The Kingdoms of the South (3rd BCE – 3rd CE)

Around 15 km from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchirappalli and 45 km from the historic city of Thanjavur, you will find a dam on the Kaveri River that has the most fascinating story. The Kallanai or the Grand Anicut, as it was called, is one of the oldest irrigation works in the world. Said to be built by one of the early Chola kings, Karikala in the 1st-2nd CE, it has been in continuous use for almost 2,000 years. But the dam (which started as an embankment) is famous not only for its antiquity; the Kallanai is quite an engineering marvel. It not only controlled the annual floods in the region, the irrigation works set in place to divert the flood waters through canals during the time of King Karikala transformed the once semi-arid region south of it into one of the most fertile stretches in the subcontinent. Ancient Sangam poetry celebrates Karikala’s success in transforming a wilderness (kattu) into a cultivable land (Nadu). Geographically, this stretch went on to become so rich that it catapulted the small local chiefdom that controlled it to fame. It is from here that the early Cholas rose. It is from this region that the later Cholas carried forward the baton of Chola glory. And it is to this event – the building of the embankment – that the later Cholas referred, time and again, to forge a link to the legacy of the heroes of yore. The period between the 3rd BCE and 3rd CE – the so-called Sangam Age – was a period of economic growth and cultural renaissance in the deep south. And it is the trade, art, culture and literature which thrived during this period that dominates any discussion on the subject. But even as the busy ports overflowing with gold helped give wings to thoughts and verse, this period also saw the emergence of a political system that represented a transformation of its own kind. Chieftains or velirs mentioned in early Sangam texts gave way to a few who spread out – the vendars. They were the first among equals – who went on to create ‘kingdoms’. Over the next few hundred years, the southern part of India, i.e. Tamilakam, was carved out between the Cholas, Keralaputras/Cheras and Pandyas, who dominated the landscape and inspired generations (of fellow dynasts) to come. Centuries later, starting in the 6th century CE, new kingdoms by the same names and covering the same regions would rise in Tamilakam – the Medieval Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas. In fact, you can still get a sense of that period today. While the geographical boundaries of the state of Tamil Nadu are well defined, local Tamilians will tell you that there are still nuanced cultural differences between different regions of their state, which is roughly the size of England. Thanjavur is different from Chennai. Madurai is different from Coimbatore, and Kanchipuram also marches to its own unique beat. All these cities link up to long-gone times. The modern-day cultural divisions of Tamilakam into Tondainadu (centered around Chennai and Kanchipuram), Cholanadu (around Thanjavur and Tiruchirappalli), Pandyanadu (Madurai to Kanyakumari) and Kongunadu (around Coimbatore and Karur), hark back to the ancient world and cover the areas once occupied by the Pallavas, Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras, respectively. Old political boundaries seem to have been etched into the heart of the region’s cultural identity. Early References The first ‘official’ reference to the early kingdoms of the South comes from Mauryan Emperor Ashoka’s Major Rock Edict 2 at Girnar, in Gujarat. Here, he refers to the Cholas, Pandyas, Satiyaputra, Keralaputra and Tamrapani (Sri Lanka) as kingdoms on the southern borders of his dominion. Even earlier, the Greek ambassador in Ashoka’s grandfather Chandragupta Maurya's court, Megasthenes (350 – 290 BCE) mentions a queen who ruled the area deep in the South, extending to the sea in the Pandya country. According to this account in the Indica, the kingdom had 365 villages, each of which was expected to meet the needs of the royal household for one day in the year. Megasthenes described the Pandyan queen of the time as ‘Pandaia’, a daughter of Heracles (a Greek demi-god said to have come east. Heracles was later also identified as Shiva by some historians). Sangam literature, which was written over a period of six centuries (3rd BCE – 3rd CE) is, of course replete, with references to various Chola, Chera and Pandya kings and numerous chieftains in between, all mostly at war with each other. In fact, skirmishes, raids and the heroic exploits of kings and princes dominate a large part of the early puram poetry of the Sangam Era. In Odisha’s capital Bhubaneswar, the Udayagiri inscription of Kalinga’s King Kharavela, dated to around 2nd BCE - 1st BCE, refers to an expedition he led into the south towards the Krishna River. He is said to have attacked the town of Pithunda, which was ploughed with a plough yoked to asses, in an attempt to desecrate the land. Kharavela claims to have broken up the confederacy of the Tramira (Tamil countries), which had been a threat to Kalinga. The reference to a Tamil confederacy, earlier, even during the time of Chandragupta Maurya (r. c. 321–c. 297 BCE), indicates that the southern chiefdoms and vendars often joined forces to take on attackers from the North. The Graeco-Roman texts, The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and Pliny's classical work The Natural History, also have vivid descriptions of port cities and political capitals in the south, whether Muziris in present-day Kerala, Nelcynda in the Kingdom of the Pandyas, or the twin centres of Orthura Regia Sornati identified as Uraiyur and Khaberis identified as Kaveripattinam. We also know that the Roman Emperor Julian received an embassy from a Pandya ruler as late as 361 CE and a Roman trading centre was located on the Pandya coast at the mouth of the Vaigai River, south-east of Madurai. While all these sources help us paint a picture of early political formations in the South, there are numerous archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic clues that are filling the many gaps in early Southern history. Thankfully, the early history of the South coincides with the emergence of Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions that have been found strewn on cave walls and pottery shards from Karur to Korkai. Also, hundreds of coins from the Sangam Era give a sense of the political and economic authority that the Sangam Cheras, Chola and Pandyas wielded. Over a period of time, you see the coins evolving as well – from crude quadrangle copper coins in the early period (i.e. probably before the Common Era), to circular coins, sometimes in silver, in the later period. The Rise of the South One of the most tantalising questions relating to the Early Historic Period of the South remains the one pertaining to the origins of the three ‘kingdoms’ that dominated the region for centuries – the triad of the Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras. Who were they? And how did they manage to leave such a lasting legacy that even centuries later, dynasts continued using their name? Archaeologist Dr V Selvakumar, who teaches at the Tamil University in Thanjavur, believes that the story starts on the anvil of the transition between the Iron Age marked by Megalithic burial sites in the deep south, and the Early Historic Period around the 7th – 5th BCE. By this time, agro-pastoral communities had started occupying different areas in the region, as had various hunter gatherers who became part of the increasingly storied social fabric. At first, the political structure of these communities was nebulous and varied. There were numerous chiefdoms and tribal bands that coexisted and it is from the midst of this maze that we see the emergence of more defined political formations – the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. Early Sangam texts refer to them as vendars as opposed to the generic term velirs used for smaller local chiefs. But it is important to note that the political demarcat ...