The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago/Chapter 1

by Visvanatha Kanakasabhai Pillai

THE TAMILS:

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

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CHAPTER I.

Introduction.

EIGHTEEN hundred years ago, the most powerful and civilised empire in the known world was that of Rome. Under Trajan, the last of the great Roman conquerors, it had risen to the zenith of its power, and embraced a great portion of Europe, and all those parts of Asia and Africa which lay around the Mediterranean Sea. In the east, the vast Empire of China had attained its greatest expansion under the kings of the illustrious Han dynasty and extended from the shores of the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and from the Atlas mountains to the Himalayan range. Between these two Empires lay two kingdoms—Parthia and Gandhara. Pacorus, king of Parthia ruled over Parthia Proper, Media, Persia, Susiana and Babylonia. Kanishka, the leader of the Sakas, who had emigrated from the central table-land of Asia and overthrown the Bactrian empire, was king of Gandhara, and his dominion stretched from Bactria to the Central Himalayas, and from the River Oxus to the River Jumna. East of Gandhara and south of the Himalayan range was the ancient empire of Magadha then ruled by the Maha-karnas, who belonged to the great tribe of the Andhras. The small state of Malava, founded by a tribe akin to the Andhras, on the northern side of the Vyndhia hills, had thrown off the yoke of the Magadhas: and Parthian adventurers held sway in the regions near the mouths of the Indus and in Guzerat. In the Deccan, the basins of the Mahanadi, Godaveri and Kistna still formed part of the Magadh empire, the southern boundary of which approached Tamilakam, or the land of the Tamils, in the southern-most portion of the peninsula. Buddhism was paramount, and non-Aryan races were in power, almost everywhere throughout India. To the Aryan races it was a period of humiliation, and to Brahminism one of painful struggle for existence. When, in later years, Brahminism was again favored by royalty, it appears to have exerted all its energy, to erase every trace of the rival faith and foreign dominion. Accordingly we find that the Sanscrit literature of the first century of the Christian era is now a perfect blank. Curiously enough, a considerable portion of the Tamil literature of that very period has come down to us, almost intact, and reveals to us the condition of not only the Tamils, but also of other races who inhabited the rest of India in that remote age.

The vast field of ancient Tamil literature is like an unknown land into which no traveller hath yet set foot. Many of the ancient classical works in Tamil have but recently seen the light. Hitherto they were preserved in manuscript on palmyra leaves, and jealously hidden by those Pandits into whose hands they had fallen. The archaic language in which they were composed, and the alien religions they favoured, alike prevented their becoming popular with Tamil students. In fact some of them were forbidden in Tamil schools, and Saiva or Vaishnava pandits deemed it an unpardonable sin to teach them to their pupils. Most of these manuscripts lay neglected in the libraries of Saiva or Jain monasteries: and there they would have crumbled to dust but for the enterprise of a few scholars who have with considerable labour and research, rescued most of them from oblivion and published them in print.^[1] Several valuable works however still remain in manuscript, accessible only to a few individuals.

It is the general opinion of Western scholars that there was no Tamil literature before the ninth century A.D.^[2] But the fact appears to be that all that was original and excellent in the literature of the Tamils was written before the ninth century, and what followed was, for the most part, but a base imitation or translation of Sanscrit works. From a careful study of ancient Tamil poems, I am led to think that some of the earliest works were undoubtedly composed more than two thousand years ago, and that the Tamil people acquired wealth and civilisation at this early period by their commercial intercourse with foreign nations such as the Arabs, Greeks, Romans and Japanese. With the advance of their material prosperity, there was a sudden stimulus to their literary activity. The Augustan period of Tamil literature was, I should say, in the first century of the Christian era; and the last College of poets was then held in Madura in the Court of the Tamil king Ugra (the Terrible) Pandya. The works of not less than fifty authors of this period have come down to us. These poets were of various castes, various religious persuasions and belonged to different parts of the Tamil country. Some were Nigranthas, some Buddhists, and some of the Brahminic faiths. There were kings, priests, merchants, doctors, farmers, and artizans among their number. Amidst the gloom and uncertainty in which the ancient history of the country is shrouded, the works of so many authors of one age throw a flood of welcome light.

The information afforded by these poems, regarding the religious and social customs of the Tamil people, would alone guide us to fix the probable date of this literature in the earliest centuries of the Christian Era. For, we find from them that there were Buddhists in the Tamil country, but they had set up no images of Buddha and had no priests; there were Nigranthas who called the Buddhists, heretics, but who had not commenced the worship of their Saints or Tirthankaras; there were temples dedicated to Siva, Vishnu and Subramanya, but there were also other shrines in which the worship of Indra and Baladêva was continued; there were Brahmins who wore the sacred thread and called themselves the “twice-born” but neither kings nor merchants sought this distinction; there were Tamils living in walled towns and cities, but in some parts of the country they still led the life of nomads and had no settled habitation.

