Book Review - KA Neelakanta Sastri writings in THE HINDU

After getting into the discipline of heritage, I got to realize the value of heritage, arts, crafts and many aspects related to it. Reading books, habit in which I’m focusing now, helped me to gain a basic level of knowledge about history as well. I never realized that learning about history will be this interesting. Unfortunately, whatever I learnt in school textbooks were not the actual history. They never taught me about the greatness of Pallavas, Chozhas and Pandiyas – the great dynasties of Tamil Nadu, Vijayanagara Nayaks, Chalukyas, Hoysalas and many other important dynasties, their patronage for arts and culture. All I got to learn is all about glorifying Mughals and Sultanate rulers, who massacred lakhs of people and converted another few lakhs. I just can’t imagine the horrible times when women were raped and our rivers were red with blood.

Glorification of Mughals actually left our South Indian history to diminish. One of the main reason that South Indian history never held the limelight because of the unnecessary Dravidian politics and historians dating the archaeological evidences as per their comfort to prove that the Tamil civilization is the ancient one and all. That’s when eminent scholars and historians like KA Neelakanta Sastri came as an exception to teach the people right history. KA Neelakanta Sastri was one of the authoritative historians for the South Indian history. Neelakanta Sastri not blindly going by hearsay and oral tales, based his research on authentic literary and archaeological evidences.

KA Neelakanta Sastri’s articles about the South Indian history in ‘The Hindu’ newspaper are important resources. A book with the collection of his articles were released in 2018. Neelakanta Sastri’s work on South Indian history and the essays were written during the Dravidian movement with a special focus on agitating the Anti-Brahmin movement in South India. So his writings are a strong defensive tool for logically giving information about the language against those who took the language as a tool to propagate fake agendas and making fool out of the people. The Hindu newspaper then used to be a great platform for such authentic news and over the period they became a great platform now to propagate fake ideologies and agendas. I wish The Hindu really continued their good deed like then in the old days.

This compilation of the eminent scholar’s article in The Hindu is now a gem of brief account of South Indian history for the present generation. KA Neelakanta Sastri writings in The Hindu, is the first ever exposure for me to the works of the historian.

 

A short review of the book:

There are 35 articles of the eminent historian which was published in The Hindu from 1930 – 1961 in the book. Out of this, there are four lecture reports of Neelakanta Sastri. Rest of the articles are curated under the topics of Tamil Sangam, South Indian History (Which also covers the maritime history), Pallavas history and evolution of Saivism and prevailing issues. Reading these articles will enable one to understand the long ignored and unexplored history of the South as well as the holistic vision of the author to use the language for the unity of the subcontinent. We can also sense the author’s urge to make people understand the intensity of the agitations with the intention of driving away the Brahmins out of Tamil Nadu saying that they came from North and various other problems connected with the language and the imposition of Hindi then.

The ignorance of South Indian history was there at his time as well and still an existing problem. This ignorance is what makes me to look more into our own history. South India is not just merely the temples, traditions and the language. In ancient times it was much more to it. Our ancestors were the best example for the phrase ‘jack of all trades’. South Indian subcontinent was the main route of trade for any other trading countries. They traded with Greco-Romans, Indo-China and Ceylon traders.

The details of trade given here are fascinating and are extracted from the travel accounts and archaeological excavation in the coastal areas of the South. For the whole South India, the port of Puhar (Poompuhar), Nagapattinam, Kayal (Chief port in the Pandiyan Kingdom) were the major point of exchange of goods and transactions. Rice, peacocks and sandalwood were exported to Babylon in the 5^th century, pepper, fine pearls, ivory were much demanded goods in Rome, Uraiyur was one of the great mart for pearls, tortoise shells from Malaysia were shipped through the ports mentioned above in exchange of gold. From these information of travelers and merchants, we can also decipher a whole lot of economic scenario and the hospitality provided by our great kings then.

The sea power of South India in ancient times in trade and for naval expeditions were undoubtedly proves the strong hold of our kings then. The thriving trade opportunities, the travelers’ account of their travel and the important experiences of them give us a great amount of information. These traders/travelers clearly praised Indian kings, traders and Brahmins for their contributions and the way they treated these foreign dignitaries holds special mentions in the history.

