Tamil Nadu: History
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Megalithic culture
Pallavaram: sarcophagi
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From: Yogesh Kabirdoss, ASI finds 2,300-year-old sarcophagus in Tamil Nadu, June 28, 2018: The Times of India
From: Yogesh Kabirdoss, ASI finds 2,300-year-old sarcophagus in Tamil Nadu, June 28, 2018: The Times of India
From: Yogesh Kabirdoss, ASI finds 2,300-year-old sarcophagus in Tamil Nadu, June 28, 2018: The Times of India
Nearly 140 years after British archaeologist Alexander Rea unearthed a sarcophagus from the hillocks of Pallavaram in Tamil Nadu, an identical artefact dating back by more than 2,000 years has been discovered in the same locality.
The near-intact clay coffin, excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), in December last year establishes the existence of a megalithic culture in Pallavaram.
Superintendent archaeologist of ASI Chennai circle A M V Subramanyam told TOI that the age of the sarcophagus could be about 2,300 years. “The discovery has brought to light that the area was inhabited by people who were not nomads. They had a technology to create a sarcophagus standing on 12 legs during the 3rd century BC,” he said. ASI will perform a thermoluminescence dating to determine the exact age of the piece, he added.
The discovery was made by a team of ASI officials following directions of the Madras HC to excavate the site in the wake a litigation regarding the plight of residents in Zamin Pallavaram.
Archaeologists took a trial excavation on the foothills of the Parivettumalai hillock at Zamin Pallavaram where they chanced upon the rim of the sarcophagus at a depth of two feet under the surface. Further exploration led to the discovery of the terracotta coffin. Though the artefact was covered with redware lid, it was damaged by boulders which might have rolled down the hillock due to soil erosion. The piece is 5.6ft long and 1.5ft wide; it has a depth of 1.64ft.
The ASI is yet to make the discovery of a 2,300-year-old terracotta sarcophagus public.
ASI sources said the coffin has three holes at the bottom besides the legs. Archaeologists say, usually such holes were used to tie ropes that would facilitate easy carriage of the coffin.
“The sarcophagi are of varying sizes depending on the height of the deceased. There are some interesting observations in this artefact, which has the shape of crescent indicating the belief among the people in those days that dead person would remain eternal as long as the existence of moon,” an ASI official said.
Incidentally, Alexander Rea, who was the second superintendent archaeologist of the ASI’s Chennai circle had unearthed a similar sarcophagus in 1888. That was six-foot long, one-foot eight inches deep and 1.5ft wide with 10 legs. Later, the artefact was moved to the Madras Government Museum in Egmore. During his excavation, several utensils such as cups, pots, bowls and iron nails were also found.
Superintendent archaeologist of ASI Chennai circle A M V Subramanyam said the sarcophagus would be displayed at the Fort Museum in Chennai. “It is a very significant discovery. We would be placing the coffin inside a glass case at the museum,” he said.
“The unearthing of the sarcophagus has highlighted the importance of protecting the site for future excavations at Pallavaram,” Subramanyam added.
Early history
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Devdutt Pattanaik, Oct 4, 2022: The Times of India
No Purana talks about these great sea voyages. There are no grand royal carvings of the same either in India. The connection with the warlords of North India seems to have squeezed out all Tamil memories. Why we know so little about Tamil legends
As per Brahmin lore, all civilisation in Tamil lands emerged in a mystical past, after Agastya brought grammar from the Himalayan regions, along with mountains and rivers, which became known as Southern Kailasa and Southern Ganga.
But these are clearly later tales, composed less than a thousand years ago. They seek to obscure the contribution of earlier Buddhists and Jain monks, and the even earlier Dravidian drum-beating poets, patronised by warrior chieftains, who venerated gods of the mountains, pastures, farms, drylands and seashores, and merchants who travelled by sea to faraway golden islands of Southeast Asia, the Survanabhumi, to trade Indian textiles.
The oldest Tamil poems that we have are around 2,000 years old. And they speak of five landscapes and connect each one with an emotion and a god.
The seashore is linked to long separated lover and the sea-god Kadalon
Cropland linked to the treacherous lover and the rain-god Vendan
Forestland linked to the waiting lover and the cowherd god Mayon
Mountains linked to the eloping lover and the warrior god Ceyon
Dryland linked to the anxious nervous hero and the wild goddess Kotravai
Some argue that the sea-god is Varuna and the rain-god is Indra, that Ceyon is Kartikeya or Shiva, and Mayon is Krishna, and Kotravai is Kali. But these seem like forced comparisons.