An additional proof of the antiquity of the poems above mentioned may be adduced from the fact that the chief towns and seaports and the foreign merchandise of the Tamil country, as described in these poems correspond exactly with those given in the works of Pliny, Ptolemy and in the Periplus Maris Erythraei. Pliny died in 79 A. D.; and had completed his Natural History two years previously. The unknown author of the Periplus was a native of Egypt, and wrote his book after the time of Augustus Caesar, and before the kingdom of the Nabathœans was overthrown by the Romans. A more definite indication of his date is furnished by his mentioning Zoskales as the king reigning in his time over the Auxumitæ. This Zoskales is identified with Za-Hakale who must have been king of Abyssinia from 77 to 89 A.D. We may conclude therefore that the Periplus was written a little after the death of Pliny, between the years 80-89 A.D.^[3] Klaudios Ptolemaios, or as he is commonly called Ptolemy, flourished in Alexandria about the middle of the second century A.D., in the reign of Antoninus Pins, and died in A.D. 163.^[4] These authors furnish much interesting information regarding the Tamil people and their foreign commerce. Ptolemy especially gives a long list of the names of the maritime and inland towns. Most of the sea-ports mentioned by him can be readily identified from allusions to them in Tamil poems; but it is not equally easy to trace the position of many of the towns removed from the coast, because Ptolemy had utterly misconceived the form of the Indian peninsula. In his map of India he represents the sea-coast, from near the modern city of Bombay to a point beyond Masulipatam, as a zigzag line running from west to east, and thus effaced the whole of the peninsula. Into this distorted map he tried to fit in the mountains, rivers and cities described to him, both by those who travelled frequently from Egypt to India and by those who visited Egypt from India. The names of the tribes and their chief cities as given by him are, however, wonderfully accurate, and give us some idea of the earnestness and diligence with which he must have collected his information.

That Ugra Pândya and the last College or Sangha of poets, belonged to a very early period may be inferred from numerous allusions in later Tamil works, of which I shall mention only one here. In the commentary to Iraiyanar Akapporul,^[5] the author Nilakandan of Muchiri gives a brief account of the history of Tamil literature and alludes therein to the last Sangha of poets at Madura, presided over by Ugra Pandya. Every one of the stanzas with which the author illustrates his commentary contains the praises of the Pandyan king Nedumâran alias Arikêsari, victor of the battle of Nelvêli, and the king is described therein as alive at the time and ruling the Pandya, Chera and Chola kingdoms, having defeated and driven off the invaders who had come from the north. From the Udayêndram grant of Nandivarman Pallavamalla^[6] I find that the famous battle of Nelvêli was fought between the Pandyan king and Udayachandra of Kollâpuram(Kolhâpar) who was the general of the Pallava king, Pallava malla Nandivarman. This Pallava king was contemporary with the Western Chalukya king Vikramaditya II. who reigned from A.D. 733 to 747 according to inscriptions in the Chalukya country.^[7] Nilakandan the commentator, who praises Neduncheliyan the victor of Nelvêli, should have flourished therefore in the, earlier half of the eighth century. It appears from his commentary that the works of the Sangha poets were current during his time in the form of collections or anthologies, such as Akam, Narrinai Kurunthokai and Pathirruppathu. He quotes also from the Chilappathikaram. The Akam is a collection of 401 different pieces composed on various occasions by more than 200 poets. The Kurunthokai is a similar collection from the works of 205 authors. The Narrinai contains 401 verses composed by not less than 200 poets. The Pathirruppathu consists of ten poems by ten different persons. I counted the names of more than 514 different poets in these collections taken together. The number of these authors is so large that we may safely assume that the eldest of them might have lived six or seven centuries before the age of Nilakandan. This would allow an average of about 100 authors per century, which is by no means a small number. The Akam contains many verses which allude to Karikal Chôla and the Chera kings Athan and Chenkudduvan.^[8] Ten stanzas of the Pathirruppathu composed by Paranar, one of the poets of the last Sangha, are in praise of Chenkudduva Chera.^[9] It is beyond doubt therefore that Chenkudduva Chera lived long before the close of the eighth century.

