āy and Pāri—Adigaimān Anji—The Cholas, Karikāla—Ilandiraiyan—The Pāndyas—Neduñjeliyan of Talaiyālangānam—his ancestors—civil war in the Chola kingdom—end of the Śangam age, political changes.

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Social life—composite culture—land—people—monarchy—sabhā and manram—revenue—army—war—royal patronage of arts and letters—poetry, music and dance—pastimes—houses—popular beliefs and customs—trade, foreign, and internal—religion and ethics—dark age after the Śangam, Kalabhras.

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THE inscription of Khāravela briefly mentioned in an earlier chapter contains the only early epigraphic reference to the kingdoms of the Tamil country after the Aśoka inscriptions. Khāravela ruled in Kalinga in the first half of the second century B.C., and in the eleventh year of his reign (c. 165 B.C.) is said to have destroyed a confederacy of Tamil states—Tramiradeśasanghātam—which was 113 years old at the time, and had long been a source of danger. The same inscription records that Khāravela caused ‘numerous pearls in hundreds’ to be brought from the Pāndya to Kalinga, and perhaps also horses, elephants, jewels and rubies. In itself a difficult document, the gaps in the inscription and its extremely worn-out condition render its meaning very uncertain. Of the Tamil confederacy and its aims, of how it became a danger to Kalinga, and of the measures taken by Khāravela to avert the danger and the new relations he established with the Pāndyan kings we hear nothing more from any other source.

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The first well-lighted epoch in the history of the Tamil land is that reflected in the literature of Śangam (i.e. the first three or four centuries A.D.)—the earliest stratum of Tamil literature now available. This is found grouped in eight more or less schematic anthologies, viz., (1) Narriṇai, (2) Kurundogai, (3) Aingurunūru, (4) Padirruppattu, (5) Paripādal, (6) Kalittogai, (7) Ahanānūru and (8) Puranānūru; a ninth group Pattuppāttu (‘Ten Idylls’) completes the tale. The entire collection includes 2,279 poems of lengths varying from four or five lines to over eight hundred, by 473 poets (including some women) besides 102 anonymous pieces. At the end of each poem are notes giving the name of its author, the occasion of its composition and other details. These notes, probably the work of the editors, must be taken generally to represent a correct tradition though there are difficulties about doing so.

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The *Tolkāppiyam*, a comprehensive work on Tamil grammar, is also of the same age.

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Doubtless what has survived is only a part of the much vaster literature of these remote times. An inscription of the early tenth century A.D. mentions among the achievements of the early Pāndyas the translation of the *Mahābhārata* into Tamil and the establishment of a Sangam at Madura. This translation has been lost, though poems composed by *Perundēvanār* who sang the *Bhāratam* form the invocations placed at the beginning of six out of the eight anthologies named above. Parts of a Tamil *Bhāratam* by a Perundēvanār have come down to us, but the author was a contemporary of Nandivarman III Pallava (ninth century A.D.) and probably different from his namesake of the Sangam anthologies.

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That a college (Sangam) of Tamil poets flourished for a time under royal patronage in Madura may well be a fact. But the earliest account of it, which occurs in the introduction to the commentary on the *Iraiyanār Agapporul* (c. A.D. 750), is enveloped in legend. It refers to three Sangams which lasted, at long intervals, for 9,990 years all together and counted 8,598 poets (including a few gods of the Śaiva persuasion) as members, and 197 Pāndyan kings as patrons. Some of the names of the kings and poets—such as Kadungōn and Ugrapperuvaludi—are found in inscriptions and other authentic records, showing that some facts have got mixed up with much fiction, so that no conclusions of value can be based on it.

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A careful study of the synchronisms between the kings, chieftains and poets suggested by the notes at the end of the poems indicates that this body of literature reflects occurrences within a period of four or five continuous generations at the most, say a period of 120 or 150 years. It is only for the Chera line of rulers that we can construct anything like a continuous genealogy, and this shows the existence of two lines of rulers, either connected by marriage or otherwise, each extending over three or four generations at the most. In all other instances we only have unrelated names which render a regular history of the period impossible. We must therefore rest content with the outstanding figures and their achievements reported by the poets.

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The land was divided among the three ‘crowned kings’ of the Chera, Chola and Pāndya lines, and a number of minor chieftains who according to the political conditions of the time either owned allegiance to or fought for one or other of these monarchs, or else led an independent existence. Seven of these chieftains gained particular recognition from the poets for their liberal patronage of literature and the arts and were described as *vallals* (patrons).

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We have seen that the language of the short Brāhmi inscriptions of the third century B.C. was Tamil, still in its formative stages, with an admixture of words of clearly Sanskritic origin. In the poems of the Śangam anthologies, the Tamil language has reached maturity and begun to serve as a powerful and elegant medium of literary expression, and has already received and assimilated many words and ideas from Sanskrit sources. It also reflects the existence of a fairly elaborate code of conventions governing the portrayal of social life in literature. This must clearly have been the result of a long course of development spread over some generations.

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Another indication of the date of this literature is furnished by the synchronism of Gajabāhu I of Ceylon with Śenguṭṭuvan, one of the Chera monarchs celebrated in the *Padiṟṟuppattu*, the anthology exclusively devoted to the Cheras. The date of Gajabāhu’s reign has been fixed at about 173-95, and this may well be the period when Śenguṭṭuvan flourished. On this basis, the Śangam age may be taken to have extended from say A.D. 100 to 250.

