Though it is accepted fact that the migration started from Asia into Europe,there seems to be no evidence of Neanderthal type of man in India.
The reason could have been a cataclysm like great fire or Flood.
Europe did not witness such a cataclysm.
Hence the remains of such type of evidence has not been found as it might be deep down the water or incinerated, the remains might be charred and
need detailed investigation.
But, as I have been maintaining my posts, there is this obsession to follow the History(?) of Europe through European sources, when these sources quote Asian/Indian resources for their first migration !
The earliest Epic of Mankind, The Ramayana gives a clear description of the type of Species.
Valimki states that when Rama decided to attack Ravana He gave a call through Sugreeva.
The Vanaras came from all the places from Madhya Pradesh,South India, and from the place ‘where the Sun always shines or always sets”
The last one is Polar regions.
Valmiki also mentions that the Vanaras were dominant in South India, they were concentrated in Kishkinta, they had high foreheads and features (resembling the Vanaras), and they lived in caves.
One can find these warren of Caves in the remains of Hampi which was earlier Kishkinta.
Vanaras meansVan( forest) and Naras, man like beings in Forests.
In Mahabharata Lord Krishna says the Species to which Jambhavan belonged was near extinct( one must remember Jambhavan appears, along with Hanuman in both Ramayana and Mahabharata).
The description of Jambhavan in the Ramayana resembles the Yeti.
Some Indologists speak of these being s having lived in South India 5,00, 000 years ago!
Neanderthals could speak and reason out, though the later point is being disputed .
One needs to analyse the Kishkinda Kanda of Ramayana.
It seems to me that Hanuman and Vanaras belonged to the equivalent of what is known as Neanderthal in the west.
Indian Neanderthal ( why can’t we call the species as Vanaras) are the Vanaras and they populated the South India.
When one looks at the records of the ancient History of Tamils, one would find references to species like this and one should not forget Lemuria!
Kavatapuram was the second capital of early Pandyas whose first capital South Madurai was devoured by sea. ‘Kavatapuram’ means the doorway (of South India). Valmiki Ramayana has a few references to South India. One of them goes like this:–
The Tolkappiyam also formulates the captivating division of the Tamil land into five regions (tinai�), each associated with one particular aspect of love, one poetical expression, and also one deity�: thus the hills (kuri�ji�) with union and with Cheyon (Murugan)�; the desert (palai�) with separation and Korravai (Durga)�; the forests (mullai�) with awaiting and Mayon (Vishnu-Krishna)�; the seashore (neytal�) with wailing and Varuna�; and the cultivated lands (marutam) with quarrel and Ventan (Indra). Thus from the beginning we have a fusion of non-Vedic deities (Murugan or Korravai), Vedic gods (Indra, Varuna) and later Puranic deities such as Vishnu (Mal or Tirumal). Such a synthesis is quite typical of the Hindu temperament and cannot be the result of an overnight or superficial influence�; it is also as remote as possible from the separateness we are told is at the root of so-called �Dravidian culture.�
Expectedly, this fusion grows by leaps and bounds in classical Sangam poetry whose composers were Brahmins, princes, merchants, farmers, including a number of women. The �Eight Anthologies� of poetry (orettuttokai�) abound in references to many gods�: Shiva, Uma, Murugan, Vishnu, Lakshmi (named Tiru, which corresponds to Sri) and several other Saktis.[37] The Paripadal, one of those anthologies, consists almost entirely of devotional poetry to Vishnu. One poem[38] begins with a homage to him and Lakshmi, and goes on to praise Garuda, Shiva on his �majestic bull,� the four-faced Brahma, the twelve Adityas, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the Saptarishis, Indra with his �dreaded thunderbolt,� the devas and asuras, etc., and makes glowing references to the Vedas and Vedic scholars.[39] So does the Purananuru,[40] another of the eight anthologies, which in addition sees Lord Shiva as the source of the four Vedas (166) and describes Lord Vishnu as �blue-hued� (174) and �Garuda-bannered� (56).[41] Similarly, a poem (360) of a third anthology, the Akananuru, declares that Shiva and Vishnu are the greatest of gods[42]
Not only deities or scriptures, landmarks sacred in the North, such as the Himalayas or Ganga, also become objects of great veneration in Tamil poetry. North Indian cities are referred to, such as Ujjain, or Mathura after which Madurai was named. Court poets proudly claim that the Chera kings conquered North Indian kingdoms and carved their emblem onto the Himalayas. They clearly saw the subcontinent as one entity�; thus the Purananuru says they ruled over �the whole land / With regions of hills, mountains, / Forests and inhabited lands / Having the Southern Kumari / And the great Northern Mount / And the Eastern and Western seas / As their borders….�[43]”
The oldest Literature known to Man starts with the Invocation to Agni,
‘Agnimele Purohitham’
For the Bramins Agni and worship of Agni is special.
