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Old June 17th, 2012, 08:51 PM   #1

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The Sangam Age of South India


I believe that majority of the members in our forum are unaware about the sangam age of South India , as I did not see any threads or post regarding that. The Sangam age is name after the period in South India where in Sangam age literature was highly patronized during the ancient time

The word sangam signifies "the Union" which is derived form the Sanskrit or Pali. Sangam literature consists of more than 4000 poems and they were thought to be written during three period

1. First Sangam period
2. Middle Sangam Period
3. Later Sangam period

Many historian consider the First two sangam age as mythical as the traditional dates greatly are not in accordance with the Historical dating and Each sangam age spanned around 2000 Years and the first sangam age according to the traditional dates started before 5000 or 6000 BC, at that point of time the four river valley civilization were in their nascent state or yet to be started.

According to the sangam poems the First Sangam age was based in the city of south Madurai and the Second sangam age was based in the city of the Kapatapurm but these two cities were believed to be destroyed by the floods and rain and the latter sangam age was based in the city of Present day Madurai city in Tamil Nadu.

(The Coromandel Coast of the South India are susceptible to the Tsunami waves and the port city of Mahabalipuram is submerged to a large extant and there are no natural coast in the Coromandel Coast )

There is a popular pseudo theory that the South Madurai and Kaparapuram were located in the huge landmass beyond the Cape Comorin, which encompassed the present day Sri Lanka and the believe to be Sunken land mass called Lemuria Continent .

The Chief Patrons of the Sangam age were the Pandyian Kings and the sangam literature professes that the Pandyan dynasty ruled for many thousand years with out a break in the royal lineage.


The Sagam age came to an end around 200 AD, the historian dated them between 300 BC - 200 AD.

The Sangam age played a crucial role in the 19-20 th century and they shaped the Dravidian movement in the south Indian. Many Tamil scholars argue that the Tamils had their own culture during the ancient days and their ancient society had equality and no caste system and there was no religion and the invading aryans destroyed the tamil culture and they imposed the evil caste system in the Tamil society.

I haven't studied the Sangam literature in depth I can not say surely that the ancient Tamils did not have caste system.

The sangam age has many mythology and mythological characters like God, Demi God were a part of the literary society. Gods like Shiva Murugan , Kuber , Ganesh were the part of the sangam literary society. But this creates the ambiguity. The tamil scolars ( some) says that ancient Tamil society did not have any religion and fact that sangam literary society had Gods as members .

In the ancient days the Tamils worshipped elements of nature.

My Tamil teachers narrated a scene from a sangam poem , where a mother prays that her daughter should have a happy life and a get suitable bride groom for her daughter and if that happens she pledges to offer a pound of flesh to the Crow as a gratitude .

The centre of attraction of the sangam age it the magical slab called " Sangap palagai" table of the sangam literary society. The works of the poets were placed on this magical table and It discards the worthless poem written on the palm leaf into the river by the magical table itself and the most worth and with higher meaning is chosen


But due to the political nature of the Dravidian movement and the revival of the Sangam literature , the Tamil scholars interpret the poems in such a way that it supports the propaganda of the politicians.

But I have to agree that the marriage and rituals during the sangam age and the present day are quite different. But if the sangam poems are studied in depth, the gaps in the Indian history can be filled.

I hope that Unmai could provide us with the sangam poems and their translation.


Sangam_literature Sangam_literature

Pati

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Old June 18th, 2012, 09:33 PM   #2

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Lemuria south of India is a pure & unadulterated hoax, with absolute psuedo-science and intellectual dishonesty involved.
One simply has to look at the topography of the Indian Ocean to realize that the area south of India and Sri Lanka has never been part of the above-water landmass. Not in 30 million years at the very least.

The only possibilities of Lemuria are the Tamil coast ( where in Ice age time, the sea would've been 50-100 kms further east than where it is today and Sri Lanka would've been connected as one landmass) or the Sunda super-peninsula, which would've sunk gradually and formed the Java sea from 15000-8000 years ago.

Lemuria is about as 'historical' as the mythic Atlantis and it is purely nonsensical.
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Old June 18th, 2012, 11:01 PM   #3

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_of_Gauda View Post
Lemuria south of India is a pure & unadulterated hoax, with absolute psuedo-science and intellectual dishonesty involved.
One simply has to look at the topography of the Indian Ocean to realize that the area south of India and Sri Lanka has never been part of the above-water landmass. Not in 30 million years at the very least.

The only possibilities of Lemuria are the Tamil coast ( where in Ice age time, the sea would've been 50-100 kms further east than where it is today and Sri Lanka would've been connected as one landmass) or the Sunda super-peninsula, which would've sunk gradually and formed the Java sea from 15000-8000 years ago.

