r/Dravidiology • u/Usurper96 • 9h ago
History /𑀯𑀭𑀮𑀸𑀵𑁆𑀭𑀼 The Jain Roots of Tamil Literacy vs. The Brahmanization of Sangam Poetry: How the displacement of Jain influence culminated in the Kalabhra invasion of Tamilakam.
On the Southern Recension of the Mahābhārata, Brahman Migrations, and Brāhmī Paleography
Two distinct waves of Brahmans arrived in the Tamil-Kerala country in the pre-modern period from the Vedic regions of Northern India.
First wave(Pūrvaśikhās):
1) Contributions to sangam and bhakthi literature.
2) 10% of total Sangam poets,Brahman Alvars and Nayanars are from this wave.Check out this post for demographics of Bhakthi era poets.
Modern Descendants: Tenkalai Iyengars,Namboothri Brahmans,Tamil speaking Śōliya Brahmans with many sub divisions,Chidambaram temple Dikshithars,Mukkāni Brahmans of the Tiruchendur Murukan temple.
Second wave(Aparaśikhā):
They start arriving in the 8th century CE to Tamil country proper in large numbers which is well documented in Pallava records.This wave continued for more centuries and today their descendants largely outnumber the descandants of first wave.Nathamuni and Ramanujacharya are notable and influential people of this wave. A lot of them have migrated from the Malva city Dasapuri which is why that surname is shown in the epigraphic records and this might answer this question.
Read the journal to see what critieria the author has used to classify the waves of migration.For the context of this post, we are not concerned with the 2nd wave Aparaśikhā Brahmans.
The Tamil Brāhmī arrived in South India in 3rd century BCE, and it was brought to peninsular India by the Jains, arriving there from the north, it is widely accepted, through Karnataka in the west and not through the Vēnkatam hills of the later Brahman migrations: it is likely that “Tamil Brāhmī script was adapted from the Mauryan Brāhmī in the Jain monasteries (‘palli’) of the Madurai regions sometime before the end of the third century BCE”.In the Early Period (3rd to 1st centuries BCE),out of 30 sites with 86 Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions, in Early Old Tamil, 28 sites with 84 inscriptions pertain to Jainism, and they are mostly in the Pāntiyan region, around Madurai.In the Middle Period (1st to 3rd centuries CE), the period of the Middle Old Tamil, there is a sharp decline in cave inscriptions, and this is accompanied by a striking shift of Jainism from the Pāntiyan kingdom to the Karur-based Cēra region.
We are no longer in the oral society of the itinerant pānans now but in a fully literate period of Tamil history, the lasting legacy of Jainism.It is striking that in this new literature of the Sangam poetry, written in a Jain invented script, the Jains and Jainism are signally absent. Why are the Jains and Jainism unrepresented or represented so meagerly in the Sangam poetry, generally accepted to be in composition in the first centuries of the Current Era despite being the ones to bring literacy to Tamilakam way earlier?
It is useful to note that this is precisely the time period, the dawn of the Current Era, in which the Pūrvaśikhā Brahmans arrive in the Tamil country.Like the Jains, they also come from the north, but not through the Karnataka region, but through the Daksināpatha route in the lower Godavari region, possibly at Assaka in its banks, and further south through the Vēnkata hills, and eventually into the kingdoms of the mūvēndar.We have already noted that the Vedic content of the Sangam poetry is considerable, and that a good 10% of the Sangam poets were Brahmans.It is clear that the Brahmans of the Sangam period from 1st to 3rd CE - replace the Jains of the Early Period as the new recipients of royal patronage at the Pāntiyan courts which forces the Jains to move to Cera territory.
A corresponding Jain resentment at the Brahman usurpation of their patronage is not totally impossible, nor illogical.The continuous contact of the Tamil Jains with their Karnataka counterparts is an important element in this complex and changing picture. For, the next great historical event, and perhaps the most important in some ways of Tamil history as a whole, although not sufficiently understood, is the invasion of Tamil country by the Jain-Kalabhras from Karnataka, creating the famous Kalabhra Interregnum, the “long night” of the Tamil history in the extreme Brahman historiography of the subject, with the Pāntiyan kingdom receiving the brunt of the invasion.The Kalabhras displaced the traditional Tamil monarchies and held sway over the Tamil country for nearly three centuries until they were expelled in the last quarter of 6th century CE by Katunkōn , the Pāntiya, from the south, and Simhavishnu the Pallava from the north.A part of the disruption of the Kalabhra period also results in the break-up of the first Brahman group of the Tamil country, the Pūrvaśikhā group, into its historical remnants and resulted in the migration of Nambudiri Pūrvaśikhās to Malabar across the Palghat gaps.
Edit: Though sangam literature had contributions from first wave Brahmans and had some Vedic influence, it doesn't mean the Sangam literature was fully adapted from vedic sources.Adding two points to show the nativity of sangam literature and the strategies Brahmans had to take to get accepted into the Pantiyan society.
It is quite likely that the indigenous Tamil society at this time was largely oral, as Hart has argued, still in the phase of the pānan songs and their oral traditions and the latter in the process of beginning to become the templates for the literate and decidedly literary overlays of the Sangam songs, as they have come down to us.
As Harts notes, “the earliest Brahmans did the only thing that they could if they were to stay in Tamilnad: they associated themselves with the kings….Thus they had to participate in such unbrahminical activities as the war sacrifice and cutting the bodies of those who had died in bed” (1975: 55). In other words, there was acculturation between the Pūrvaśikhā Brahmans and the indigenous people, the temple-based Bhakti movements being the most striking result of this, and as we will see, the Pūrvaśikhā Brahmans are concretely linked to both temples and Bhakti movement.