The Aupasna Fire(Ritual Fire0 )hat is kept at Home is carried for generations, being transferred from Father to Son and the Agnis is not to be put off.
Though there are many Gods are praised in the Vedas, Agni has priority.
But worship of other Gods, though mentioned in the Vedas and Suktas are in the Vedas n praise of them they take a second place.
But the term Sanatana Dharma is not to be confused with Vaidika.
Vaidika refers to the worship of a particular entity(Agni), Sanatana Dharma refers to the whole systems of Indian Thoughts which includes Fire worship.
When one reads the Vedas , he will find that the Vedas have Samhitas, Hymns for worship for Gods.
But the procedures are found, as we find them today.
Where do these procedures come from?
And from whom?
It is believed that the practices are from Smrtis,(Recollections) for Individual Discipline and Agamas, for Collective worship.
Two points are worth the mention.
We have Smritis, Vishnu Smriti, Vasishta Smriti, and many more including Manu Smriti.
These suggest they are Vedic if not Puranic, as he Smritis are mentioned in the Puranas.
Allusions to Purans are in the Vedas.
So which is older, the Purans are the Vedas?
Secondly the Vedas do not mention collective worship or the building of temples.
They find a place in Smritis.
Intriguing!
Then we have the Agama.
Agama (Sanskrit आगम) is derived from the verb root गम (gam) meaning “to go” and the preposition आ (aa) meaning “toward” and refers to scriptures “that which has come down”.
It also means “a traditional doctrine, or system which commands faith”
The Agama , mainly, constitute the methods of temple construction and creation of idols, worship means of deities, philosophical doctrines, meditative practices, attainment of sixfold desires and four kinds of yoga.
The Agamic religions are also called Tantrism, although the term ‘tantra’ is sometimes used specifically to refer to Shakta Agamas.
The origin and chronology of Agamic religions remain contentious.
The Vedas mentions Tantras(though they are to be inferred from the explanations of the Veda Text Commentaries, yet Tantra is consdidered to be of later origin along with the Agamas.
In theMalay language the word Agama literally means ‘religion’. Agama traditions have been the sources of Yoga and Self Realization concepts in the Indian subcontinent, including Kundalini Yoga and encompass traditions of asceticism.
Tantrism includes within its fold Buddhist and Jaina tantras suggesting that Hindu, Jaina and Buddhist tantrism developed separately after arising from common sources of Tantric elements.
The Agamic tradition, in general, has been dated to the pre-Mauryan period as references to the tradition are found in later Vedic literature of Atharvaveda.
While there is evidence that the Agama is a part of Veda, thee is a reference that the Agama was conceived by the descendants of Sage Viswamitra’s sons when then they were banished by Viswamitra to the South, Dravida.
The Apasthamba sutra is considered to be compiled by Apasthamba in the South, incorporating the practices of the Tamils
There is a Saying in Tamizh, one of the oldest languages of the world ,along with Sanskrit,
‘Doesn’t matter if I lose one of my eyes, the other should lose both their eyes’
Map of some settlements of archaeological importance in Tamil Nadu.
This is what I felt when I searched for information about the antiquity of Tamizh.
One does not get enough information on the Web.
Or in the Public domain in the form of Books , Articles.
As compared the touted , fraudulent love for Tamizh to make a living and vicious hatred for the Brahmins and the North, driven by the lust for power, a
Group in Tamil Nadu has been systematically suppressing a portion of History of the Tamizh which speak about the Vedas and The Purans.
This group,boot-lickers of the British Raj,fueled by the false and dis-proven Theory of Aryan Invasion , mainly promoted by the Justice party,
purported to look after the welfare of the Tamils(interestingly
the Leaders of the Party were not Tamils, but Telugu Theagaraya Chettiar and a Malayali!)
suppressed the truth.