When Vedic civilisation was emerging in Gangetic plains around 1,000 BCE, the south was full of those who were smelting iron; and farmers who were burying the dead in large pots and marking the spot with dolmens made with giant rocks; and pastoral people with herds of sheep and goat were burning dung heaps to create large ash mounds, across the Deccan.
These people were clueless about Indra, Agni and Soma. By 300 BCE, the Mauryan empire extended along highways that extended from the north of India down south, but only up to Tungabhadra (river), not beyond.
We know very little of what was happening further south at this time, except perhaps what we learn from early Sangam songs. It is in Ashokan edicts we learn of the kings known as Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas. In later literature, this region is known as Tamilakkam.
Early Sangam works indicate some familiarity with the northern people, who are referred to as the Aryas. For example, when one poet sees the three kings — of the Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas — sitting together talking, rather than fighting as they usually did, he equates them with the three fires of the Vedic Brahmin priests, indicating familiarity with the fires meant to make oblations to the gods, to the ancestors and to the household found in Vedic traditions.
There is one reference indicating familiarity with the Ramayana. The poet refers to monkeys picking the jewellery dropped by Sita when she has been abducted by Ravana and taking it to the king. But they do not refer to the south as the land of the vanara (monkey), as it came to be known in the Vijayanagara period, seven hundred years ago. There is also one reference to the Mahabharata where we hear of a Chera king who provides food for the soldiers who fought at Kurukshetra.
By 1,000 CE, the same countryside was filled with songs of the Alvars and Nayanars who are passionately devoted to Vishnu and Shiva. Tamil versions of Ramayana and Mahabharata are composed. Between the composition of Sangam poetry and the composition of devotional Hindu works, Tamil epics were composed. In Silappadikaram, Manimegalai, Kundala Keshi and Jivaka Cintamani, women play a prominent role and Buddhist and Jain philosophy gains prominence.
Some would call this period a dark period of Kalabharas. But this was actually a time when Hindu as well as Buddhist merchants and priests were travelling from Tamil coasts to faraway Vietnam and Cambodia and Indonesia spreading Indian ideas of kingship. By 500 CE, merchants had taken images and stories of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, as well as Buddha. Sanskrit was spoken by the elite members of the court, which led to spread of Hindu ideas of kingship such as Chakravarti embodied in the epic Ramayana.
Some of the earliest Ramayana artworks on a temple wall are found in Central Java (Prambanan), about the same time that we find them in cave temples carved by Chalukyas in Karnataka. This is around 1,200 years ago, when Pallava kings had marital relationships with the rulers of Funan. Kaundinya, a merchant-prince or sage, had married the Naga princess there, as per legend.
In the 10th century, the Chola kings had waged a naval war against the Srivijaya kings of Sumatra and Java. This connection between the Chola Mandala (Coromandel coast) and Suvarnabhumi (Southeast Asia) is eclipsed by all talk of Muslim invaders from Central Asia.
Around the time Somnath temple was being raided by the Ghaznavids, Cholas were taking their merchant ships to claim naval passage across Malacca straits to the faraway Champa kingdom in South Vietnam.
While Dharma-shastra was forbidding North Indians from sea travel, Tamil merchants were establishing strong sea trade routes to China. However, by the time temple-cities such as Angkor Wat and Ayuthia in Cambodia and Thailand emerged 7-8 centuries ago, Brahmins were increasingly shunning sea travels, which explains the waning influence of Hinduism and rising influence of Buddhism.
This relationship waned even further as the orthodox Brahmin rules of not crossing the sea also took root in Tamil lands. After the 14th century sea trade had passed on to Arabs, and by the 16th century was being grabbed by Europeans.
A large number of land grants in Tamil Nadu started being made to Brahmins, either directly or via temples, which prevented brain drain to Southeast Asia, and also led to the rise of agricultural feudalism and caste practices.
The Buddhist who did not find local Indian patronage found success in Burma and Thailand. In the centuries that followed, when Muslim Sultans controlled much of North India, Tamil history reveals a rivalry that emerges between Brahmin priests who favoured Shiva and those who worshipped Vishnu, and village gods such as Aiyanar and Sastha, who were seen as being born of Shiva (Hara) and Vishnu (Hari). We also find the rise of right-handed castes who controlled land and left-handed castes who controlled crafts.
The memory of Tamil connections with Suvarnabhumi was restricted to folklore. No Purana talks about these great sea voyages. There are no grand royal carvings of the same either in India. The connection with the warlords of North India seems to have squeezed out all Tamil memories of merchants who long traded with islands of Southeast Asia.