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But this synchronism is found not in any of the Śangam anthologies, but in the *Śilappadikāram* which presents with great literary charm the popular legend of Kōvalan and Kaṇṇagi, and relates the institution of the Kaṇṇagi cult in South India and Ceylon. In its present form this work cannot be placed earlier than the fifth century; but considering the quasi-religious nature of the story and the institution of the cult, it is not unlikely that the legend preserved the memory of a historically correct synchronism.

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The third and strongest line of argument in support of this suggested chronology for the Śangam is to be found in the striking correspondence between the evidence of the poems on the trade and other relations of the Tamil states with the Yavanas (Greeks and Romans) in this period and that of the classical writers on the same subject, particularly Strabo, the anonymous author of the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea*, Pliny, and Ptolemy. The details are set forth later in the chapter, and they show beyond a shadow of doubt that this stratum of Tamil literature must have belonged to the age of the classical writers mentioned above.

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Archaeology confirms the evidence of literature. The numerous discoveries throughout South India of gold and silver coins of the Roman emperors of the first two centuries A.D. and the evidence recently unearthed of the presence of a ‘ Roman factory ’ in the neighbourhood of Pondicherry in the first century go far to confirm the correctness of the date suggested for the Śangam age.

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We may now set forth the salient facts of the politics of the period before proceeding to give an account of its social life. The monarchies of the Cheras, Cholas and Pāndyas were believed, at least in subsequent ages, to be of immemorial antiquity; and the poems of the Śangam attest the anxiety of all of them to connect themselves with the events of the Great War between the Kauravas and the Pāndavas. The first Chera monarch we hear of, Udiyan-jēral (c. A.D. 130) is said to have fed sumptuously both the armies of Kurukshetra, and thereby earned for himself the title ‘ Udiyan-jēral of the great feeding ’. Perhaps it is best to look upon this as a conventional attribution to him of an achievement of some remote ancestor. The same honour is also claimed in other poems for the Pāndyas and Cholas.

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The son of Udiyanjēral was Nedunjēral Ādan who won a naval victory against some local enemy on the Malabar coast, and took captive several Yavana traders whom for some time he subjected to harsh treatment, for reasons that are not clear, but subsequently released after obtaining a heavy ransom. He is said to have fought many wars and spent many years in camp with his armies. He won victories against seven crowned kings, and thus reached the superior rank of an adhirāja. He was called Imayavaramban —‘ He who had the Himālaya for his boundary ’—a title explained by the claim that he conquered all India and carved the Chera emblem of the bow on the face of the great mountain—an instance of poetic exaggeration not uncommon in these poems. His capital is called Marandai. He fought a war with the contemporary Chola king in which both the monarchs lost their lives and their queens performed sati.

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Ādan’s younger brother was ‘ Kuṭṭuvan of many elephants ’ who conquered Kongu and apparently extended the Chera power from the western to the eastern sea for a time. Ādan had two sons by different queens. One of them was known as ‘the Chera with the kaḷangāy festoon and the fibre crown’; the crown he wore at his coronation is said to have been made of palmyra fibre and the festoon on it contained kaḷangāy, a small black berry. It was not altogether to be despised for the crown had a golden frame and festoons of precious pearls; but why the king had to wear such an extraordinary tiara is not explained anywhere. He is said to have won successes against the contemporary Adigaimān chieftain Anji of Tagaḍūr and to have led an expedition against Nannan whose territory lay to the north of Malabar, in the Tulu country. He too was an adhirāja wearing a garland of seven crowns.

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The other son of Ādan was Śenguṭṭuvan, ‘the Righteous Kuṭṭuva’ (c. 180), celebrated in song by Paraṇar, one of the most famous and longest-lived of the poets of the Śangam age. Śenguṭṭuvan’s life and achievements have been embellished by legends of a later time of which there are no traces in the two strictly contemporary poems, both by Paraṇar—the decad on the king in the ‘Ten Tens’, and a song in the Puranāṉūṟu. The only martial achievement they celebrate is a victorious war against the chieftain of Mōhūr. Paraṇar also says that Śenguṭṭuvan exerted himself greatly on the sea, but gives no details. He was given a title for driving back the sea, and this is taken to mean that he destroyed the efficiency of the sea as a protection to his enemies who relied on it. If this is correct he must have maintained a fleet. For the rest, we only learn that he was a skilled rider on horse and elephant, wore a garland of seven crowns as adhirāja, and was adept in besieging fortresses, besides being a great warrior and a liberal patron of the arts.

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The epilogue to the decad adds a number of new particulars, the most important bearing on the establishment of the Pattini cult, i.e., the worship of Kaṇṇagi as the ideal wife. Others refer to an attack on Viyalur in Nannan’s country (perhaps to suppress a rebellion), the overthrow of the fortress of Koḍukūr in the Kongu country, and intervention in a Chola war of succession resulting in that throne being secured to one prince at the cost of the lives of nine others. The stone for making the image of Pattini, the Divine Chaste Wife, was obtained after a fight with an Aryan chieftain and bathed in the Ganges before being brought to the Chera country. All these events are narrated with numerous embellishments and in epic detail in the Śilappadikāram, though whether this poem derives from the epilogue to the decad, or the epilogue from the epic, is more than we can say. The antiquity and popularity of the story of Kaṇṇagi and Kōvalan and the probable existence of other and earlier versions of the Kaṇṇagi saga which preceded the Śilappadikāram are fairly well attested, and it is not unlikely that Śenguṭṭuvan took the lead in organizing the cult of Pattini, and was supported in his effort by the contemporary rulers of the Pāndya and Chola countries and of Ceylon as the Śilappadikāram says.

