r/Dravidiology

An Interesting Remark and a Story of Origins

Statue of Kannagi, Heroine of the epic Silppathikaram, at the Madras High Court

As the Tamil Sangam corpus was being brought back to the wider public consciousness in the course of the 19th century, thanks to the efforts of scholars like UV Swaminathan Iyer and CW Thamotharampillai, the Tamil Saiva reviver from Jaffna (Yazhpanam) Arumuga Navalar had this curious remark to make about the Sangam epic Silappathikaram as noted by the historian AR Venkatachalapathy:

Excerpt from Venkatachalapthy's work \"In Those Days There was No Coffee\"

This rather dismissive remark highlights the important role Sramana traditions like Jainism and Buddhism played in the development of the Sangam corpus of Tamilakam. The work is traditionally attributed to Ilango Adigal, a junior prince of the Cera dynasty.

Sculpture depicting Ilango Adigal from Poompuhar, the premier port on the eastern shores of Tamilakam

The historian MGS Narayanan writes of what the historical record tells us about the author and his likely connection to Jainism:

>According to the Patikam he was a resident of Kunavayir kottam, probably the vihara of Kunavay. This place has been rightly identified by scholars as Tirukkunavay or Trikkana Matilakam, now known as Matilakam, 8 miles to the north of Cranganore [Kodungallur]. The existence of a great Jain temple, the rules of which provided the model and precedent for other Jain temples in Kerala during the Céra period, is revealed by a number of inscriptions.

Kunavay is now widely believed to part of the archaeological site of Mathilakam near Kodungallur in Kerala, which lies along the banks of the Periyar river and is believed to be near the site of the ancient Muziris port on the western shores of Tamilakam as well as being the site of the site of Makotai, the Chera capital. Furthermore, the town is also home to Kodungaloor Bhagavathi temple which has a long running traditional association with Kannagi, the heroine of the epic.

The Kodungallur Bhagavathi temple

Regarding the timeline where the Jain temple of Kunavay can be dated to, MGS looks at inscriptional evidence from other districts of Kerala mentioning the temple and highlighting its importance to Jain communities in the region:

>A record of Tiruvannür in the 8th year of king Rajaraja places the deity of Tiruvannur and its property under the protection of Arunurruvar of Ramavalanatu and asks them to protect the property as if it belonged to Tirukkunavay itself... A similar clause is found in the Alattur Jain temple inscription of about the 11th century. It is clearly stated in a newly discovered Talakkavu inscription that he who obstructed the routine expenses in the local temple shall be deemed as an offender against Tirukkunavay. Moreover, this record is dated in the 137th year of Tirukkunavay, showing thereby that the foundation of Tirukkunavay was considered an epoch-making event and its memory cherished and made the basis of an era by the Jains even in distant parts of Kerala. Thus we may conclude that the great Tirukkuņāvāy Jain temple near the Cēra capital supplied the model for Tiruvannur, Alathur and Talakkavu Jain temples, came to be founded some time at the close of the 7th or the beginning of 8th century, for the 137th year mentioned in Talakkavu record can be placed in the first half of the 9th century on palaeographical evidence.

Basis this, MGS goes onto speculate regarding the possible dating of the epic itself:

>This finding would suggest that writing of the Cilappatikaram can be traced back to the immediate pre-Makotai period, probably in the 8th century. Tirukkunavayu have achieved fame as a Jain centre in the course of one or two centuries.

This chronology of the early 8th century CE fits somewhat well with the assessment of the scholar of Tamil, Kamil Zvelebil who in the process of criticising the hitherto prevalent Gajabahu synchronism hypothesis to date the epic, notes:

>

>... if, as the text and a persistent tradition maintain, Centkuttuvan's younger brother, prince Ilanko, was the author of the poem, how to explain the striking differences between the language of the epic poem and that of the classical Tamil lyrics, which should be contemporaneous with the Cilappatikaram?

>How to account for the fact that the ideologies, beliefs, customs, manners, rites and cults, the entire social, religious and philosophical background of Cilappatikaram is strikingly different from the social, political and cultural world of the so-called Cankam poetry? The civilization portrayed in the epos reflects beyond any doubt a well-progressed synthesis of the pre-Aryan and the Aryan elements in all spheres of life and culture, thinking and social habits. Cilappatikararn quotes some didactic poems (e.g. Tirukkural 55 or Palamolinannuru 46)... On the other hand, Cilappatikaram, as we have it today, cannot have been composed before the 5th-6th Cent. A.D.

