A History of India, Third Edition

THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRES

referred to this great ancestor and they attributed to him the building of
dikes along the banks of the Kaveri and the decoration of Kanchipuram
with gold. Karikala’s policy was obviously aimed at extending the
territorial base of the Cholas at the expense of the other tribal
principalities, but this policy seems to have alienated the people who
threatened to flee from Karikala’s domains so that he had to make
concessions to them.
At the end of the Sangam era the development of the three southern
kingdoms was suddenly interrupted by the invasion of the Kalabhras.
Historians have called the period which started with this invasion the
‘Kalabhra Interregnum’. It ended only when the Pallava dynasty emerged
as the first major regional power of South India in the sixth century.
Nothing is known about the origins or tribal affiliations of the Kalabhras.
In early medieval Tamil literature they are depicted as ‘bad kings’
(kaliarashar) who disrupted the order of the tribal kingdoms of coastal
South India and in the river valleys. It is said that they destroyed legitimate
kings and even cancelled land grants to Brahmins. Buddhist literature,
however, contains some information about a Kalabhra king,
Acchutavikkanta, under whose patronage Buddhist monasteries and poets
prospered. A Jaina grammarian quoted some of Acchutavikkanta’s poems
even in the tenth century. The Kalabhras were probably a mountain tribe
of southern India which suddenly swooped down on the kingdoms of the
fertile lowlands. The kings who headed this tribe must have been followers
of Buddhism and Jainism. In a later period of South Indian history a
similar process occurred when the Hoysalas, a highland tribe, emerged at
the time when the Chola empire declined. They were also at first depicted
as highwaymen who disturbed the peace of the settled Hindu kingdoms.
But, unlike the Kalabhras, once the Hoysalas had established their rule
they turned into orthodox supporters of Hinduism.

International trade and the Roman connection

An important aspect of early South Indian history was the flourishing trade
with Rome. The first two centuries AD were an important time for the
trade links between Asia and Europe. In addition to earlier Greek reports,
the Roman references to the trade with India provided the information on
which the European image of India was based. The European discovery of
India in the late medieval period by people like Marco Polo was in effect
only a rediscovery of that miraculous country which was known to the
ancient writers but had been cut off by the Arabs from direct contact with
the West for several centuries. Hegel commented on the trade with India in
his Philosophy of History: ‘The quest for India is a moving force of our
whole history. Since ancient times all nations have directed their wishes
and desires to that miraculous country whose treasures they coveted. These