A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.72

c12.72

A long historical night ensues after the close of the Śangam age. We know little of the period of more than three centuries that followed. When the curtain rises again towards the close of the sixth century A.D. we find that a mysterious and ubiquitous enemy of civilization, the evil rulers called Kalabhras, have come and upset the established political order which was restored only by their defeat at the hands of the Pāṇḍyas and Pallavas as well as the Chālukyas of Bādāmi. Of the Kalabhras we have as yet no definite knowledge; from some Buddhist books we hear of a certain Accutavikkanta of the Kalabhrakula during whose reign Buddhist monasteries and authors enjoyed much patronage in the Chola country. Late literary tradition in Tamil avers that he kept in confinement the three Tamil kings—the Chera, Chola and Pāṇḍya. Some songs about him are quoted by Amitasāgara, a Jaina grammarian of Tamil of the tenth century A.D. Possibly Accuta was himself a Buddhist, and the political revolution which the Kalabhras effected was provoked by religious antagonism. At any rate the Kalabhras are roundly denounced as evil kings (kali-araśar) who uprooted many adhirājas and abrogated brahmadēya rights; there was no love lost between these interlopers and the people of the lands they overran. The Cholas disappeared from the Tamil land almost completely in this debacle, though a branch of them can be traced towards the close of the period in Rayalaseema—the Telugu-Chodas, whose kingdom is mentioned by Yuan Chwang in the seventh century A.D.