The self-styled rationalist Periyar, EVR, Leader of the Tamils(again self-proclaimed)Karunanidhi and his minions were abetting this fraud.
Their intention was to hide the fact that the Tamils had strong roots with The Sanatana Dharma.
What they forgot(Really?) is that in the process the Richness and the cultural Heritage, even the Date of the Tamil Sangam Literature was made to look recent!
Let me quote.
It is a fact that archaeology in the South has so far unearthed little that can compare to findings in the North in terms of ancientness, massiveness or sophistication�: the emergence of urban civilization in Tamil Nadu is now fixed at the second or third century BC, about two and a half millennia after the appearance of Indus cities. Moreover, we do not have any fully or largely excavated city or even medium-sized town�: Madurai, the ancient capital of the Pandya kingdom, has hardly been explored at all�; Uraiyur, that of the early Cholas, saw a dozen trenches�;[5] Kanchipuram, the Pallavas� capital, had seventeen, and Karur, that of the Cheras, hardly more�; Kaveripattinam,[6] part of the famous ancient city of Puhar (the first setting of the Shilappadikaram epic), saw more widespread excavations, yet limited with regard to the potential the site offers. The same may be said of Arikamedu (just south of Pondicherry), despite excavations by Jouveau-Dubreuil, Wheeler, and several other teams right up to the 1990s.[7]
“We have a peculiar situation too as regards Southern India, and particularly Tamil Nadu. Take any classic account of Indian history and you will see how little space the South gets in comparison with the North. While rightly complaining that �Hitherto most historians of ancient India have written as if the south did not exist,�[ 1]Vincent Smith in his Oxford History of India hardly devotes a few pages to civilization in the South, that too with the usual stereotypes to which I will return shortly. R.�C. Majumdar�s Advanced History of India,[2]or A.�L. Basham�s The Wonder That Was India[3] are hardly better in that respect. The first serious History of South India,[4] that of K.�A. Nilakanta Sastri, appeared only in 1947. Even recent surveys of Indian archaeology generally give the South a rather cursory treatment….
But there is a second reason for this poor awareness�: scholars and politicians drawing inspiration from the Dravidian movement launched by E.�V. Ramaswamy Naicker (�Periyar�) have very rigid ideas about the ancient history of Tamil Nadu. First, despite all evidence to the contrary, they still insist on the Aryan invasion theory in its most violent version, turning most North Indians and upper-caste Indians into descendants of the invading Aryans who overran the indigenous Dravidians, and Sanskrit into a deadly rival of Tamil. Consequently, they assert that Tamil is more ancient than Sanskrit, and civilization in the South older than in the North. Thus recently, Tamil Nadu�s Education minister decried in the State Assembly those who go �to the extent of saying that Dravidian civilization is part of Hinduism� and declared, �The Dravidian civilization is older than the Aryan.�[8] It is not uncommon to hear even good Tamil scholars utter such claims..
Tolkappiyam is placed at two extremities – 1000 BCE and 7th to 9th centuries CE.
The existence of “Tamil Sangams” based on the internal evidences of the literature and “Iraiyanar Agapporul” is accepted by one group of scholars and denied by the other.
Megalithic culture related to Tamil culture – According to Asko Parpola the Dravidian languages came to India from the west through Iran about 700 BCE with the carriers of the Megalithic culture. He repeats that “one of the most widely supported hypotheses” was the one that was proposed in 1953 by Christoph von Furer-Haimendrof3
Such Megalithic culture distributed all over South India including Tamilnadu and which persisted well into the first centuries of the Christian era.
The last phase of the Megalithic culture (c.300-100 BCE) does overlap the period of Old Tamil Culture (c.100 BCE – 600 CE), which in its militaristic idealization of warfare (including such elements as the horse and iron weapons) closely resembles the martial character of the Megalithic culture (in which weapons were regular grave goods).
Megalithic invasion of Tamizhagam – Asko Parpola4 also talks about a “Megalithic invasion” of Tamizhagam. To bring the “invading Dravidians” from Iran like “Aryans”, he proposes another hypothesis that the Dravidians could not have arrived in India as late as the Megalithic culture is clear from the fact that there is evidence in the Vedic texts for the presence of Dravidian languages in the Punjab already in the second millennium BCE.
Thus, the Tamil language could have developed only after 500-300 BCE, and could have been written down after 300 BCE, so that the literature evolved had been upto 1st century to 7tth cent.CE.
