Book Excerpt: The Tamils- A Portrait of a Community by Nirmala Lakshman

Read an exclusive excerpt from The Tamils- A Portrait of a Community by Nirmala Lakshman (Aleph Book Company, 2025).

Chapter 3

Of Heroes and Kings

Forbearance of kinsmen’s wrongs,

a good man’s shame over other men’s poverty,

honour without blemish in acts of war

courtesy in the courts of kings

Purananuru 157

TAMIL CHILDREN ARE OFTEN RAISED ON STORIES OF AVVAIYAR, THE woman poet who, among other things, was the supposed author of Athichudi, the alphabetic aphorisms that pithily teach good values. While this particular Avvaiyar is said to have lived roughly in the tenth century, during the heyday of the Chola monarchy, there was an earlier Avvaiyar who lived during the Sangam age, equally famous in legend and song whose stories are also part of Tamil folklore. This Avvaiyar’s poetry finds a place in the Purananuru collection. There is also a third Avvaiyar who had similar attributes and the merged and received wisdom from these three women poets is such that even now, each year on a particular day, an ‘Avvai’ festival is conducted in the Viswanathaswamy temple in Vedaranyam in Nagapattinam district, where the poet is supposed to have had a fabled encounter with Lord Muruga. But that is another story for another time; at this point the first Avvaiyar’s great influence on a couple of Sangam age rulers as recorded in the literature shows that apart from writing poetry, she seems to have had some sort of advisory role in the circle of the chieftain-king Adhiyaman and the ruler Paari mentioned earlier. Of the many references to the achievements of the rulers of this time, the standout one is the recognition of wisdom above valour and other accomplishments. The story goes that Adhiyaman was given a special gooseberry or ‘nelli’ which had the power to bestow eternal life to anyone who ate it. Rather than eat it himself he hands it over to Avvaiyar, saying that it is more befitting for her to eat it as it would allow her to always be available to offer sage advice and good counsel to the Tamil people. Tamil will flourish and Tamil culture and heritage will be safeguarded if she lives, was the king’s thought. An oft-retold story, it depicts a valiant king who esteemed wisdom above his own life—it was perceived as illustrative of the kingly virtues of the age.

While the stories and accounts of kings and chieftains who held sway during this time come largely from Sangam age poetry, in recent decades, inscriptions and notations on coins and on rock faces and stone walls have been deciphered, and the discovery of several copper plates with information about specific kings and chieftains have added a vast amount of knowledge to the material about Tamil polity and the social functioning of the people of the Sangam age. Scholars like Kesavan Veluthat of Delhi University point out that the period of nearly thousand years cannot be viewed as ‘a single unchanging entity’. He writes that because of the now varying categories of sources of information about that society ‘it has been more profitably considered as representing the various stages in the biography of social formation—its emergence, maturing and dissolution’. Although Veluthat accepts that the dominant view is that this world is best represented through these early anthologies of Tamil literature, he asserts that the texts are now recognized as being composed over a vast period and belonging to different strata.

Sastri says that to begin with, the Tamils firmly believed in the ‘immemorial’ antiquity of the three great dynasties, the Chera, Chola, and Pandya. Notwithstanding the fabled rule of these kings as perceived in popular lore, their glory days came much after, in the centuries post the Common Era. However, they began to establish their territories even during the Sangam period. The pillars of the Emperor Ashoka, inscribed between 270 and 230 bce, names these three dynasties, and the inference is that they were not in any way under Ashoka but on good terms with him. Often, the three dynasties warred with each other over boundaries; many petty chieftains owed their allegiance to one or the other of these kingdoms and aided them to flourish or founder until the Pallavas firmly captured power around the seventh century ce.

Marudam tinai extending to mullai and parts of the kurinchi are largely the spaces where kings and chieftains sought to establish their rule. Fertile rice-growing areas were considered the biggest prize and adding these areas to a king’s territory meant more wealth and more power to the ruler. At the top of the heap were the muventar, or the three crowned kings of the Chera, Chola, and Pandya dynasties. Feudatory chieftains under these kings, the velir who owed fidelity to these monarchs, had to pay them tithe regularly as well as all manner of produce from their territory and although subject to the greater political control of the overlords, they functioned independently and also switched loyalties from time to time.

In his seminal work Tamil Heroic Poetry, Kailasapathy discusses the bardic traditions of early Tamil poetry. As noted, most of the actual information about heroes, chieftains, and warriors comes from the poetic anthologies of the Sangam age such as the Purananuru, which with Patthitrupattu, is Kailasapathy says, ‘historically the most valuable’. The couple of hundred or so poems in these anthologies deal as much with chieftains, including those ruling in tribal areas, the kurinchi tinai, as they do with the exploits of the more powerful kings including the early Pandya, Chera, and Chola rulers.

