• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

80 Chapter II HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY We have already detailed out the background of the regime of the Pallavas, In the light of that, let us get into the ’ historical geography’ introduced earlier and which, in a word, is an attempt at the historical survey of the delimitation and the units of the territorial administration of the Pallava dominion. In other words it is a study of the pre-Pallava and later Pallava history of the territorial administration of the Pallava empire. Thus, there are two aspects of the Pallava Historical Geography. One is the history of the Pallava delimitation which results in the modern identification and which is also incorporated and the other that of the Pallava units of territorial administration. Let us take up the aspect of delimitation first, that is, of the divisions as against the dividing units. The beginning for the history of the Pallava delimita­ tion has to be made with its modern presence in the form of states, districts, taluks and villages against the background of the physical and ethnographic nature of its inhabitants and the part played by its geography. The Nature of the Pallava dominions : Physical and Ethnographic The area of the modern equivalent of the ancient PallaTa dominion falls more or 1«S8 within 10° to 17° of the latitude and 7B° to 81^ of the longitude but for the Bellary pocket which is at 76^ longitude. Thus» the region between the rivers God3varl and Vaigai along the Coromandel coast and inclining towards the lower Deccan plateau near Bellary in the modern Mysore State formed the ancient Pallava territory. It may be pointed out that the territorial expansion beyond the Krishna and upto the Godavari was, only once and it was during the time of 5ivaskandavarman of the Prakrit charters. But the expan- -sion beyond the south of the Cauvery touching the river Vaigai is doubtful though it might have probably happened during the reign of Nandivarman III the Pallavamalla of the Simhavisnu line. Doubtless, the area close to the southern banks of the Cauvery were included in the Pallava dominion but whether it penetrated deep into the South touching the Pandyan capital is not yat established. Essentially, the frontiers of the Pallava dominion were the Cauvery in the South and the Godavari in the north. The major rivers in between the frontiers are the KrsnS, the Tungabhadra, the Pilar, the PennSrs (Pennai) north and south and the Cauvery. But for the Bellary area of the Deccan plateau, the rest are the plains watered by the rivers other than the Tungabhadra. The group of the mountains situated in the old Pallava dominions, scat­ tered here and there with moderate height in the midst 8 "I of the plains, form a major portion of the Eaetem Ghats. Ethnography - race, religion, caste and language Hairing had a glance at the physical foz^ation of the area under discussion it is better to have an idea of the modern representation in the fields of race, religion, caste and language. Race ”The-oldest existing race in the Indian peninsula is represented by the Uravidians v;ho make up the bulk of the population in India" says Thurston. It has to be noted that the Dravidians, referred to by Thurston, are the later and cultured race as distinguished from the pre-Dravidian aboriginals. Thus, historically though not living, the original inhabitants of the South are of a 2 non-Dravidian race. Here, it has also to be made clear that the ethnic aspects of the term '’Dravidian*' are such that they stand for a class of people whose languages are Dravidian and not that there is a race by name ^Dravi- 3 dian” or "Aryan” . 1 Thurston, E ,, "The Maft’as Presidency with Mysore^ Coorg and the Associated Statas" . p. 124. ^Ibid., pp. 124-125. ^Venkataraman, T.K., Culture-contacts in South In d ia . J . I . H . , Vol. XXJCVIII, fart I , pp. 5-4. (The theories of Maxmuller, Haddon, Caldwell, Risley and Von Eickstedt are discussed). p, 0■ But, though there is no race called *Dravidian’ we can take the term ’Dravidian’ as standing for the ethnic and cultural aspects too as it stands for the linguistic traits of the people of the South, It may not be wrong to take it so as, whatever be the technical terms for the ethnical and cultural character of the South, cannot easily- be denied that there are disparities in the physical and cultural mould of the people between the South and the non-South Indian region and it is more in the North than in central India and the Deccan. Thus, in the pre­ sent work, the term ’ Dravidian* is taken to connote not only the linguistic character but also the ethnographic and cultural facets. In short, the South Indian way of life which comprehends the three fields