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All together five monarchs of the line of Udiyanjēral belonging to three generations are mentioned in the Padirruppattu. The number of years they are said to have ruled totals 201, while another three monarchs of the collateral line are said to have reigned for a further 58 years in all. Their reigns surely cannot have been successive, and we must therefore postulate a very considerable degree of overlapping. The Chera kingdom must have been a sort of family estate in which all the grown-up males had a share and interest—what Kautilya calls a kula-sangha, a family group, and considers a very efficient form of state organization. A similar clan-rule might also have prevailed in the Chola and Pāndya kingdoms in this period. Such an assumption for the Cholas would be the best means of explaining Śenguṭṭuvan's interference in a war of succession in which nine Chola princes lost their lives; it would also furnish a natural explanation for the occurrence in the Sangam poems of so many royal names, all to be accommodated within four or five generations.

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The heroes of the last three decads of the ‘Ten Tens’ and their ancestors must be taken to have ruled contemporaneously with the kings of the house of Udiyanjēral. The first to be heard of among them are Anduvan and his son Śelvakkaḍungō Vāḷi Ādan, both praised by the poets in general terms for their valour and liberality; the father is said to have been a well-read scholar and the son performed many Vedic sacrifices. Famous among the minor chieftains who were their contemporaries were Āy and Pāri, both celebrated in several poems by a number of poets. Āy was the patron of a brahmin poet from Uṛaiyūr, and Pāri befriended and patronized another brahmin, Kapilar, who repaired to the Chera court only after Pāri's death. There he was welcomed by Anduvan's son whom he praised in the seventh decad of the ‘Ten Tens’.

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Āy was one of the many vēl chieftains ruling in several parts of the Tamil country. The vēls claimed to have issued from the sacrificial fire-pit of a northern sage and cherished other legends of their connexion with Vishnu and Agastya, and of one of their ancestors having shot down a tiger which was about to attack a sage in the midst of his penance—legends very similar to those of the Hoysalas in later times. The country he ruled lay round about the Podiya hill, the southernmost section of the Western Ghats; and the Greek geographer Ptolemy says that one ‘Aioi’ was ruling in the country which included Cape Comorin and mount Bettigo. Āy seems to have been a dynastic name borne by all the kings of the line as a prefix to their personal names. The patron of the brahmin poet of Uraiyūr was also called Aṇḍiran, a Sanskrit word meaning hero. His country is described as fertile and teeming with elephants which he presented liberally to his favourites. He is said to have presented the God Śiva with a cloth of very fine texture given to him by a nāga chieftain Nīla.

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Aṇḍiran seems to have been a man of peace; while the excellence of his country and his liberality form the theme of a large number of poems, there is only one casual reference to his success in the battle-field when he is said to have once pursued the Kongar to the western sea. On his death, the poet says, Aṇḍiran was welcomed in the abode of the gods and the drum in Indra’s palace reverberated at his arrival.

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Pāri, the lifelong friend and patron of Kapilar, was another vēl chieftain also noted for heroism and generosity. His principality lay in the Pāndya country round the hillock known as Koḍungunram or Pirānmalai. The fame of Pāri’s liberality was echoed in a later age in the Śaiva saint Sundaramūrti’s lament: ‘There is no one ready to give, even if an illiberal patron is exalted in song to the level of Pāri.’ Pāri’s country is said to have comprised three hundred villages round the fortified hill at the centre. The fertility of the land, the strength of the fortress on the hill, and the ruler’s liberality are praised in many charming poems, not only by Kapilar. Kapilar stood by Pāri through thick and thin when his hillock was closely invested by the three crowned kings of the Tamil land. Kapilar’s intelligence went far to aid Pāri’s heroism in prolonging the resistance; for instance, several other poets say that Kapilar trained a large number of birds (parrots according to one) to fly out from Pāri’s beleaguered fortress into the open country behind the enemy's lines and bring in corn to feed the city and the army for several months! But the inevitable end came, and in a short poem Pāri's two daughters thus bewailed the occurrence: 'In those days we enjoyed the moonlight happily with father, and our enemies could not take our hill. Now, this day, in this bright moonlight, kings with victorious war-drums have captured the hill, and we have lost our father.' The reference to the victorious drum is ironical as Pāri was not killed in open fight but by treachery.

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After Pāri's death Kapilar took charge of his two unmarried daughters and tried without success to get them suitably married. Of what happened subsequently there are different accounts. A note at the end of one of the poems in the Puranānūru records that Kapilar, after the death of Pāri, left his daughters in the charge of brahmins and committed suicide by starvation. The tradition recorded in a Chola inscription of the eleventh century, however, is very different; it mentions only one daughter whom Kapilar had given in marriage to the Malaiyamān before the former entered the fire to attain heaven. And there exist many songs by Kapilar on Malaiyamān Tirumuḍik-Kāri of Muḷḷūr, the excellence and easy defensibility of his country, and his liberal patronage of poets and minstrels. Kapilar also states that Kāri killed in battle another chieftain called Ōri and transferred his mountain, Kollimalai, to the Cheras.

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Whatever may be the truth about the marriage of Pāri's daughter or daughters, it is certain that Kapilar neither committed suicide by starvation nor by entering fire soon after the death of his friend and patron. In fact, he repaired to the court of the Chera prince Śelvakkaḍungō Vāḷi Ādan, the son of Anduvan, because he was reputed to possess all the great qualities of Pāri. Kapilar celebrated Ādan in song and was sumptuously rewarded for his effort.

