History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c32.s1.12

v1.c32.s1.12

Historical records prove that the organised irrigation system began in South India from the initial centuries of the first millennium A.D. This is quite evident from the early Sangam literary works. Tiruvalluvar in his Tirukkural (No. 737, see Pope (Eng. tr.) says the following as the important constituents of a kingdom: "Waters from rains and springs, a mountain here and water thence; these make a land with fortress sure defence". The Puranānūru (Srinivasa Iyengar, 1914, p. 43), a Sangam anthology, makes a pointed reference to the importance of "artificial tank irrigation" this: "Verily he who has turned the bent (low) land into a reservoir to arrest the flow of the running water is one who has established a name in the world". So the organised irrigation system in the South goes back to the Sangam age if not earlier.