More definite information regarding the date of the last Sangha is furnished by the allusions to historic personages which occur in the poems composed during the reigns of the Chola king Karikal, his son-in-law the Chera king Athan and the latter’s son Chenkudduva Chera^[10] alias Imaya Varman. The last mentioned Chera King had a younger brother Ilanko-Adikal, who became a monk of the Nigrantha Sect. He was the author of a long poem the Chilappathikâram^[11] in which be relates that at a certain festival held by his brother Imaya Varman at the Chera capital, Gajabâhu, the king of Lanka attended with an unnamed King of Malava.^[12] This allusion to a king of Ceylon enables us to fix the date of Imaya Varman. In the long lists of the kings of Ceylon preserved in Singhalese chronicles, the name Gajabâhu occurs only twice. GajabAhu I lived in the early part of the second century A.D. and Gajabâhu II in the twelfth century.^[13] If the latter was the king referred to in the Chilappathikaramn, Karikal Chôla, the grandfather of Gajabâhu’s contemporary, Imaya Varman should have lived in the eleventh or twelfth century A.D. But in many Tamil poems^[14] and inscriptions on copper-plates^[15] recording the grants of Chola kings who lived in the tenth and, eleventh centuries, Karikal Chola I^[16] is described as one of the earliest and most remote ancestors of the Chola kings then reigning. It is evident therefore that the Gajabâhu referred to in Chilappathikaram could not be Gajabâhu II., but must have been Gajabâhu I. who was king of Ceylon from about A.D. 113 to A.D. 125.

The Chilappathikaram also mentions the fact that Chenkudduva Chera paid a friendly visit to the King of Magadha on the banks of the Ganges. It gives the name of the Magadha King as Nurruvar Kannar or the “Hunured Karnas” and this expression was long a puzzle to me, until it struck me that it was a translation of the Sanskrit title “Satakarnin.” Several kings of the Karna or Andhra dynasty bore the epithet Satakarnin, and coins and inscriptions of these kings have been found, in which the Pali form of the word “Satakani” occurs. Sanskrit scholars have however misread the name as Sâtakarnin, instead of Satakarnin. The Tamil rendering of the name into “Hundred Karnas” in a contemporary poem leaves no doubt of the fact that the name is correctly Satakarnin, made up of the words Sata (hundred) and Karna (ears), the epithet evidently meaning a king who employed one hundred spies, or had one hundred sources of information. The Vayu, Vishnu, Matsya and Bhagavata Puranas state that the Mauryas ruled the Magadha Empire for 137 years, and after them the Sungas 112 years, and after them the Kanvaynas 45 years: and that after them there were 30 kings of the Andhra dynasty who reigned 456 years: but none of the Puranas gives a complete list of the names of the Andhra kings. The Matsya, which appears to be the oldest, of the Puranas furnishes the fullest list, which contains the names of only 29 kings and the number of years during which each of the kings reigned. In the early history of the emperors of Magadha, the only date which may be safely relied upon is that of Chandragupta, the contemporary of Seleucus Nicator, who began his reign in B.C. 310, and concluded a treaty with him in B.C. 305 The year of accession of Chandragupta may be fixed at B.C. 312, two years earlier than that of Seleucus Nicator, and calculating from that year the reign of the first Satakarnin ought to have extended from A.D. 77 to A.D. 133 according to the Matsya Purana as shown below:

Ten Mauryas for 137 years, B.C. 312—175.

Ten Sungas for 112 years, B.C. 175—63.

Four Kanvayanas for 45 years, B.C. 63 to 18.

Thirty Andhras of whom the first six are:

Sisuka for 23 years, B.C. 18—A.D. 5.

Krishna for 18 years, A.D. 5—23.

Simalakarnin for 18 years, A.D. 23—41.

Purnotsunga for 18 years, A.D. 41—59.

Sirivaswami for 18 years, A.D. 59—77.

Satakarnin for 56 years, A.D. 77—133.

The, reign of this Satakarnin covers the entire period of the reign of Gajabâhu, King of Ceylon, which lasted 12 years from AD. 113 to 125 according to the Mahawanso. Satakarnin, Emperor of Magadha, who is alluded to in the Chilappathikaram as the contemporary of Chenkudduvachera and Gajabâhu, is therefore doubtless the first Satakarnin in the list of the Matsya Purana, who reigned from A.D. 77 to 133. The synchronism of the Puranas and the Mahawanso is perfect, at least from the reign of Chandragupta up to that of the first Satakarnin; and this coincidence is a strong proof of the general accuracy of the traditional history preserved in Puranic accounts and in the Mahawanso.

