A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c6.9

c6.9

In the South the Pallavas and the Pāṇdyas share the country, and the frontier between their territories is shifting about the line of the Kaveri as a result of repeated warfare; the Pallavas in particular have a strenuous time as they have to fight all the while on two fronts. The name of the Cholas, who were so prominent in the Saṅgam Age and were again to raise in the succeeding epoch one of the most splendid empires known to history, almost disappears from the political map of the Tamil country; and it is not known what relation, if any, the Telugu-Chodas of the Renādu country in the Ceded Districts, one of the minor dynasties of this epoch, bore to their namesakes of the Tamil land, though they claimed descent from Karikāla, the most celebrated of the early Chola monarchs of the Śangam Age. The Pāndya-Pallava period was marked by striking developments in religion, literature and art. Sanskrit held an honoured place as the language of higher literature and culture, and the Ganga monarch Durvinita had claims to authorship both in Sanskrit and in Kannada. The Pallava king, Mahendravarman I, aptly styled vicitra-citta—‘wonderful-mind’—was author, architect, musician and painter. In his time there arose a strong reaction against the growing influence of Jainism and Buddhism, which found expression in a widespread bhakti movement among the worshippers of Śiva and Vishnu; the leaders of this movement were known as Nāyanārs and Ālvārs, and their exuberant devotional songs, gathered later in the collections known as the Dēvāram and the Divyaprabandham, celebrate every orthodox shrine they visited many times over in the course of their propagandist peregrinations, and constitute the most priceless treasure in all Tamil literature. The great Kumārila and the still greater Śankara also lived and taught in the same age, the former restating the principles of Vedic exegesis and upholding the religion of sacrifice, the latter expounding the fundamentals of monistic vedānta with unsurpassed power and brilliance. The temples and sculptures of the period register the highest perfection of form that their arts attained in the South. Māmallapuram (Mahābalipuram) and Kānchipuram (Conjeevaram) are the best museums of this art even now.