Therefore, the dating of Sangam literature should be decisive one in connecting it with Mahabharat incidences. The extensive usage of Mahabharat incidences as simile, metaphor and comparison in the literature clearly proves that it has reached South India definitely before or during 500-300 BCE. Otherwise, the Sangam Poets could not have adopted to use in such a manner…
The references about and of Mahabharat in the Sangam literature have been of the following nature:
Connecting the Tamil Kings of Tamizhagam with Mahabharata.
Direct references to Mahabharata.
Indirect references to Mahabharata.
Other references of simile types.
The usage of Mahabharata, characters, episodes etc., prove that the Sangam Poets had been well aware of the work during the material period. Though, the Great War was fought in the North separated by thousands of kilometres, its percolation to South down and its recording in the Tamil literature has been unique. Unless, there had been some relation between the Tamils and Mahabharata, the Poets could not have registered its presence positively in their poems.
The Contemproneity of Cheraman Peruncheraladhan
Muranjiyur Naganar, while singing the praise of Cheraman Peruncheraladhan, records that he offered food without any limit to the fighting armies of The Five and The Hundred (this is the usual expression used) implying Pandavas and the Kauravas, till the latter fell down dying (Puram.2.13-16). The following questions arise in the context10:
Whether the reference is historical or mere poetic exaggeration to eulogize the King to get Gifts.
Whether, the food was offered at the Site or he made any arrangements, if so in what way?
Why no cross-reference is found in the Mahabharata itself, had a Chera King did such a service?
In any case, the Poet knew the following facts:
The Pandavas were refused their land, which was due to them.
They got angry because of this and decided to fight.
They fought with Kauravas.
The Kauravas fell dying in the battlefield.
As the Chera, Cholas and Pandyas have been mentioned in the text of Mahabharata giving their details of participation in Rajasuya, the Great war etc.
Thus, in historical perspective, a Chera King might have participated in the War and he might have been given the charge of feeding the army, which the poet describes in his own way.
The Relation of Velir with “Tuvarai” and Krishna
Kapilar records certain details about Irngovel (Puram.201:8-12), which are to be scrutinized critically:
Irungovel was born from a Yagna Pit (Tadavu) of a Rishi living in the North.
He ruled a city named “Tuvarai”, which had walls made of Copper like material.
He used to give alms without any discrimination.
He descended from the “Velir dynasty”, which had in existence for 49 generations before him.
The following points are noted after critical observation:
If we take 15/20/25 years as the reign of each generation, then the Velir must have been ruling since 500 +735 / 500+980 / 500+1225 or since 1235 / 1480 / 1725 BCE. Incidentally, which tallies with the “Tramiradesa Sanngatham” that threatened the territories of Kharavela as recorded in the Kharavela / Hathigumpa inscription.
Surprisingly, the Kharavela’s inscription records that he defeated a confederacy of Dravidian Kings, which was threatening his territorial integrity. And that confederacy was 1300 years old during his reign.
Interestingly, scholars have hitherto been mentioning that it was 103, 113, 130 or 300 years old, but, actually, the inscription reads that it was 1300 old.
If we consider that “Tuvarai”11was a famous town in Mysore as revealed through inscriptions existing in 12th century CE, then, the reign of first generation comes to 1st cent.BCE / 3rd cent.CE /4th cent.CE, which contradicts the Sangam chronology.
If we place the first dynasty at par with Mahabharata period, then, each dynasty must have ruled for nearly 40 years (3102-1000=2102/49=42 years), which may not be accepted by the modern scholars.
Thus, the 1700-1400 BCE period appears to be reasonable. Then, the Chera King might not be offering food to the soldiers of the Great War as claimed by the Poet, if c.3100 BCE is taken as the date of Mahabharat War and he might have done so.
People who were living North of Vindhyas were not seemingly unaware of the existence of the Great Culture that was thriving in the Dravida, meaning South, part of India , The South of Vindhya ranges.
Viswamitra, banished his 52 sons to Dravida for having disobeyed and questioned him to the Dravidian Region.
They found a superior culture, if not on par with the Vedic culture to be thriving there.
They found that , of all the civilizations known then , The Tamils were the only Culture, who were so evolved that they ascribed five landmasses in their territory, ascribed Gods, birds.Animals, Palnts, Lifestyle to each of these Divisions, this was explained in Agathiyam , Thokappiyam , the ancient Grammatical works of the Tamil language, dated some five thousands years!