of ethnography, culture and language can be equated with the ’Dravidian’ way of life and this Dravidian way of life holds the field till the advent of the Aryanisation in its overall influence of the South that asserted itself under the Pallavas. Thus is developed the thesis on the two schools of the ancient Indian Thought - Dravidian and Aryan. Religion The predominant people, of the modem inhabitants, are the followers of the Hindu faith as it was so under the Pallavas. How the ancient South Indian - Tamilian paganism was replaced by the Brahmanical religion is 84 discussed in the fourth chapter and also in the last. Caste There is a rigid caste system based on the Brahma- nical theory of *Varna* which is so multiplied and complex that it cannot be referred to here and the reader will do well in having an access to the monumental work on the la lb South Indian Caste by Thurston with his ’notes’ LansuaRe The languages of the people of the area, a& it was ?iO under the Pallavas, are Tamil, Kannada and Telugu. It is really surprising that there in no alteration in the number &nd character of the popular language despite the passing away of a millennium. For instance, it is not so with the other power of the South, though traditional, namely, the Cerae of the Tamil-Sangam age. The language of modern Kerala, i.e. more or less of the ancient terri­ tory of the Ceras, is Malaiyllaic whereas Tamil was the ancient language of the region. Let us, then, pass on to the part played by geography, having considered the racial, religious, caste and lin­ guistic traits of the people. la Thurston, E ., Castes and Tribes of Southern India. Vols. I-VII. ^^Ibid., Sthnographic Notes of oouthern India. The part plaved by Geography The geographical features of the South are such that they have given the South the character of conservatism unlike the Non-South Indian area the role of which has always been one of synthesis. Its peninsular character has allowed the external influences to trickle through the North only, whereas the Non-South Indian region is exposed to the foreign influences from the West, the north and the north-east, ^ven through the Non-South Indian region, what has infiltrated into the South is nothing extraneous as it is Indianised already by the time it reaches the Non-South Indian region, Iherefore, it may not be wrong to say that, at any time in the history of India, the Indian Culture has, always, been more prevalent and better preserved in the South than in the other parts of the country characterised by a synthesis of the foreign elements flowing into India. Thus fieogr&phjr has given the South an unique place in such a way that vrhile the history of the non-South Indian region is , essentially, the political history of the ;jub-Contln0nt, the history of the South is , essen-cially, the cultui*al history of India, The monuKiental testimony to aach a statement is that, to-day, the ancient Indian Culture in its classical Brahmsmic form is better prot;9cted and practised in the South, while the Non-South Indian region and particularly the North, having been dominated by Islam which has to come to stay, has yielded to the Islamic influences especially in the fields of art and culture, to wit, language, music and dress. But there is one distinc­ tion in the Southern character of the Indian culture. The Dravidian element is the Neo-Aryan, that is , the Indian culture is more pronounced in the South, Against this background let us now deal with the - divisions of the ancient Pallava dominion. It has to be emphasised that the present equivalents are only a rough estimate and not final and, in the estimate, we may have to confine ourselves to the Kij’snS and Cauvery region and the Bellary pocket and omit the Cauvery-Vaigai area and also the Krsna-Godlvarl area as there are no Pallava inscriptions in the South Cauvery or the North KrsnS region, so far traced. In 1S05, the entire region came under the British as part of the ’Ceded distficts*, the Southern Circars and the Carnatic but for tiny French enclaves of Pondicherry and KlraikkSl and the independent princely states of Sandur and Pudukkottai. What was under the British evolved as the following districts: Bellary, Chittoor, Guntur, Nellore, North Arcot, Chingleput, South Arcot, Tanjore and Trichinopoly. In the early part of the current century came into being the Chittoor (1911) and the Guntur (1904) districts. This set up continued with minor amendments till the linguistic formation of States after independence and the R zonal Bystem following it. All come under the southern zone with the exception of the Bellary district which, mainly forming part of the Mysore State comes under the Bangalore division of the western zone.

Load more

  66

Copy Link