The Mahawanso was composed in the fifth century A.D. and the Dipavanso still earlier; and both these historical works mention Gajabâhu I. It appears that during the reign of his father “crooked nosed” Tissa, a Chôla king had invaded Ceylon, and carried away several thousands of captives; and that in retaliation Gajabâhu invaded the Chôla dominions soon after his accession to the throne in A.D. 113. The tradition is that the captives were carried away to work on the banks of the River Kaviri, which were then under construction.^[17] This is quite in accordance with later Tamil poems and inscriptions^[18] which speak of Karikal Chôlas the king who commenced the construction of the high banks along both sides of the bed of the Kaviri. The construction of the Kaviri banks which extended along its course to a distance of about 100 miles from its mouth, was an undertaking of such magnitude that it could not have been completed during the reign of Karikal. The Chôla King, who invaded Ceylon in order to procure captives to work at the banks, might have been therefore Karikal or his immediate successor. This tradition is further evidence of the fact that Chenkudduva Chera was contemporary with Gajabâhu I. who lived in the early part of the second century A. B. Chenkudduvan’s grandfather Karikal Chôla should have therefore reigned in the latter half of the first century A.D., or in other words, about eighteen hundred years ago. It will appear further on, from my account of Tamil literature, that the poets of the last Sangha at Madura—many of whom allude to the Chêra kings Athan and Chenkudduvan—should be assigned to the same period.

I shall in the following pages first describe the ancient geography of the land of the Tamils, then their foreign commerce, the different races that spoke Tamil, their political history, and conclude with a brief account of their social life, mode of warfare, literature, philosophy and religion.

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1. Foremost among these scholars I should mention Rai Bahadur C. W. Thamotharam Pillai, B.A., B.L., who has published the whole of Tholkapiyam with the commentaries of Chenavaraiyar and Nachchinarkiniyar and the Kalithokai by Nallathanar: and Mr. Saminathier, Tamil Pandit, Kumbakonum College, who has published the Paththuppadu, Chilappathikaram, and Purananuru. I should not omit to mention also Mr. Shunmugam Pillai, Madras, who has very pluckily brought forward an Edition of the Manimekalai, although there is no commentary accompanying the text.
2. Dr. Burnell in his South Indian Paleography and Dr. Caldwell in his Introduction to the Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages, have expressed this opinion.
3. McCrindle's translation of the Periplus Maris Erythræi, page 5
4. McCrindle's translation of Ptolemy's Geography of India and Southern Asia, page 1. Dr.Bhandarkar's Early History of the Dekkan, page 20
5. See Thamotharam Pillai’s edition of Iraiyanar Akapporul. The commentator (Nilakandan) states that his interpretation of the rules of the Akapporul is that handed-down through several generations from Nakkirar, one of the poets of the last Sangha of Madura. He gives a list of the names of teachers through whom the commentary was transmitted, but it does not appear to be a complete list.
6. Salem District Manual, Vol II, P356.
7. See Indian Antiquary, Vol III., p. 28 and Dr. Hultzsch's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol I. p.145
8. Akam-Stanzas 55, 124, 396. This work is not published in print as yet
9. Pathirruppattu, Stanzas 51 to 60. This poem also has not appeared in print.
10. Chilappathikaram XXI-11 to 15 and XXIX-1to 3
11. This poem with the commentary of Nallarkkiniyar was published by Mr. Sarinathier in the year 1892. The author’s name is not given, but he is generally known by the title Ilanko-Adikal which signifies “a Royal monk.” In line 1 of the Pathikam or Preface to the poem, it is stated that he lived as a monk in the Kuna-Vayil-Koddam (the East Gate Temple).
12. Chilappathikaram, page 31 and XXX-160.
13. Mahawanso, Dipawanso, Rajavali and Rajaratnakar
14. Kalingattu-parani, Vikrama-Chôlan-Ula Kulôttunga-Cholan-Ula and Raja Raja Chôlan-Ula.
15. The copper plates relating to the Chudamani Vihara at Negapatam, now preserved in the town of Leyden in Holland. See Archaeological Reports of Southern India, by Dr. Burges, Vol. IV., p. 204. The plates recording the grant of Udaiyendra Mangalam, during the reign of Vira Narayana Chôla. See Salem District Manual, p. 369.
16. There were other Karikal Chôlas after him
17. Mr. Hugh Nevill of the Ceylon Civil Service and Editor of the "Taprobanian" informed me that many ballads and stories still current in Ceylon refer to this tradition. Upham’s translation of the Râjavali, chapter 35, p. 228. Râjaratnâcari, p. 57. Turnour's Epitome of the History of Ceylon, p. 21.
18. The Kalingattu Parani and the Leyden Grant.