The author gives a broad chronological information of events that occurred in the South Indian peninsula which helped in evolving as a great part of the country. Vision of Cholas to take control over the whole Bay of Bengal and to keep their rivals away from their waters explains us the naval powers that they were possessing at that time.

The Chalukyas were ruling the south part of the country from Badami and their encounters with the strongest Pallava kings are interesting. When the Chalukyan King Pulakesin – II explores the Deccan of the country as part of his Digvijaya and tried to invade the Pallava capital two times and got defeated by the Pallava King Narasimhavarman. These incidents shows the strength and intellect of the Pallava King Narasimhavarman, who anticipated the danger and raided the Chalukyan territory in 642 AD, after which we don’t get any information of Pulakesin – II. This information implies that the Pallava war at the Chalukyan territory killed Pulakesin – II.

Front Facade of Kanchi Kailasanathar Temple

Then the author gives a detailed history of the evolution of Saivism from the Pallava dynasty and how it got into shape. Along with which we get to understand the evolution of temple architecture. The author also gives a detailed accounts of instances from the history of Chozhas like how Sekkizhar inspired Kulothunga Chozhan – II to learn about the achievements of Saiva Saints from Thiruthondaathogai.

The section which gives us ample information about the literature of Linga worship is remarkable. It is quite controversial, that the English demeaned the worship of Linga saying that we, Hindus worshipped to the phallus. The author gives us a brief picture of the evolution of the worship and the interpretations of its significance. The author derives various inferences from the Vedas, Puranic literature and gives us various interpretation of the Linga worship, physically and philosophically represents the concept of fire and the act of sex as a sacrifice, the story of the Bikshadanar from Skandapurana etc.

The author also wrote an article about a unique Tamil diarist named Anandaranga Pillai. He is a merchant prince and diplomat, who was a contemporary of Dupleix of the French. His diary gives us detailed information on events in the life of the diarist, also about the French and their trade and many more important events which helps a historian to fill the gaps in the history. At his time was the constant tension between the English and the French troops to grab the supremacy in India. Anandaranga Pillai born in 1709 and died in January 1761, a few days before Lally surrendered the city to the English forces. Lally is the French commander, who attacked the Fort of Thanjavur on 2^nd August, 1758.

Other than all these historical information of high importance, the author’s articles help us to understand the problems that were raised using the language and misinterpretation of historical dating. The author with his detailed research, establishes the strongest connection of Sanskrit with the Dravidian language.  

Out of all the sections in the book, I was mostly immersed in the sections of Pallavas, due to various reasons. Pallavas are my second favorite dynasty after Chozhas and my recent trip to the capital of Pallavas is the another reason. The temples built by Pallavas stands as an evidence of their epitome of devotion and the patronage of arts and architecture. KA Neelakanta Sastri’s potrait is kept in the museum of the Brihadeeshwara Temple along with other eminent historians. 

The Book has a foreword by the Japanese historian Noboru Karashima. The Japanese historian says that he was invited by N Ram of The Hindu to write the foreword. We all know N Ram’s political leanings and when I read Karashima saying that Neelakanta Sastri’s writings “reflect at one level the honest reaction of a Brahmin intellectual who felt the heat of that movement and defended himself in the crisis.” You might accuse Neelakanta Sastri with your prejudiced communist views. But that doesn’t take away the greatness of Sastri’s phenomenal contributions to writing South Indian History with original insights.

I liked this book because of the articles which gives enough logical interpretations for a beginner to learn about the greatness of South India. His views on the issues of language and lavishly dating the Sangam literature and their impact on deriving on the chronology of history makes a valid point. As I have mentioned earlier, this is my first Neelakanta Sastri’s book and this kindled my excitement to read all of his works in detail.

Apart from these articles, the eminent historian wrote about 22 books and published more than 150 research papers. He is well remembered for his magnum opus, The Cholas (Vol 1 – 1935 & Vol 2 – 1937) and another book titled, A history of South India (1955). KA Neelakanta Sastri was conferred the title of Padma Bhushan in the year 1958. Whatever information we possess now of the South Indian history researched by Sastri, sets the base to unfolding the secrets of the subcontinent. Even after many decades, Sastri’s work is something which is irreplaceable for eternity.

Yours East Gaterr