Lemuria is about as 'historical' as the mythic Atlantis and it is purely nonsensical.
Lemurian thoery is pure myth , The lost cities in the ancient day in South Indian can be explained in this way

The Red line represent the land bridge that connected India and Sri Lanka during the Ice Age

The Black Line represent the orginal coast extent which dissappeared due to the un recorded tsunami and flood during the ancient times Ex Mahabali Puram
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File Type: jpg India_South_India_Locator_Map.jpg (50.1 KB, 15 views)
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Old June 18th, 2012, 11:37 PM   #4

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I disagree with linking that black line to a 'tsunami' event. Tsunamis do inundate and and permanently change coastline, but a tsunami of that magnitude, which would create a permanent inundation of an area the size of England, would've left a footprint. (though mahabalipuram itself could've been a victim of a tsunami).

IMO, the black line you drew closely corresponds to the Indian continental shelf that is less than 50 feet deep in most places. That land would've likely been above water in ice age period- where neolithic settlements would've existed of hunter-gatherer and forager people (this is pre-agriculture).
As such, a distant memory of a cataclysmic event is found globally, not because of post ice age inundation of coastal areas globally.
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Old June 19th, 2012, 12:23 AM   #5

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_of_Gauda View Post
I disagree with linking that black line to a 'tsunami' event. Tsunamis do inundate and and permanently change coastline, but a tsunami of that magnitude, which would create a permanent inundation of an area the size of England, would've left a footprint. (though mahabalipuram itself could've been a victim of a tsunami).

IMO, the black line you drew closely corresponds to the Indian continental shelf that is less than 50 feet deep in most places. That land would've likely been above water in ice age period- where neolithic settlements would've existed of hunter-gatherer and forager people (this is pre-agriculture).
As such, a distant memory of a cataclysmic event is found globally, not because of post ice age inundation of coastal areas globally.
Once my Tamil teacher told that in the sangam poem there are references for the word Peralai ( Peri + Alai) ( Huge Waves ) and they added that Tsunami might have submerged those ancient coast and I was not sure of the fact she presented us . Thank you so much for the clarification.
Can I ask you one question ? Are well acquainted with the Tamil Language Grammar ?
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Old June 19th, 2012, 11:43 AM   #6

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I know nothing of Tamil and its grammar.
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Old June 20th, 2012, 09:19 PM   #7
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hmm, tamil civilization one of the unique and oldest civilization. Tamilians were (not now) great merchants by nature and their culture has strong affinities towards indus civilization, and are least researched archaic civilization of the world. Both linguistic and materialistic research about tamil not progressed much because of one theory "Aryan invasion/migration theory"
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Old June 20th, 2012, 09:34 PM   #8
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Tamil - Mycenaean - Phoenician

the above three civilizations need to analysed properly. Because Phoenician famous for palm wine, blue dye, sea trade similar to Tamils, even the word Phoenician related to the word palm, coincidentally the Tamil word for palm is panai (but European scholars mentioned wrong entomology for Phoenicians)

yes Phoenicians different from Tamils , as the same way like Bengalis different from Tamils , but Tamils and Bengalis are indians, similiarly Phoenicians and Tamils were ancient trading powers

Mycenaean legends mentioned Phoenicians' (Cadmus~ Letters) alphabet connection, we found a no. of Palm-leaf tablet in that Mycenaean era and tamils wrote upto the end of the 19th century on Palm -leaves
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Old June 20th, 2012, 09:47 PM   #9
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Mycenaean nothing but ancient greek civilization

andro - male (Greek)
an - male (tamil)

archon - ruler (Greek)
archan - ruler (tamil)

paleo - old (Greek)
palaiya - old (Tamil)

poly - many (greek)
pala - many (tamil)

archy (ruling) (Greek)
atchy (ruling) (Tamil)

gunē (Female) (Greek)
kanni (female/virgin) (Tamil) etc goes on
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Old June 20th, 2012, 10:15 PM   #10
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Tamil legends mentioned about human migration from dwarka(northwest India)

as per Sanskrit sources Dwarka drowned, the present dwarka city not the ancient one

dwarka derived from Sanskrit word dvar (gate or door in sanskrit)

entomologically dvar related to English word door, so dwarka means "City of gate"

Tamil second academy (sangam in tamil) was in the sunken city Kapatapuram

The word Kapatapuram is the Sanskrit rendition of Tamil word Kadavapuram (kadavu "gate", puram "city") so "city of gate"
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