The Sangam Era and later periods
The inscription of Khäravela, which was momentarily discussed in a previous section, is the only early inscriptional indication of the kingdoms of the Tamil people following the Asoka inscriptions. About 155 B.C., Khravela, who governed over Kalinga in the early half of the second century B.C., is credited with destroying Tramiradelasanghatam, a federation of Tamil states that had been around for 113 years at the time of Sangam era.
Long ago, it had been a threat. Though it is a difficult document by itself, the gaps in the script and their highly worn-out state greatly obscure the significance of the same inscriptions mentioning that Kharavela ordered horses, elephants, diamonds, and rubies to be delivered from the Pandya to Kalinga. From any other source, we learn nothing really about the Tamil confederacy, its goals, how Khravela came to be a threat to Kalinga, the actions taken by Khravela to remove the threat, and the fresh contacts he made with the Pandyan king.
Most likely only a tiny fraction of the much more vast corpus of work produced during ancient times has survived. Two achievements of the early Pandyas noted in an inscription from the first decade of the first century A.D. are the founding of a Sangam at Madura and the transliteration of the Mahabharata into Tamil.
This transcription has been lost even though six of the eight collections listed above start with poetry created by “Perundevanar has sung the Bharatam”. Though the author was a contemporaneous of Nandivarman III Pallava (9th century AD), most certainly unconnected to the namesake of the Sangam anthology, sections of a Tamil Bharatam by a Perundevanär have survived to the present.
Perfect Time Under Royal Sponsoring
It is quite likely that a college (Sangam) of Tamil poets operated for some time at Madura under royal patronage. But the first known account of it—found in the preface of the Iraiyanar Agapporul—about A.D. 750—is cloaked in myth.
It describes three Sangams supported by 197 Pandyan rulers, attended by 8,598 poets (among them certain Saiva gods), and spanning a total of 9,990 years. Many of the names of the kings and poets, such Kadungon and Ugrapperuvaludi, are recorded on monuments and other trustworthy sources, therefore illustrating how some facts have become confused with a lot of fiction and cannot be used to derive any useful conclusion.
A thorough analysis of the elimination wasted between the kings, chieftains, and poets given by the annotations at the end of the poems reveals this corpus of literature, or 120–150 years, at most, describes events over the course of four or five consecutive generations.
For the Chera line of monarchs, we can only produce something like a continuous history; this exposes the existence of two lines of rulers, each spanning no more than three or four centuries and tied by marriage or other ways. In all other circumstances, we simply have random names, hence it is impossible to recreate a typical history of the period. We should so be happy with the prominent persons and their achievements as described by the poets.
Land Of Chola and Pandya
The three crowned kings of the Chera, Chola, and Pandya families shared the kingdom with other minor chieftains who, depending on the political environment of the age, either paid fealty to one of these rulers or else lived on their own. Poets singled out seven of these chieftains for their liberal support of the arts and literature; they were known as tallals, or patrons.
We now know that the second century B.C. Damili inscriptions are from was now used by Jain ascetics and mostly Tamil with occasional Prakrit terms incorporated in. Mature in the Sangam period, the Tamil language has begun to be a powerful and sophisticated literary vehicle.
Many Sanskrit terms and ideas have also previously been adopted by it. It also shows the existence of a complicated set of guidelines that direct the representation of social life in literature.
Generation of Chera Rulers
This has to be the outcome of a multi-generation long-term development effort. Detailed knowledge about the publishing date of this content has lately surfaced. An inscription on the Arnattamalai Hill close Pugalür notes three generations of Chera rulers: Ko-Adan-cel-Irumporai, his son Perumkadungo, and his son Ilamkadungo, in the first century of the Christian era. Clearly from their nicknames Ko Adan and Irumporai, they are Chera lineage rulers.
Two Chera royal poets—Perumkadungo, who sung of the Palai region, and Ilamkadungo, who sang of the Murdam region—found expression in the Sangam works. Writings of Sangam indicate that the monument’s Perumkadungo and Ilamkadungo are royal poets with same names.
Most certainly a Kadungo as well, Adan-cel-Irumporai, the first king of the inscription, is reminiscent of Selvakkadungo from the Sangam literature. The assertion that the three monument’s rulers are the champions of the seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries of the Padirrup-pattu collections calls more investigation. The Sangam anthologies clearly span the first two centuries of the Christian era, this identification maybe the most important one for pinpointing Sangam literature.
Another line of evidence in favour of this suggested chronology for the Sangam age is the striking resemblance between the facts available by the literary works on the trade and other interactions here between Tamil states and indeed the Yavanas (Greeks and Romans) during this time and that of the authors on the subject, notably Strabo, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’s anonymous source, Pliny, and Ptolemy.
Archaeological Finding:
Archaeology helps to confirm the facts from the literature. The many Roman gold and silver coin finds unearthed in South India during the first two centuries AD. With the recent finding of evidence showing the existence of a “Roman factory” at Arikamedu (also known as Aruhan Medu, a Jaina mound) in the Pondicherry area during the first-century assist to support the validity of the approaches utilized for the Sangam era.
We can first list the main political events of the day before discussing the social scene of the day. The songs of the Sangam testify to their wish to relate their history to that of the Great War between the Kauravas and the Pandavas, hence the monarchy of the Cheras, Cholas, and Pändyas was thought to have existed from the beginning of time, at least in later years. Legend has it that the earliest Chera ruler we know (around 130 A.D.), lavishly fed Kurukshetra warriors, gaining the moniker “Udiyan-jeral of the Great Feeding.”
On the Malabar coast, Udiyanjeral’s son Nedunjeral won a naval triumph over a local enemy. After then, he abducted several Yavana traders and mistreated them mercilessly for some unknown length before releasing them following a large payment. He reportedly had several disputes and stayed in camps with his troops for a period of time. He overcame seven crowned kings, therefore attaining the higher rank of an adhiraja.
Presumably Extended the Chera Authority
Both of the Chola rulers died during their tenure, and their queens sati. Adan’s younger brother, “Kuttuvan of many elephants,” toppled Kongu and apparently momentarily extended Chera’s rule from the western to the eastern sea. Adan had multiple queens produce two sons.
One of them was called “the Chera with the kalangay festoon and the fibre crown”; it is thought that palmyra fibre made up the crown he wore at his inauguration and that the festoon on top featured kalangay, a little blackberry. Though the crown was not totally to be hated, it featured a golden frame and festoons fashioned of valuable pearls. Still, it’s not apparent why the king had to wear such a striking set of jewels.
The other son of Adan, Senguttuvan, the Righteous Kuttuva, was praised in song by Paranar, one of the most well-known and consistent poets of the Sangam age (e. 180). Later period legends that have no resemblance in the two absolutely contemporaneous poems by Parapar—the decad on the king in the Ten Tens and a song in the Purandnru—have praised the life and achievements of Sen-guttuvan. They just mark a victorious war as a military triumph, even against Möhür’s commander.
Parapar says Senguttuvan works hard in the water, but he doesn’t go into more detail. Known as “driver of the sea back,” he is said to have made the sea useless for defense against his enemies. In such situation, he had to have maintained a fleet. Apart from being a superb warrior and a kind supporter of the arts, he was a skilled rider on horseback and an elephant, known as adhiraja, and wore a garland of seven crowns.