Curious fact is that these Tamil texts quote Vedas and they , in turn, quote, the Tamils!
Please read my post, Million year Old Tamil quotes Vedas and They quote Tamil.’
The great Tamil Chera King Nedunchearalaathan was the man who fed both the armies of the Mahabharata War, Kauravas and Pandavas.
He had been addressed as P’erunchotru Udiyan’ one who fed many number of Stomachs-Nedunchotru Uthiyan Neduncheralaathan was how he was called.
He donated 100 veli( one veli= 100 acres) of land to Brahmins on the condition that he should see the Homa Smoke in the morning from this area every morning!
( source.History of Tamils By PT.Srinivasa Iengar)
There are references to Arjuna marrying a Princess from Madurai on his pilgrimage.
Now coming back to Viswamitra’s sons.
The sons of Viswamitra mingled with the Tamils and followed the Tamil Customs.
Their descendant , Apasthamaba, combined the best of Tamil practices and the Sanatana Dharma ad compiled the Apashamba Sutra, which is practiced by the Brahmins even to-day(Apasthamba Sutra)
One notable custom is the inclusion of Mangaya Dharana, Thali in a Marriage, which is not found in Vedic Marriages.
In Santana Dharma, marriage is complete with the performance of Panigrahana and Sapthapati.
And the wearing of ‘Metti’, wring worn around the toe of the leg of Man was practiced among the Tamils, to indicate that he was married.(women were decribed as not looking at Men in the Face!)
This custom was changed to Women by Apasthamba.
Read the following information to complicate the issue.
Evidence indicates that Apsthamba compiled the practices of the Tamils and the Sanatana Dharma was unaware of the Tamils Culture.
Yet Archaeological and other Puranic references indicate that there was interaction between the two great cultures.
It seems that there were two different cultures existing side by side at the same time.
Or is it that both were One and that History is lost in India , as usual with us.
I tend to agree with the last view.
”
The archaeologist K.�V. Raman also notes�:
Some form of Mother-Goddess worship was prevalent in the Megalithic period … as suggested by the discovery of a small copper image of a Goddess in the urn-burials of Adichchanallur. More recently, in Megalithic burials the headstone, shaped like the seated Mother, has been located at two places in Tamil Nadu.[17]
Megalithic culture attached great importance to the cult of the dead and ancestors, which parallels that in Vedic culture. It is also likely that certain gods later absorbed into the Hindu pantheon, such as Aiyanar (or Sastha), Murugan (the later Kartik), Korravai (Durga), Naga deities, etc., were originally tribal gods of that period. Though probably of later date, certain megalithic sites in the Nilgiris were actually dolmen shrines, some of them holding Ganesh-like images, others lingams.[ 18] Megalithic practices evocative of later Hinduism are thus summarized by the British archaeologists Bridget and Raymond Allchin�:
The orientation of port-holes and entrances on the cist graves is frequently towards the south. … This demands comparison with later Indian tradition where south is the quarter of Yama. Among the grave goods, iron is almost universal, and the occasional iron spears and tridents (trisulas) suggest an association with the god Siva. The discovery in one grave of a trident with a wrought-iron buffalo fixed to the shaft is likewise suggestive, for the buffalo is also associated with Yama, and the buffalo demon was slain by the goddess Durga, consort ofSiva, with a trident. … The picture which we obtain from this evidence, slight as it is, is suggestive of some form of worship of Siva.[ 19]
About the third century BC, cities and towns appear owing to yet little understood factors�; exchanges with the Mauryan and Roman empires seem to have played an important catalytic role, as also the advent of iron. From the very beginning, Buddhist, Jain and Hindu[*] streaks are all clear.
Among the earliest evidences, a stratigraphic dig by I.�K. Sarma within the garbagriha of the Parasuramesvara temple at Gudimallam,[*] brought to light the foundation of a remarkable Shivalingam of the Mauryan period (possibly third century BC)�: it was fixed within two circular pithas at the centre of asquare vastu-mandala. �The deity on the frontal face of the tall linga reveals himself as a proto-puranic Agni-Rudra�[20] standing on a kneeling devayana. If this early date, which Sarma established on stratigraphic grounds and from pottery sherds, is correct, this fearsome image could well be the earliest such representation in the South.