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Ādan's son was Perunjēral Irumporai (c. 190) renowned for his overthrow of the stronghold of Tagaḍūr (Dharmapuri in Salem district), the seat of the power of the Adigaimān chieftains. He is also said to have subjugated a rebellious shepherd leader named Kaḷuvuḷ and captured his fortress. He was learned, performed many sacrifices and begat heroic sons worthy of succeeding him. His wise and righteous conduct was such as to induce his purohit to renounce the things of the world and retire to a life of asceticism.

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Adigaimān, also called Neḍumān Anji, the opponent of Irumporai and lord of Tagaḍūr, was one of the ‘seven patrons’ and the supporter of the celebrated poetess Auvaiyār who has left many songs about him and some about his son Poğuṭṭeḷini. Evidently patron and poetess did not get on well at first start, for one poem gives expression to Auvaiyār's vexation at having waited a long time for a present. Soon, however, a perfect understanding grew up between them; the poetess is all praise for the hero and his achievements in the field, and undertakes a diplomatic mission to the Tondaimān on his account. On his side Anji showed his devotion by many valuable presents including a rare myrobalan fruit believed to prevent the ailments of old age and to assure longevity. According to Auvaiyār, Adigaimān was born of a family which honoured the gods by pūjā and by sacrifices, which introduced into the world the sugar-cane from heaven, and ruled the world with great ability for a very long time. Adigaimān fought with success against seven opposing princes and destroyed amongst other rebellious strongholds that of Kōvalūr. The Chera invasion of Tagaḍūr, however, is not mentioned by Auvaiyār in her poems, evidently because she did not like to advert to the misfortunes that befell her patron; the event formed the theme of a poem of later times, the Tagaḍūr Yāttirai, now known only from quotation in other works. Adigaimān was aided by the Pāndya and Chola monarchs against the Chera, but their help made no difference to the result. The war led to Adigaimān's acknowledgement of the suzerainty of the Chera on whose behalf he subsequently led an expedition against Pāḷi, the capital of Nannan, where, after inflicting great losses on Nannan's forces, he was killed in battle along with Āy Eyinan, another Chera feudatory, by the intrepid general of Nannan, known as Ñimili or Miñili. Auvaiyār laments his death without mentioning its occasion, and bewails the desolation of the days that remained to her after Adigaimān had earned his title to a hero-stone, a clear, statement that he fell on the battle-field.

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The last Chera prince mentioned in the extant portions of the ‘Ten Tens’ is Kuḍakko Iḷanjēral Irumporai (c. A.D. 190), a cousin of the victor of Tagaḍūr. He is said to have fought a battle against ‘the two big kings’ (Pāndya and Chola) and Vicci, to have captured five stone fortresses, to have defeated the big Chola who ruled at Potti and the young Paḷaiyan Māran, and to have brought to the ancient city of Vanji much booty from these campaigns.

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The mention of the Vāni river flowing near the Chera capital shows that Karuvūr was in fact Vanji. The discovery of numerous Roman coins in the neighbourhood, and Ptolemy’s statement that the inland city of Korura was the Chera capital, also point to the same conclusion. The location of Vanji has been much debated in recent years however, and some historians hold strongly, though with few tangible reasons, to the view that it is to be sought on the west coast at Tiruvanjaikkaḷam in Kerala State (Cochin).

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Another Chera prince deserving mention is ‘Sēy of the elephant look’ who had also the title Māndaranjēral Irumporai (c. A.D. 210). After one battle, he was captured by his Pāndya contemporary Neḍunjeḷiyan, victor of Talaiyālaṅgānam, but regained his freedom in time to prevent his enemies at home from deposing him.

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Among the Cholas, Karikāla (c. A.D. 190) stands out pre-eminent. He is described in a poem as the descendant of a (nameless) king who compelled the wind to serve his purposes when he sailed his ships on the wide ocean—possibly a reference to the early maritime enterprise of the Cholas. Karikāla’s father was Iḷanjēṭcenni ‘of many beautiful chariots’, a brave king and a hard fighter. Karikāla means ‘the man with the charred leg’, a reference to an accident by fire which befell the prince early in life. Other explanations for the name were invented in later times, however, and it has also been taken to be a compound word in Sanskrit meaning either ‘death to Kali’ or ‘death to (enemy) elephants’. Early in life he was deposed and imprisoned. The plucky way in which he escaped and re-established himself on the throne is well portrayed by the author of Paṭṭinappālai, a long poem on the Chola capital Kāvēri-paṭṭinam in the Paṭṭuppāṭṭu (‘Ten Idylls’). One of his early achievements was the victory in a great battle at Veṇṇi, modern Kōvil Veṇṇi, 15 miles to the east of Tanjore. This battle is referred to in many poems by different authors. Eleven rulers, vēḷir and kings, lost their drums in the field; the Pāndya and the Chera lost their glory, and the latter sustained the last disgrace that could befall a warrior—a wound on his back—and from a sense of profound shame he sat facing north, sword in hand, and starved himself to death. Veṇṇi thus marked a turning point in the career of Karikāla; his victory meant the breaking-up of a widespread confederacy that had been formed against him.

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Another important battle he fought was at Vāhaipparandalai, ‘the field of vāhai trees’, where nine minor enemy chieftains lost their umbrellas and had to submit. As a result of his victorious campaigns, says the poet of Paṭṭinappālai, ‘the numerous Oḷiyar submitted to him, the ancient Aruvāḷar carried out his behests, the Northerners lost splendour, and the Westerners were depressed; conscious of the might of his large army ready to shatter the fortresses of enemy kings, Karikāla turned his flushed look of anger against the Pāndya, whose strength gave way; the line of low herdsmen was brought to an end, and the family of Irungōvēḷ, was uprooted.’ The Aruvāḷar were the people of Aruvānād, the lower valley of the Pennār, to the north of the Kaveri delta. Karikāla is said to have prevented the migration of people from his land to other regions evidently by offering them inducements to stay.

