Tamil Political Divisions in the First Two Centuries of By WILFRED H. SCHOFF, Com the Christian Era. The early history of the Tamil kingdoms in southern India is very obscure. From the 9th century onward there is almost a superfluity of epigraphic material. Prior to that time, inscriptions and coins as yet discovered are very few, and almost the only available references to South Indian political conditions are found in stray passages in Hindu and Tamil literature or in occasional references of trade with Greece and Rome. It may be gathered that before the time of Alexander, the Tamil states, comprising some of the earliest racial elements in India, had been organized under a dynasty that had originated in northern, that is Aryan, India, and that in all probability established itself in Southern India as the result of a naval attack and invasion. This dynasty had first borne the name of Pandya, and it claimed descent from Pandu, the father of the Pandava brothers, the heroes of the war recounted in the Mahābhārata. Several references in Greek literature speak in this connection. Arrian (Indika, VIII) derives the dynasty from Pandæa, "only daughter of Heracles among many sons. The land where she was born and over which she ruled was named Pandæa after her". Whatever this dynastic connection may have been, it is certain that its power in South India began at the southern extremity of the peninsula, and that its first capital was at Korkai, the Colchi (Kóλxo) of the Greek and Roman writers, and that it spread steadily northward until it embraced most of the Tamil elements as far as the border of the Andhra dominions, the modern Mysore. Subsequently the Pandyan kingdom was separated into three independent states, Chēra, Chola and Pandya (respectively Malabar, Coromandel, and Tinnevelly-Madura-S. Travancore). As such they are recorded in the second Rock Edict of Asoka. It seems evident that the boundaries of these three states varied greatly, and that while Chera, the western kingdom, the modern Malabar, remained relatively quiet, the other two, Chōla and Pandya, always the wealthiest and most powerful of the trio, were constant rivals and often open enemies. From the 9th century onward the Chola state was by far the most powerful of the three, and indeed conquered Pandya and ruled it through a Viceroy who bore the official title of Chōla-Pandya. But for many centuries before this extension of its power, it seems clear that the Chola dynasty passed through a long period of relative weakness and almost extinction. One of the features of South Indian history is the incursion of the Pallavas, who established themselves over a great part of western and southern India, not as a colonizing people, but rather as a ruling caste maintaining itself by military power and commanding in that way the subjugation of the native peoples. This dynasty, whose capital was at Kanchi, is known to have flourished between the 4th and 9th centuries A.D., finally succumbing to the combined attacks of the Chalukya dynasty on its northern boundary, and the reviving Chola power on the south. How long before the 4th century it may have asserted itself, is unknown. But certain indications regarding the political allegiance of the Chōla capital during the first two centuries of the Christian Era suggest that the Pallavas may even have been an important element at that time. It is known that a heterogenous assortment of foreign clans swept over western and southern India as early as the 1st century, that they set up a powerful state in the Cambay region under the Satrap Nahapana, (78 a.d.) and that they carried on extensive raids farther to the south. In the following century when the Andhras succeeded in overthrowing Nahapana's dynasty, they set up a memorial to record their victory over the combined Sakas, Yavanas and Pallavas, whom they despised as outcasts and sacrilegious innovators in settled Hindu customs. It is therefore not impossible that the Pallavas as the southern extension of this foreign incursion may have been making themselves felt as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era. As already stated the earliest capital of the Tamil power was at Korkai. Before the Christian Era the capitals of the three states had been fixed at Karur in Malabar, Madura and Uraiyur, the modern Trichinopoly. Of these, the last seems to have been by far the richest, most populous and most active, industrially and commercially, of the three. This much may be gathered from the Tamil poems; but the Tamil literature, while it gives a vivid picture of the prosperity of the Chōla capital, does not refer clearly to its political allegiance. It seems to have been singularly subject to attack and control by widely differing political elements. And as early as the 1st century of the Christian Era, the dominant. powers in Southern India seem to have been the Pandyan kingdom and the invading Pallavas; the Chōla state being ground, as it were, between two mill-stones. Strabo (XV, iv, 73) mentions an embassy from "King Pandion" to the Emperor Augustus in 20 B.C. Pliny (VI, 23), the Periplus (§ 54) and Ptolemy (VII) all agree in their accounts of the prosperous trade at the seaports on either side of Cape Comorin. It was a trade largely in the products of the Chola textile industries and pearl fisheries, in the gems and spices of the Chera and Pandya hills, and in the gems and pearl fisheries of Ceylon, then controlled by the