Then we find �terracotta figures like Mother Goddess, Naga-linga etc., from Tirukkampuliyur�; a seated Ganesa from Alagarai�; Vriskshadevata and Mother Goddess from Kaveripakkam and Kanchipuram, in almost certainly a pre-Pallava sequence.�[21] Cult of a Mother goddess is also noticed in the early levels at Uraiyur,[22] and at Kaveripattinam, Kanchipuram and Arikamedu.[ 23] Excavations at Kaveripattinam have brought to light many Buddhist artefacts, but also, though of later date, a few figurines of Yakshas, of Garuda and Ganesh.[24] Evidence of the Yaksha cult also comes from pottery inscriptions at Arikamedu.[25]
The same site also yielded one square copper coin of the early Cholas, depicting on the obverse an elephant, a ritual umbrella, the Srivatsa symbol, and the front portion of a horse.[ 26] This is in fact an important theme which recurs on many coins of the Sangam age[27] recovered mostly from river beds near Karur, Madurai etc. Besides the Srivatsa (also found among artefacts at Kanchipuram[28]), many coins depict a swastika, a trishul, a conch, a shadarachakra, a damaru, a crescent moon, and a sun with four, eight or twelve rays. Quite a few coins clearly show a yagnakunda. That is mostly the case with the Pandyas� coins, some of which also portray ayubastambha to which a horse is tied as part of the ashvamedha sacrifice. As the numismatist R.�Krishnamurthy puts it, �The importance of Pandya coins of Vedic sacrifice series lies in the fact that these coins corroborate what we know from Sangam literature about the performance of Vedic sacrifices by a Pandya king of this age.�[29]
Finally, it is remarkable how a single coin often depicts symbols normally associated with Lord Vishnu (the conch, the srivatsa, the chakra) together with symbols normally associated with Lord Shiva (the trishul, the crescent moon, the damaru).[30] Clearly, the two �sects��a very clumsy word�got along well enough. Interestingly, other symbols depicted on these coins, such as the three- or six-arched hill, the tree-in-railing, and the ritual stand in front of a horse, are frequently found in Mauryan iconography.[31]
All in all, the material evidence, though still meagre, makes it clear that Hindu concepts and cults were already integrated in the society of the early historic period of Tamil Nadu side by side with Buddhist and Jain elements. More excavations, for which there is great scope, are certain to confirm this, especially if they concentrate on ancient places of worship, as at Gudimallam. Let us now see the picture we get from Sangam literature.
Vedic & Puranic Culture�Literary Evidence
It is unfortunate that the most ancient Sangam compositions are probably lost for ever�; we only know of them through brief quotations in later works. An early text, the Tamil grammar Tolkappiyam, dated by most scholars to the first or second century AD,[*] is �said to have been modelled on the Sanskrit grammar of the Aindra school.�[32] Its content, says N. Raghunathan, shows that �the great literature of Sanskrit and the work of its grammarians and rhetoricians were well known and provided stimulus to creative writers in Tamil…. The Tolkappiyam adopts the entire Rasa theory as worked out in the Natya Sastra of Bharata.�[33] It also refers to rituals and customs coming from the �Aryans,� a word which in Sangam literature simply means North Indians of Vedic culture�; for instance, theTolkappiyam �states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas,�[ 34] and it uses the same eight forms of marriage found in the Dharmashastras. Moreover, it mentions the caste system or �fourfold jathis� in the form of �Brahmins, Kings, Vaishyas and Vellalas,�[35] and calls Vedic mantras �the exalted expression of great sages.�[36]
The Tolkappiyam also formulates the captivating division of the Tamil land into five regions (tinai�), each associated with one particular aspect of love, one poetical expression, and also one deity�: thus the hills (kuri�ji�) with union and with Cheyon (Murugan)�; the desert (palai�) with separation and Korravai (Durga)�; the forests (mullai�) with awaiting and Mayon (Vishnu-Krishna)�; the seashore (neytal�) with wailing and Varuna�; and the cultivated lands (marutam) with quarrel and Ventan (Indra). Thus from the beginning we have a fusion of non-Vedic deities (Murugan or Korravai), Vedic gods (Indra, Varuna) and later Puranic deities such as Vishnu (Mal or Tirumal). Such a synthesis is quite typical of the Hindu temperament and cannot be the result of an overnight or superficial influence�; it is also as remote as possible from the separateness we are told is at the root of so-called �Dravidian culture.�
Expectedly, this fusion grows by leaps and bounds in classical Sangam poetry whose composers were Brahmins, princes, merchants, farmers, including a number of women. The �Eight Anthologies� of poetry (orettuttokai�) abound in references to many gods�: Shiva, Uma, Murugan, Vishnu, Lakshmi (named Tiru, which corresponds to Sri) and several other Saktis.[37] The Paripadal, one of those anthologies, consists almost entirely of devotional poetry to Vishnu. One poem[38] begins with a homage to him and Lakshmi, and goes on to praise Garuda, Shiva on his �majestic bull,� the four-faced Brahma, the twelve Adityas, the Ashwins, the Rudras, the Saptarishis, Indra with his �dreaded thunderbolt,� the devas and asuras, etc., and makes glowing references to the Vedas and Vedic scholars.[39] So does the Purananuru,[40] another of the eight anthologies, which in addition sees Lord Shiva as the source of the four Vedas (166) and describes Lord Vishnu as �blue-hued� (174) and �Garuda-bannered� (56).[41] Similarly, a poem (360) of a third anthology, the Akananuru, declares that Shiva and Vishnu are the greatest of gods[42]
Not only deities or scriptures, landmarks sacred in the North, such as the Himalayas or Ganga, also become objects of great veneration in Tamil poetry. North Indian cities are referred to, such as Ujjain, or Mathura after which Madurai was named. Court poets proudly claim that the Chera kings conquered North Indian kingdoms and carved their emblem onto the Himalayas. They clearly saw the subcontinent as one entity�; thus the Purananuru says they ruled over �the whole land / With regions of hills, mountains, / Forests and inhabited lands / Having the Southern Kumari / And the great Northern Mount / And the Eastern and Western seas / As their borders….�[43]
The Kural (second to seventh century AD), authored by the celebrated Tiruvalluvar, is often described as an �atheistic� text, a hasty misconception. True, Valluvar�s 1,330 pithy aphorisms mostly deal with ethics (aram), polity (porul) and love (inbam), following the traditional Sanskritic pattern of the four objects of human life�: dharma, artha, kama, and moksha�the last implied rather than explicit. Still, the very first decade is an invocation to Bhagavan�: �The ocean of births can be crossed by those who clasp God�s feet, and none else�[44] (10)�; the same idea recurs later, for instance in this profound thought�: �Cling to the One who clings to nothing�; and so clinging, cease to cling� (350). The Kural also refers to Indra (25), to Vishnu�s avatar of Vamana (610), and to Lakshmi (e.g. 167), asserting that she will shower her grace only on those who follow the path of dharma (179, 920). There is nothing very atheistic in all this, and in reality the values of the Kural are perfectly in tune with those found in several shastras or in the Gita.[45]
Let us briefly turn to the famous Tamil epic Shilappadikaram (second to sixth century ad), which relates the beautiful and tragic story of Kannagi and Kovalan�; it opens with invocations to Chandra, Surya, and Indra, all of them Vedic Gods, and frequently praises Agni, Varuna, Shiva, Subrahmanya, Vishnu-Krishna, Uma, Kali, Yama and so forth. There are mentions of the four Vedas and of �Vedic sacrifices being faultlessly performed.� �In more than one place,� writes V. Ramachandra Dikshitar, the first translator of the epic into English, �there are references to Vedic Brahmans, their fire rites, and their chanting of the Vedic hymns. The Brahman received much respect from the king and was often given gifts of wealth and cattle.�[46] When Kovalan and Kannagi are married, they �walk around the holy fire,� a typically Vedic rite still at the centre of the Hindu wedding. Welcomed by a tribe of fierce hunters on their way to Madurai, they witness a striking apparition of Durga, who is addressed equally as Lakshmi and Sarasvati�the three Shaktis of the Hindu trinity. There are numerous references to legends from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas. After worshipping at two temples, one of Vishnu and the other of Shiva, the Chera king Shenguttuvan goes to the Himalayas in search of a stone for Kannagi�s idol, and bathes it in the Ganges�in fact, the waters of Ganga and those of Cauvery were said to be equally sacred. Similar examples could be given from the Manimekhalai�: even though it is a predominantly Buddhist work, it also mentions many Vedic and Puranic gods, and attributes the submergence of Puhar to the neglect of a festival to Indra.
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