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Karikāla’s wars thus resulted in his establishing a sort of hegemony among the ‘crowned kings’ of the Tamil country and in some extension of the territory under his direct rule. The description of Kāvēri-paṭṭinam and its foreshore, which takes up so much of the Paṭṭinappālai, gives a vivid idea of the state of industry and commerce at this time. Karikāla also promoted the reclamation and settlement of forest land, and added to the prosperity of the country by multiplying its irrigation tanks. The poems also bear evidence that the king, who was a follower of the Vedic religion, performed sacrifices and lived well, enjoying life to the full.

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In later times Karikāla became the centre of many legends found in the Śilappadikāram and in inscriptions and literary works of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They attribute to him the conquest of the whole of India up to the Himālayas and the construction with the aid of his feudatories of the flood-banks of the Kaveri. The famous scholar Naccinārkkiniyar probably follows a correct tradition when he says that Karikāla married a vēḷir girl from Nāngūr, a place celebrated in the hymns of Tirumangai Āḷvār for the heroism of its warriors. More open to suspicion is the story in the Śilappadikāram about a supposed daughter of Karikāla’s, named Ādi Mandi, and her husband, a Chera prince called Āṭṭan Atti. Earlier poems which mention their names and some of the incidents attest only the relation between Ādi Mandi and Atti, but not that between her and Karikāla, nor the Chera descent of Atti. Both husband and wife were, according to the early testimony, professional dancers—āṭṭan means dancer.

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Tondaimān Iḷandiraiyan, who ruled at Kāñchipuram, was a contemporary of Karikāla and is also celebrated by the poet of the Paṭṭinappālai in another poem in the ‘Ten Idylls’. Iḷandiraiyan is said to have been a descendant of Vishnu and belonged to the family of Tiraiyar given by the waves of the sea. There is no hint anywhere of his being related to Karikāla or of his political subordination to the Chola power. Nor is it clear whether it was to him or to some other member of his line that Avaiyār went as Adigaimān's ambassador. Iḷandiraiyan was himself a poet, and there are four extant songs by him, one of them on the importance of the personal character of the monarch in the promotion of good rule.

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The Pāndya king Neḍuñjeḷiyan distinguished by the title ‘he who won the battle at Talaiyālaṅgānam’ may be taken to have ruled about A.D. 210. This ruler was celebrated by two great poets, Māṅguḍi Marudan alias Māṅguḍi Kiḷār, and Nakkirar each contributing a poem on the monarch to the ‘Ten Idylls’ (Paṭṭuppāṭṭu) besides minor pieces in the Puṟam and Aham collections.

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From the Maduraikkāñji of Māṅguḍi Marudan and elsewhere, we learn something of three of Neḍuñjeḷiyan's predecessors on the Pāndyan throne. The first is an almost mythical figure called Neḍiyōn (‘the tall one’), whose achievements find a place in the ‘Sacred Sports’ of Śiva at Madura and among the traditions of the Pāndyas enumerated in the Veḷvikuḍi and Śinnamanūr plates. He is said to have brought the Pahruli river into existence and organized the worship of the sea. The next is Palśālai Mudukuḍumi, doubtless the same as the earliest Pāndya king named in the Veḷvikuḍi grant and about whom there are several poems. He is a more life-like figure than Neḍiyōn, and is said to have treated conquered territory harshly. He also performed many sacrifices, whence he derived his title palśālai meaning ‘of the many (sacrificial) halls’. It is not possible to say what distance in time separated these two kings from each other or from their successors. The third ruler mentioned in the Maduraikkāñji was another Neḍuñjeḷiyan, distinguished by the title ‘he who won a victory against an Aryan (i.e., North Indian) army’. The tragedy of Kovalan's death at Madura occurred in his reign, which according to the Śilappadikāram caused the king to have died of a broken heart. A short poem ascribed to this king puts learning above birth and caste.

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Neḍuñjeḷiyan of Talaiyālaṅgānam came to the throne as a youth and soon after his accession, he proved himself more than equal to a hostile combination of his two neighbouring monarchs and five minor chieftains. There exists a simple poem of great force and beauty in which the youthful monarch swears an oath of heroism and victory in the ensuing fight. Despising his tender years and hoping for an easy victory and large booty, his enemies invaded the kingdom and penetrated to the heart of it; but, nothing daunted, Neḍuñjeḷiyan readily took the field, pursued the invading forces across his frontier into the Chola country and inflicted a crushing defeat on them at Talaiyālaṅgānam, about eight miles north-west of Tiruvālūr in the Tanjore district. It was in this battle that the Chera king ‘Śey of the elephant-look’ was taken captive and thrown into a Pāṇḍyan prison. By his victory Neḍuñjeḷiyan not only made himself secure on his ancestral throne, but gained a primacy over the entire state system of the Tamil country. He also conquered the two divisions (kūṟṟam) of Miḷalai and Muttūṟu from Evvi and a vēḷir chieftain and annexed them to his kingdom. The Maduraikkāñji contains a full-length description of Madura and the Pāṇḍyan country under Neḍuñjeḷiyan’s rule. The poet gives expression to his wish that his patron should spread the benefits of his good rule all over India. He makes particular mention of the farmers and traders of a place called Muḍuveḷilai (unidentified) as among his most loyal subjects for many generations. He also refers to the battle of Ālaṅgānam, calls his patron lord of Koṟkai and the warlord of the southern Paradavar—hinting that the people of the pearl-fishery coast formed an important section of his army.

