A Concise History of South India: Issues and Interpretations
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014
Ed. Prof. Noboru Karashima
For nearly 50 years Nilakanta Sastri's A History of South India held the field as a synthetic account of the history of Peninsular India. The chronological limit of this book, the Battle of Talikota in 1565 made Sastri's approach to the narrative history of South India a tad suspect as it was founded on the assumption that the end of Vijayanagara Empire marked a decisive disjuncture in the history of the region. The lines of continuity and change represented by the emergence of post Talikota polities such as the nayakdoms in different regions the peninsula were ignored in favor of a larger identity based narrative, one that has been reconstructed by Sumathi Ramswamy in her outstanding book, Passions of the Tongue. The twin challenges of identity founded narratives and nationalist hagiographies have made the study of history not only difficult but also professionally dangerous. South India with its obsession with caste and linguistic identities, particularly the Tamil region. has projected over the past 4 decades a historiography that is nourished in the soil of distortion, misinformation, fabrication and worse outright forgery. The book under review is a sound and welcome contribution to the study of the past of a historically and culturally vibrant region.
Even since Robert Cauldwell published his Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages the Aryan - Dravidian dichotomy became the stock in trade of historians who posited a Dravidian utopia which was upset of the Aryan invasion. This theory which found political resonance in the Pure Tamil Movement and the caste politics of the Dravidian Movement was not question seriously until the 1990s and even then the arguments against the Aryan- Dravidian Theory was stymied by the progressive/secular/communal fault lines of Indian historiography of the post colonial period. Karashima needs to be congratulated for steering clear of such intellectual and political minefields though there is some concession to the Dravidian origin of the Tamil language in the early chapters of this edited volume.
The archaeology of the South Indian past is being explored by a number of historians some of whom have contributed chapters to this volume. Unlike the Gangetic valley in which we have a clear and datable archaeological horizon in the form of NBP ware, in south India the ubiquitous presence of Black and Red ware makes the task of using ceramic tradition as a marker for cultural and social change extremely difficult. Added to this is the problem posed by the Megalithic Culture whose antiquity still remains a subject of deep controversy. In the recent excavations undertaken by Prof. K Rajan in the site of Porunthal a vast burial mound has been excavated and ceramics with graffiti scratches have been discovered. Can these marks be read as a primitive kind of Brahmi which would make the advent of literacy coterminous with the black and red ware, an interpretation which cannot be sustained. Cultural and historical changes as reflected in the historical and material evidence need to be studied carefully before generalization made. The Iron Age in the region was at best a society of pastoral and semi agricultural people who were drawn into a nexus of trade which linked parts of the Peninsula with the wider world which sources beads, metals and textiles and perhaps exotic animals from the region.
The bulk of the book deals with the Chola and Vijayanagara Empires which stretched from the ninth century till the end of the seventeenth century. Karashima and Subbarayalu have themselves contributed to the study of these empires and the analysis of the data is essentially around their works. Burton Stein and other historians have also made singular contribution though there is not much discussion on their contributions. An aspect of medieval society which is neglected in this volume in the Right Left division of society and its gradual consolidation into jati/ caste formations in the Vijayanagara period which witnessed the rise of a mature caste society. The use of water and disputes over water which were abundant in the Vijayanagara period has not been dealt with in this work. The fact that during the Vijayanagara period the dry region was opened for settlement has not been studies in the work. The use of tribal people and their transformation into armed auxiliaries during the Vijayangara period can be attested by the history of communities such as the Gollas and the Boyas.
The book under review can be recommended as a text book for introductory courses at the graduate and advanced senior courses.
New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014
Ed. Prof. Noboru Karashima
For nearly 50 years Nilakanta Sastri's A History of South India held the field as a synthetic account of the history of Peninsular India. The chronological limit of this book, the Battle of Talikota in 1565 made Sastri's approach to the narrative history of South India a tad suspect as it was founded on the assumption that the end of Vijayanagara Empire marked a decisive disjuncture in the history of the region. The lines of continuity and change represented by the emergence of post Talikota polities such as the nayakdoms in different regions the peninsula were ignored in favor of a larger identity based narrative, one that has been reconstructed by Sumathi Ramswamy in her outstanding book, Passions of the Tongue. The twin challenges of identity founded narratives and nationalist hagiographies have made the study of history not only difficult but also professionally dangerous. South India with its obsession with caste and linguistic identities, particularly the Tamil region. has projected over the past 4 decades a historiography that is nourished in the soil of distortion, misinformation, fabrication and worse outright forgery. The book under review is a sound and welcome contribution to the study of the past of a historically and culturally vibrant region.
Even since Robert Cauldwell published his Comparative Grammar of Dravidian Languages the Aryan - Dravidian dichotomy became the stock in trade of historians who posited a Dravidian utopia which was upset of the Aryan invasion. This theory which found political resonance in the Pure Tamil Movement and the caste politics of the Dravidian Movement was not question seriously until the 1990s and even then the arguments against the Aryan- Dravidian Theory was stymied by the progressive/secular/communal fault lines of Indian historiography of the post colonial period. Karashima needs to be congratulated for steering clear of such intellectual and political minefields though there is some concession to the Dravidian origin of the Tamil language in the early chapters of this edited volume.
The archaeology of the South Indian past is being explored by a number of historians some of whom have contributed chapters to this volume. Unlike the Gangetic valley in which we have a clear and datable archaeological horizon in the form of NBP ware, in south India the ubiquitous presence of Black and Red ware makes the task of using ceramic tradition as a marker for cultural and social change extremely difficult. Added to this is the problem posed by the Megalithic Culture whose antiquity still remains a subject of deep controversy. In the recent excavations undertaken by Prof. K Rajan in the site of Porunthal a vast burial mound has been excavated and ceramics with graffiti scratches have been discovered. Can these marks be read as a primitive kind of Brahmi which would make the advent of literacy coterminous with the black and red ware, an interpretation which cannot be sustained. Cultural and historical changes as reflected in the historical and material evidence need to be studied carefully before generalization made. The Iron Age in the region was at best a society of pastoral and semi agricultural people who were drawn into a nexus of trade which linked parts of the Peninsula with the wider world which sources beads, metals and textiles and perhaps exotic animals from the region.
The bulk of the book deals with the Chola and Vijayanagara Empires which stretched from the ninth century till the end of the seventeenth century. Karashima and Subbarayalu have themselves contributed to the study of these empires and the analysis of the data is essentially around their works. Burton Stein and other historians have also made singular contribution though there is not much discussion on their contributions. An aspect of medieval society which is neglected in this volume in the Right Left division of society and its gradual consolidation into jati/ caste formations in the Vijayanagara period which witnessed the rise of a mature caste society. The use of water and disputes over water which were abundant in the Vijayanagara period has not been dealt with in this work. The fact that during the Vijayanagara period the dry region was opened for settlement has not been studies in the work. The use of tribal people and their transformation into armed auxiliaries during the Vijayangara period can be attested by the history of communities such as the Gollas and the Boyas.
The book under review can be recommended as a text book for introductory courses at the graduate and advanced senior courses.