Narayanan further highlights the presence of Jainism in the region that may not be immediately apparent on the surface:

>No tangible relics of Jain worship have been found associated with Tirukkunavay, Talakkavu, Kinalur or Tiruvannur. The temples in the first three places are lost and the one found at Tiruvannur at present is a regular Siva temple. It could have originally been a Jain temple which came to be transformed later into a Hindu institution. There are several examples for such a transformation in Kerala. The Kokasandesam of the 15th century describes Tirukkunavay as a Siva temple but adds that Brahmins are not allowed to see the Lord of the temple. This is indeed a strange practice and could be explained by the fact that it was a Jain temple taken over by the Hindus at a later stage. In Kallil near Perumbavur, Paruvasséri near Peechi, and Chitral near Kulithura, the old Jain temples clearly identified as such by their sculpture have passed for Hindu temples for many centuries.

Indeed the Kallil temple near Perumbavur is still testament to this Jain legacy, where images of Jain figures have been repurposed to Hindu worship, where Padmavathi, the śāsana devī of Pārśvanātha is worshipped as Bhagavathi.

Image of Pārśvanātha from the Kallil Bhagavthi temple near Perumbavoor

All this is to say, the cultural melting pot that Muziris and its environs that saw in its shores the arrival of various religious traditions, be they Vedic, Sramana or Abrahamic, produced a literary effervescence, of which a major manifestation is the Silappathikaram.

Sources:

Open Access works are marked [OA]

MGS Narayanan, The Perumals of Kerala (1996) [OA]

Kamil Zvelebil, The Smile of Murugan (1975) [OA]

MGS Narayanan, Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala (1972) [OA]

AR Venkatachalapathy, In Those Days There Was No Coffee (2006)

why does SL tamil (Eelam dielects) sound more like Written tamil/tamil in medievel movies (ponniyan selvan, Baahubali) in a way but slightly evolved but indian dielects sound more "evolved" in a way????

During this period, Buddhism was probably the dominant cultural force in North India. It’s likely that a significant proportion of the population, perhaps even the majority were Buddhists. What about the south.

The transition of the Tamil word Kozhuppu (கொழுப்பு) from a biological term for fat to a metaphor for arrogance is interesting. I suspect historical famines and the related socioeconomic conditions played a role in that. Do other Dravidian languages share this similarity?

Posting this video here because while it's not connected to the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis directly, but it challenges the argument that Elamite was present into the medieval Islamic period and is more generally related to the language. Don't know what implications of this for Dravidian studies are but I've seen discussion about Xuzī on this sub before so wanted to post it.

Sreemoolavasam Vihara was a major Buddhist monastery in Kerala. We’re not talking about a small shrine here, this was a full-fledged monastic centre, a place where monks lived, studied, and functioned as part of wider trade and cultural networks. The frustrating part is, we know it existed and we know it was important, but we still don’t know exactly where it was. That’s what makes it one of the more interesting unsolved historical and archaeological mysteries in Kerala and India.

We have solid proof that it existed. The Paliyam Copper Plates, issued by Vikramaditya Varaguna of the Ay dynasty, mention Sreemoolavasam Vihara as an already established and important institution in the 9th century. So this wasn’t some minor local setup.

Then there’s the Mushika Vamsa Kavya, which talks about the same place from up north. It mentions a ruler protecting it from the sea and another visiting it. That doesn’t mean the Mushikas controlled it, it just shows the place was well known. The important bit here is the sea, which strongly suggests the vihara was on the coast and dealing with erosion.

Now look at what survives in central Kerala, especially the Onattukara side. You’ve got the broken but well-known Karumadi Kuttan, and more intact finds like the Buddha Statue from Kandiyoor, Mavelikara. Then there are places like Budhanoor, where even the name and local memory point back to Buddhists. These aren’t random one-off finds, they line up into a clear regional pattern.

Another thing to keep in mind is how these remains actually survive. They weren’t neatly preserved. Some images were broken, thrown into ponds or lakes, and only found again later. By that point, they had already lost their original context and got pulled into local religious practices differently.

And this isn’t unique to Kerala. In other parts of India too, older Buddhist sites were taken over, reinterpreted, and given new identities. So when something “disappears”, it doesn’t always mean it’s gone, it often means it’s been changed beyond easy recognition.

Put all of this together, inscriptions, literary references, and what we actually see on the ground, and a picture starts to form. Sreemoolavasam was very likely a major coastal Buddhist centre, and the Onattukara region looks like the inland zone connected to it.

That’s why the Ambalappuzha to Haripad coast becomes interesting. This stretch has seen major shoreline changes over time. If the vihara was somewhere along this coast, there’s a real chance that it’s either underwater now, buried, or sitting there in a completely altered form.

So maybe the problem isn’t that Sreemoolavasam is “lost” in the usual sense. It might be that we’re already looking at its remains, just in pieces, out of context, and partly erased by time and the sea.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srimulavasa_Vihara

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushika_dynasty

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Indian_Antiquary_Vol_1.pdf/181

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paliyam_copper_plates

https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.2175

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Kerala

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karumadi_Kuttan

https://www.madhyamam.com/kerala/local-news/alappuzha/chengannur/here-is-the-history-of-budhanoor-974178