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Passing over the many contemporaries of Neḍuñjeḷiyan—Pāṇḍya and Chola princes and the poets who mention them and their achievements—we must now notice a rather protracted civil war in the Chola kingdom mentioned by Kōvūr Kiḷār and other poets. This war was between Nalaṅgiḷḷi (also called Śeṭcenni) and Neḍuṅgiḷḷi. The latter shut himself up at Āvūr which was being besieged by Māvaḷattān, the younger brother of Nalaṅgiḷḷi. In one poem Kōvūr Kiḷār says that if he claimed to be virtuous, Neḍuṅgiḷḷi should open the gates of the fort, or if he claimed to be brave he should come into the open and fight. He did neither, but caused untold misery to the people of his beleaguered city by shutting himself up in a cowardly manner. Another poem dealing with the siege of Uraiyūr by Nalaṅgiḷḷi himself, once more Neḍuṅgiḷḷi being the besieged, is more considerate and impartial; it is addressed to both princes and exhorts them to stop the destructive war, as whoever loses would be a Chola, and a war to the finish must necessarily end in the defeat of one party. A third poem relates to a somewhat piquant situation. A poet, Iḷandattan by name, who went into Uraiyūr from Nalaṅgiḷḷi, was suspected by Neḍuṅgiḷḷi of spying. As he was about to be killed, Kōvūr Kiḷār interceded with his song on the harmless and upright nature of poets and thus saved him. Another poem hints at internal dissensions in the royal family at Uraiyūr, which induced Nalaṅgiḷḷi's soldiers to rush to war in utter disregard of omens. Civil war seems, indeed, to have been the bane of the Chola kingdom in this age; Śeṅguṭṭuvan, as we have seen, was called upon to intervene in another war at an earlier time.

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This sketch of the political conditions of the Śaṅgam age may be closed with the mention of two other Chola rulers, both opponents of the Cheras in war. Iḷañjēṭcenni of Neydalaṅgānal captured two fortresses from the Cheras known by the names of Śeruppāḷi and Pāmaḷūr. Śeṅgaṇān, the Chola monarch famed in legend for his devotion to Śiva, figures as the victor in the battle of Pōr against the Chera Kaṇaikkāl Irumporai. The Chera was taken prisoner, asked for drinking water when he was in prison, got it rather late, and then, without drinking it, confessed the shame of his position in a song. Subsequently, Poygaiyār, a friend of the Chera monarch, is said to have secured his release from the Chola prison by celebrating the victory of Śeṅgaṇān in a poem of forty stanzas—the Kaḷavaḷi. According to this poem, the battle was fought at Kaḷumalam, near Karuvūr, the Chera capital. Śeṅgaṇān became the subject of many pious legends in later times. It is possible that this monarch who, according to Tirumaṅgai, built 70 fine temples of Śiva, lived somewhat later, say in the fourth or fifth century A.D.

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A thorough change in the political map of South India and the definite close of an epoch seem to be clearly implied in the Śirupāṇ-ārruppaḍai by Nattanṭanār, one of the Paṭṭupāṭṭu (‘Ten Idylls’). The poem has Nalliyakkōḍan for its hero and he may be taken to stand right at the end of the Śaṅgam age. He ruled a territory which included Gidangil, a village near Tindivanam, Eyirpaṭṭanam—modern Markanam, and Āmūr and Vēlūr, all places in the South Arcot district. We may assign to him a date about A.D. 275, and in his day the poet says that charity had dried up in the capitals of the three Tamil kingdoms, and all ancient patrons of learning and the arts were no more! There may well be some exaggeration here; but clearly Vanji, Uraiyūr and Madura must have passed the meridian of their prosperity and entered on a period of decline.

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Of the social and economic conditions of the age, the cultural ideas and ideals accepted and cherished by the people, of the institutions and activities which embodied and sustained them, the literature of the Śangam gives an unusually complete and true picture. The most striking feature in the picture is its composite character; it is the unmistakable result of the blend of two originally distinct cultures, best described as Tamilian and Aryan; but it is by no means easy now to distinguish the original elements in their purity. Some of them may be recognized, however, to have clearly originated in Northern India and made their way into the South during the period of its aryanization and later. The stories of the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa were well known to the Tamil poets, and episodes from them are frequently mentioned. The claim of each of the three Tamil kings to have fed the opposing forces on the eve of the Great Battle has been noted already. The destruction of the three metallic forts of the Asuras (Tripura) by Śiva, king Śibi giving away the flesh of his body to save a dove that was pursued by a vulture, and the struggle between Krishna and the Asuras for the possession of the sun, are among other legends alluded to by the authors. The presence of a great fire underneath the ocean, Uttara-kuru (the northern country) as a land of perpetual enjoyment, Arundhati as the ideal of chastity, the conception of the threefold debt (riṇatraya) with which every man is born, the beliefs that the cakora bird feeds only on raindrops, and that raindrops turn into pearls in particular circumstances, are instances of other Sanskritic ideas taken over bodily into the literature of the Śangam period. The Tolkāppiyam is said to have been modelled on the Sanskrit grammar of the Aindra school.