While a great deal of the information (including those from inscriptions written in Tamil Brahmi) deals with names that are obscure, Sastri managed to put together a chronology of a few generations up to the third century ce. From an early Cheral (Chera) name, Uthiyan Cheral (c. 130 ce) to Yanaikatchey Mandaran Cheral Irumporai (c. 230 ce), and Ilanjetchenni (c. 165 ce), and Karikal (c. 190 ce) of the Chola dynasty and Pandya kings like Nedunchezhiyan (c. 210 ce) details are sketchily available in the poems, but much of the information about them is also handed down via oral traditions in stories about their deeds and valorous acts. For instance, Uthiyan Cheral, probably the first Chera ruler, and Karikal Chola who were contemporaries were said to be frequently at war against each other seeking to expand their suzerainty. The story goes that Uthiyan Cheral’s back was injured in the Battle of Venni (130 ce) against Karikal, and unable to bear the shame, he starved to death and his companions did the same as they could not bear to part from him. An injury on the back could indicate that the king was in the process of retreating, hence his great shame. This is also beautifully described in a poem: ‘Like the heroes who, wishing to go to the unattainable world, gave up their lives along with Cheralathan, on hearing with mixed feelings (the news of) his intended voluntary death (by starvation) in the devastated field of Vennil, where to his utter abashment he was wounded on his back when he fought with Karikala of (the) glittering weapons’. Known as Vanavaramban, meaning one whose kingdom reaches the sky, he extended his territory eastwards and northwards. The port town of Muziris is said to have flourished with brisk foreign trade during his time. Information about several Chera kings is available in Pattitrupattu, the Sangam work.

Karikal Chola is perhaps the most fabled king among the early Cholas and works like Pattinapalai speak about his heroic life and his numerous exploits, including the great victory at Venni where he defeated many foes. The origin of his name too is encased in various legends. One interpretation is that as a child he was burnt and hence the name, which means black-legged. Another story suggests that his mother had marked the soles of his feet with charcoal which mysteriously reduced his weight so as to enable the royal elephant to lift him easily and bring him to his coronation in Uraiyur. Another reading of the name says kala meaning death and kari meaning the elephants of the enemy amounts to ‘one who brings death to the enemy’s elephants’. As a young man, it is said Karikal’s enemies conspired and stripped him of his birthright and cast him in prison from where he escaped in a heroic manner. Scholars quote this passage often: ‘Like the tiger’s cub of curved stripes and sharp claws that grows imprisoned in a cage, the prince grows proud and hard in the guarded house of his foes. Like a long-trunked elephant which falls into a pit when trapped, but breaks with its tusks the steep sides, fills the pit with earth, steps over and makes its way to its mate, so calculating his plans minutely the prince scaled the thick walls, unsheathed his blade, put to death the many guardsmen and regained his rightful inheritance…’

Pattinapalai says of Karikal, ‘He could uproot mountains; fill up the sea; pull down the sky and make the moving air stand still’. Like Karikal, the power of other kings was exalted as well. The poems and, in particular, inscriptions of the period also commend their munificence and their concern for their people. There are descriptions that suggest the existence of an impartial justice system, and although an autocracy, the accessibility of rulers was a noteworthy feature of ancient Tamilakam. For instance, as mentioned before, women poets like Avvaiyar who were not necessarily nobly born served as ambassadors and advisers to several kings. The poet Kapilar was also an adviser and later became a very close friend of Paari the chieftain about whom stories have been told and retold over generations.

Apart from Paari, Tondaiman, Adhiyaman, Ay, Evvi, and Irungo were among the more prominent chieftains. Of the Adhiyaman clan, Netuman Anci was perhaps most well-known, and his name and title of ‘Satyaputo’ is recorded in the Tamil Brahmi inscriptions found in Jambai in Tirukoyilur in Villupuram district. The Purananuru and Ahananuru celebrate this king whose power was on par with the Chera and Chola kings at a certain point in time. Paari was a great patron of literature with numerous bards stationed in his court. The villages and land under his overlordship have been described in the poetry as being extremely prosperous, the envy of the monarchs who laid siege to Parampunadu and tried unsuccessfully for years to seize it until they finally did. Paari died in battle, leaving his poet friend Kapilar to look after his young daughters. The haunting beauty of the lands that Paari owned are a recurrent theme in Kapilar’s poetry. Tondaiman Irandiriyan, the chieftain whose prowess finds mention in the Purananuru, is another ruler who was quite possibly an ancestor of the Pallava kings who came later.

Excerpted with permission from the author and publisher of The Tamils- A Portrait of a Community by Nirmala Lakshman (Aleph Book Company, 2025).

About the Book

Nearly 90 million people around the world identify as Tamil, a proud and ancient community with a unique language, history, and culture. The Tamil people have given India and the world some of its most iconic revolutionaries and political leaders, industrialists, philosophers, sportspeople, scientists, and mathematicians (including winners of the Nobel Prize), and celebrated writers, poets, dancers, musicians, and actors. The influence of the community on science, culture, religion, philosophy, art, architecture, literature, film, and politics has endured across millennia. While the majority of Tamils live in South India, the diaspora is to be found in countries around the world—especially in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the UK, and USA, where Tamil traditions thrive and assume new and interesting forms. A people of immense resilience, intellect, and creativity, the Tamils continue to leave an indelible mark on the world.

But who are the Tamils, really? How have they preserved a distinct cultural heritage while evolving across time and geographies? And what is the Tamil ‘gunam’ or identity? How has Tamil culture endured even as it has evolved and mutated over centuries?

About the Author

Nirmala Lakshman has been steeped in Tamil culture by virtue of being Tamil and observing Tamil society through her years in journalism. She is currently Publisher and Chairperson of The Hindu Group of Publications and was earlier Joint Editor of the paper. She founded and edited The Hindu Literary Review, conceptualized and created Young World, India’s only children’s newspaper supplement, and developed several other feature sections of The Hindu. She launched The Hindu’s annual literature festival and continues to curate it. Nirmala has a PhD in postmodern fiction, and has written a book on Chennai, Degree Coffee by the Yard, and edited an anthology of contemporary Indian journalism, Writing a Nation.