centuries. We shall use the term “Hindu” regularly from now on in our
discussion even though the term is not indigenous. It was adapted from
Islamic and Persian sources who by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
spoke of “Hinduism” as the religion practiced by people on the “other side”
of the Indus. Indeed, the “Hinduism” we see emerging in the deep south
remains very similar in many ways to the “Hinduism” one finds in the
southern part of the subcontinent even today and is a significant source for
later developments in India.
The southern story begins in the third or fourth century BCE. A literature
appeared in the Tamil language by at least the first century CE, much of it
associated with an “academy” (can.kam) of poets headquartered near the
capital of the Pa ̄n.t.iya chieftains in Maturai. In this literature one finds
descriptions of a culture and landscape that largely pre-dated the coming of
northern influences. This culture, generally called Dravidian, had its roots
in several sources including neolithic settlements of the south and a
megalithic culture that had penetrated South India by at least the eighth
centuryBCE– this culture was characterized by its use of urns for burial
and the erection of huge stones over their buried dead. In ways still not
clear, some aspects of the script of the Indus Valley may have influenced
the development of the Tamil language. Indeed a Tamil script was in
place by the fourth or third century BCEand a Tamil grammar (Tolka ̄ppiyam)
by the second century BCE. After Sanskrit, Tamil has been the oldest con-
tinuous language on the subcontinent. The poetic can.kamliterature tended
to be of two types: external (pur
̄
am) – that which described the social order,
warfare, and public affairs – and internal (akam) – that which described the
world of home and spirit, the different types of love, and the world of
the woman.^1
The culture described in this can.kamliterature was relatively “democratic”
inasmuch as hierarchialization appears not yet to have taken place. The
poets divided their space into five landscapes (tin.ais): agricultural tracts,
pastoral areas, hilly spaces, coastal zones, and barren tracts. Each landscape
had its own character and ethos reflected in its lifestyle and deities. Certain
flowers, for example, were associated with the “moods” of the people, and
the differing kinds of love relationships in each area.^2 Each tract had its own
deity. Murukan ̄, for example, was the god of the hills who was thought to be
a hunter present in nature and the foliage of the hills. He could dispel
negative power (anan.ku) from both nature and person and could possess
the devotee. He was represented by his lance and the shaman who carried
a lance (ve ̄lan
̄
). Similarly, the goddess Kor
̄r
̄avai roamed in the barren spaces
embodying the hostility of this landscape. These deities were terrestrial in
nature, and, in some cases, were seen as mythical ancestors to the peoples
of that tract.
88 The Post-classical Period