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The Tolkāppiyam states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas. It is well known that the earliest Dharmaśāstras mention eight forms of marriage as part of the Aryan code—itself the result of a blend between Aryan and pre-Aryan forms that prevailed in the North; these eight forms are mentioned in the Tolkāppiyam and other works, and much ingenuity is spent in accommodating them to Tamil forms. The Tamils had a relatively simple conception of marriage; they recognized the natural coming together of man and woman, and the natural differences in the manifestations of love, possibly due ultimately to differences in the physical conditions of the different parts of the country. These they designated as the five tiṇais. They had also names for unilateral love, kaikkiḷai and improper love, peruṇiṇai. Into this framework an attempt was made to squeeze the eight Aryan forms with results by no means happy. Such difficulties of synthesis apart, the most tangible result of the meeting of the Tamil and the Aryan was the tremendous richness and fecundity that was imparted to the Tamil idiom thereby and the rise of a beautiful literature which combined classic grace with vernacular energy and strength. This literature of the Śangam, the earliest stratum of Tamil literature now available, is also in many ways the best.

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The land was fertile and there was plenty of grain, meat and fish; the Chera country was noted for its buffaloes, jack-fruit, pepper and turmeric. In the Chola country, watered by the Kaveri, it was said that the space in which an elephant could lie down produced enough to feed seven, and a vēli of land yielded a round thousand kalams of paddy. The little principality of Pāri abounded in forest produce like ‘bamboo-rice’, jack-fruit, valli-root and honey. Many rural activities like the cultivation of rāgi and sugar-cane, the making of sugar from the cane, and the harvesting and drying of grain are described in the Śangam poems in a vivid and realistic manner.

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The people were organized for the most part in occupational groups living apart from one another but in fairly close proximity within each village or town, and their life was regulated by a pervasive sense of social solidarity. Differences in status and economic conditions were accepted by all as part of the established order, and there is little evidence of any tendency to protest or revolt against them. The poets describe with equally intimate touches the unlettered Maḷavar who thrive on robbery in the northern frontier of the Tamil land, the hunters (eyinar) with their huts full of bows and shields, the homes of shepherds where quantities of curds and ghee are produced for sale, and those of learned brahmins versed in the Vedas and performing their daily ritual duties including the entertainment of guests. Apparently brahmins ate meat and drank toddy without incurring reproach. One poem in the Puranānūru affirms that there are only four castes (kuḍi), viz., tuḍiyan, pāṇan, paraiyan and kaḍamban, and only one god worthy of being worshipped by having paddy strewn before him, namely the hero-stone recalling the fall of a brave warrior in battle. These castes and this worship were of very great antiquity, perhaps being survivals from pre-Aryan times. The practice of erecting hero-stones and of offering regular worship to them continued throughout the Śangam age and many centuries after. Foreigners (Yavanas) were numerous in the ports on the sea-coast like Toṇḍi, Muśiri and Puhār (Kāvēri-paṭṭinam) which they visited for trade. Although unable to speak Tamil they were employed as palace-guards in Madura and on police duty in the streets. Curiously wrought lamps and wine in bottles figure prominently among the articles of trade brought to India by the Yavanas.

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Hereditary monarchy was the prevailing form of government. Disputed successions and civil wars were not unknown, as we have seen, and sometimes caused grave misery to the people. The king was in all essential respects an autocrat whose autocracy, however, was tempered by the maxims of the wise and the occasional intercession of a minister, a poet or a friend. The sphere of the state's activity was, however, limited, and in a society where respect for custom was deep-rooted, even the most perverse of autocrats could not have done much harm; indeed it must be said that the general impression left on the mind by the literature of the age is one of contentment on the part of the people who were proud of their kings and loyal to them. As the people took the king for their model, it was his duty to set up a high moral standard by his personal conduct; in many poems he was exhorted to keep a strict mastery over his passions in order to rule successfully. He was to be liberal in his patronage of religion, arts and letters. He was to show paternal care for his subjects and to be impartial as among different sections of them. He held a daily durbar (nāḷavai) at which he heard and set right all complaints. The onerous character of the royal task is emphasized by a poet who compares a king to a strong bull which drags a cart laden with salt from the plains to the uplands; another affirms that the king, much more than rice or water, is the life of the people. To brahmins was assigned an important role in the state; they were the foremost among those (*surram*) on whose assistance the king relied in his daily work; and the highest praise of a monarch was to say that he did nothing which pained the brahmins. Agriculture was the mainstay of polity and the basis of war; and a good king was believed to be able to command the course of the seasons. The ideal of the ‘conquering king’ (*vijigīshu*) was accepted and acted on. Victory against seven kings meant a superior status, which the victor marked by wearing a garland made out of the crowns of the seven vanquished rulers. The most powerful kings were expected to undertake a *digvijaya*, which was a conquering expedition in clockwise direction over the whole of India. The idea of a *chakravarti*, ‘wheel-king’, whose *digvijaya* was led by the march of a mysterious wheel of gold and gems through the air is mentioned in one of the poems in the *Puranānūru*. Another poem in the same collection mentions the companions of a king who committed suicide when the king died—an early anticipation of what later became a widespread institution under such names as Companions of Honour (Abu Zayd), *vēlaikkārar*, *garuḍas*, *sahavāsis*, *āpattudavigal* and so on.

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The *sabhā* or *manram* of the king in the capital was the highest court of justice. The sons of Malaiyamān were tried and sentenced, and later released by the intercession of Kōvūr Kiḷār, in the *manram* of Uraiyūr; and Pottiyār, after the death of his friend Kōpperunjōḻan, could not bear the sight of the same *manram* bereft of him. The elders are said and were doubtless expected to have laid aside their personal quarrels when they attended the *sabhā* to help in the adjudication of disputes. We may infer that the assembly was used by the king for purposes of general consultation as well. The *Kural*, clearly a post-Sangam work, definitely regards the *sabhā* as a general assembly dealing with all affairs. Even less specialized, and more entangled in the social and religious complex of village life, was the *manram*. Each village had its common place of meeting, generally under the shade of a big tree, where men, women and children met for all the common activities of the village, including sports and pastimes. There may also have been a political side to these rural gatherings, the germ out of which grew the highly organized system of village government which functioned so admirably in later Chola times.