Pandyan kings. From the Tamil poems we learn that the Chōla state maintained a considerable navy which was used for commercial purposes, trading across the Bay of Bengal and as far as the Straits of Malacca, and we know from the Periplus that the products of this far eastern trade were transshipped in the south Indian ports for delivery to the Roman world. It seems clear that the intermediate position of Pandya enabled it, during the period from 50 B.C. to 150 A.D., approximately, to dominate all Tamil India, and that such parts of the Chōla state as had not fallen under Pallava dominion, were, if not subject to, at least dependent upon Pandya. We may infer also that this supremacy of Pandya was disputed, unsuccessfully, by Chera. The main highway across Southern India over which goods for the western trade were brought, is the Achenkōil Pass, and the terminus of this trade route was the port of Bacarē, mentioned by most of the Greek writers, and which I have identified as Porakad, the landing place of Kottayam. This port, according to Pliny (VI, 23), had formerly been Pandyan, but in his time, that is 70 A.D., approximately, belonged to Chēra. The Periplus, on the other hand, written some ten years later, makes Bacarē again Pandyan (§ 54). Pliny mentions the Pandyan capital, Madura, but knows nothing of the Chola capital. The Periplus, on the other hand, after describing the Pandyan dominions, speaks of another district beyond Colchi called the "Coast Country, which lies on a bay and has a region inland called Argaru", from which were exported muslins, "those called Argaritic" (§ 59). In this passage we may discern a hazy and yet correct reference to the Chōla state, and to its capital Uraiyur, the modern Trichinopoly, which, as I have pointed out in a recent paper (JRAS. Jan. 1913), may be identified with this Argaru of the Periplus. Uraiyur is merely the Tamil form of the Sanskrit Uragapura, "town of the serpent", and the Greek transcription is very nearly correct. Now Ptolemy, writing about 140 A.D., speaks of this place as "Argeirou in the land of Pandion" (VII) and Kalidāsa in the Raghuvamsa (dating from about 400 A.D.) refers to Uragapura as the capital of Pāndya (VI. 59–60). How may we reconcile these later references that make Uraiyur subject to, or dependent on, Pandya with those earlier ones that clearly make it independent? The explanation seems to be found in this passage of the Periplus. The language used by the author of the Periplus is very fixed in its reference to foreign states or districts. An independent kingdom is referred to as ẞaoilea and a subject state or district as τόπος, or χώρα. Now while the author of the Periplus speaks of the "kingdom of Cerobothra" and the "Pandian Kingdom", he refers to Chōla only as a "district" called the "coast country"; and yet he knows enough about it to have mentioned its king, if there had been an independent king in his time, who levied tribute on foreign merchants. It seems fair to infer that even in the time of the Periplus, say 80 A.D., the Chōla state, while not conquered and incorporated into the Pandyan Kingdom, had been reduced to a condition of helplessness between Pandya and the Pallava country, so that for commercial purposes it was practically controlled by Pandya. That its commercial and industrial activity was not inter fered with is amply shown by Tamil poems that tell of the active trade of the capital and of its eastern seaport, Kaviripaddinam, which appears in the Periplus as Camara. It was evidently dependent upon the Pandyan kings to such extent as its own rulers, the Chōla dynasty, had proven themselves unable to resist the Pallava incursions, and we may possibly read in the ship designs in the Pallava coinage of the 2nd century, some note of triumph in their ultimate invasion and control of that rich district. (Elliot, Coins of Southern India, plates I. 38, and II. 45). This fall of the Chōla power may be placed toward the end of the 2nd century; but it seems clear that it did not come about without a considerable revival of that power at some time during that century, when one of its kings named Karikāla, according to a Tamil poem, invaded Ceylon and carried of thousands of coolies to work on the embankment along the Kaviri River, 100 miles in length, which he is said to have constructed. (Pillai, The Tamils 1800 years ago, pp. 64–78; Vincent Smith, Early History of India, p. 416.) The Chinese traveler Yuan-Chwang, who visited the Pallava capital Kanchi in 640 A.D., speaks of Chōla as in that time a very restricted territory, sparsely populated by fierce brigands. The location of this remnant of the once powerful Chōla dynasty may be placed in the Cuddapah district, considerably north of its earlier dominions. (Beal, II. 227-230; Vincent Smith, Early History, 409, 417, 421.) The subsequent extension of its power during the middle ages was due to the economic advantages of its position when not outweighed by superior force. It is a notable fact that Yuan-Chwang refers to the "country of Chōla" without naming a king, in exactly the same way as the Periplus 560 years before, indicating at both these. periods that the district was under a local rajah, not exercising kingly power.1 1 For fuller references to these questions the reader is referred to the following titles: Schoff, The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, and Mookerji, A History of Indian Shipping, both pub. by Longmans, 1912. |