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Land and trade were the chief sources of the royal revenue. The *mā* and *vēli* as measures of land were already known; but the king's share of the produce of agriculture is nowhere precisely stated. Foreign trade was important and customs revenue occupied a high place on the receipts side of the budget; the Paṭṭinappālai gives a vivid account of the activity of customs officials in Puhār (Kāvēri-paṭṭinam). Internal transit duties on merchandise moving from place to place were another source of revenue, and the roads were guarded night and day by soldiers to prevent smuggling. Moderation in taxation, however, was impressed on the rulers by many wise sayings of the poets. If their word may be trusted, booty captured in war was no inconsiderable part of royal resources. The Cholas are said to have had a strongly guarded treasury at Kumbakonam in the Saṅgam age.

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The streets of the capital cities were patrolled at nights by watchmen bearing torches, and the prison formed part of the system of administration.

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Each ruler maintained an army of well-equipped professional soldiers who no doubt found frequent employment in those bellicose times. Captains of the army were distinguished by the title of ēṇādi conferred at a formal ceremony of investiture where the king presented the chosen commander with a ring and other insignia of high military rank. The army comprised the traditional four arms—chariots (drawn by oxen), elephants, cavalry and infantry. Swords, bows and arrows, armour made of tiger-skins, javelins, spears and shields (including a protective cover for the forearm) are among the weapons of offence and defence specifically mentioned. The drum and the conch were employed on the field for signalling and the former to summon soldiers to arms. Each ruler and chieftain certainly had a war-drum among his insignia. Not only was it carefully guarded, but it was bathed periodically and worshipped with loud mantras. The occasions for war were numerous, but we need not suppose that the refusal of one king to give his daughter in marriage to another was as frequent a cause as the poets assert. A campaign might be started by the capture of the enemy's cattle, or a brahmin messenger might be sent with a formal declaration before hostilities started. The military camp was often an elaborate affair, with streets and roads and a separate section for the king guarded by armed women; in this camp the hours of day and night were announced by watchers of water-clocks; the gnomon was employed to indicate midday and a drum beaten early every morning. Camp fires kept off the cold when necessary, and there were towers at important points from which a regular watch was maintained against surprises from the enemy. Death in battle was welcome to the soldier and even to his mother, for it was held to lead him straight to heaven. To the warrior, a peaceful death in bed was looked upon as a disgrace, and in the families of ruling chieftains the body of a man who died otherwise than in war was cut with the sword, and laid on darbha grass, and mantras were chanted to secure him a place in the warriors' heaven (virasvarga). Soldiers who fell in war were commemorated by hero-stones which bore inscriptions detailing their names and achievements; these stones were often worshipped as godlings. Wounded soldiers were carefully attended to, their wounds being cleaned and stitched where necessary.

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Kings often took the field in person and delighted to rejoice with the common soldiers in their successes; on the other hand, if a king was killed or even seriously wounded in the midst of the fight, his army gave up the struggle and accepted defeat. The vanity of the victor often inflicted deep personal humiliations on his vanquished foe, the memory of which rankled and brought on further strife. The crowns of defeated kings furnished the gold for the anklets of the victor, while a woman's anklet and a garment of leaves were forced on the defeated party who was compelled to wear them; his guardian tree was destroyed and its trunk converted into a war-drum for the victor. The conquered country was at times ruthlessly laid waste, even cornfields not being spared.

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The Kalavali is one of the most detailed descriptions we possess of a battle-field in the Tamil country, and the poem supplies in a casual way much interesting information on military affairs. The soldiers, infantry and cavalry alike, wore leather sandals for the protection of their feet. The nobles and princes rode on elephants, and the commanders drove in pennoned chariots. The poet says that women whose husbands were killed bewailed their loss on the field of Kalumalam; unless this is mere rhetoric, we must suppose that women, at least of the higher orders, sometimes accompanied their husbands to the field.

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Besides being the head of the government and leader in war, the king also held the first rank in society. He patronized poetry and the arts, and kept open house. War and women were, in fact, the universal preoccupations of the leisured classes, besides wine and song and the dance. The king and his ēnādis with their retinues must have formed a gay, boisterous crew at the top of society with a boundless capacity for enjoying the pleasures of life.

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No occasion was lost for holding a feast and the poets are most eloquent in their praise of the sumptuous fare to which they were so often asked. One poet declares to his patron: ‘I came to see you that we might eat succulent chops of meat, cooled after boiling and soft like the carded cotton of the spinning-woman, and drink large pots of toddy together.’ Another speaks of wine poured into golden goblets by smiling women decked with jewels in the court of Karikāla. The flesh of animals cooked whole, such as pork from a pig which had been kept away from its female mate for many days and fattened for the occasion, *appam* (pudding) soaked in milk, the flesh of tortoises and particular kinds of fish are mentioned as delicacies served at such feasts. Among drinks particular mention is made of foreign liquor in green bottles, of *munnir* (‘triple water’)—a mixture of milk from unripe coconut, palm fruit juice and the juice of sugar-cane, and of toddy well matured by being buried underground for a long time in bamboo barrels.

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