“The Pandyan dynasty and the goddess Minakshi serve as excellent examples of the Dravidian model of kingship and of the Sankritization process. The royal Pandyan dynasty is mentioned in texts dating from the fourth century BCE and the dynastic title lasted, in one form or another through a series of families, for about 1,500 years. They were based in the dry upland interior of the Tamil-speaking region. While the Pandyans did not customarily build dams, they developed a distinctive technology of two specific types of piston valves to control water flow from the reservoir sluices.” [1]
[1]: (Fisher 2018, 74) Fisher, Michael H. 2018. An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/MIEG8XAK/collection
| Year Range | Pandya Empire (in_pandya_emp_3) was in: |
|---|
“It is easy to outline the approximate boundaries of the “traditional” Pāṇḍyan kingdom, with Madurai (Kūṭal) as its capital, known since the Caṅkam literature in the early centuriesof our era, along with Iḷaṅkōykkuṭi (modern Ambasamudram in the Tirunēlveli district) as an important administrative nexus from the 8th century onwards. In these modern districts of Madurai and Tirunēlveli, to which may be added the districts of Śivagaṅga, Rāmanāthapuram, Virutunakar (Virudhunagar) and Tūttukkuṭi (commonly spelled as Thoothukudi), most of the inscriptions until the 10th century—time of the annexation of this territory by the Cōḻa dynasty—, are dated with a Pāṇḍyan king’s regnal year.” [1] “Although Madurai was a political capital, and a base from which the Pandyan ruler extended his military control over a wider area, the city also had an economic dimension, for it was an inland market center.” [2]
[1]: (Gillet 2017, 221-222) Gillet, Valérie. 2017. ‘Devotion and Dominion Ninth-Century Donations of a Pāṇḍyan King in Temples along the River Kāvēri’. Indo-Iranian Journal. Vol 60. Pp. 219-283. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/TRKMDSA9/collection
[2]: (Lewandowski 1977, 187) Lewandowski Susan J. 1977. ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’. Modern Asian Studies. Vol 11: 2. Pp. 183-212. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3D6JUUGJ/collection
"The Pandyans dominated the north of Sri Lanka as they did the south in the second half of the thirteenth century under Jalavarman Sundara Pandya (1251-72). [...] The expansionist Muslim Khilji Dynasty in north India had defeated a rival kingdom to the Pandyans, the Hoysalas, and the latter helped the Khilji general, Malik Kafur, to raid the Pandyans in 1310 and loot their capital at Madurai (which probably stimulated migration to Sri Lanka). There followed a generation of Muslim rule, civil war, and the restoration of Hindu monarchies. The last Pandyan ruler of Madurai was expelled in 1323, and the city was briefly the capital under a Muslim sultanate." [1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 31) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.
"The expansionist Muslim Khilji Dynasty in north India had defeated a rival kingdom to the Pandyans, the Hoysalas, and the latter helped the Khilji general, Malik Kafur, to raid the Pandyans in 1310 and loot their capital at Madurai (which probably stimulated migration to Sri Lanka). There followed a generation of Muslim rule, civil war, and the restoration of Hindu monarchies. The last Pandyan ruler of Madurai was expelled in 1323, and the city was briefly the capital under a Muslim sultanate." [1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 31) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.
"The Pandyans dominated the north of Sri Lanka as they did the south in the second half of the thirteenth century under Jalavarman Sundara Pandya (1251-72). Their fortunes declined in the early fourteenth century, however. [...] The upheaval enabled the Tamil rulers of northern Sri Lanka to establish their independence." [1]
[1]: (Peebles 2006: 31) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection.
Inferred from the following quote. “The Madurai Pandyas established their authority in Tirunelveli, where the political system was rooted in irrigated nadus, and especially in the villages along the Tambraparni. Their kingdom was not based on a bureaucratic, centralized administration, but on a great number of ritualized alliances. Kings displayed their strength, wealth, and generosity as widely as they could, tying themselves in the process to dominant landed groups and petty chiefs. The Pandyas headed a segmentary domain whose core was river-irrigated paddy lands.” [1]
[1]: Ludden 1979, 355) Ludden, David. 1979. ‘Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-term View’. The Indian Economic & Social History Review. Vol 16: 3. Pp. 347-365. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G7TWCIIW/collection
“Tamil, a member of the Dravidian family of languages, is the most important literary language of southern India. First written in Brāhmī-derived Grantha, it developed a script of its own, called tamiz euttu in Tamil. Although it shares a com- mon origin with Devanagari it differs from it significantly both in appearance and structure.” [1]
[1]: (Coulmas 2002, 140). Coulmas, Florian. 2002. Writing Systems An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AHWVP84B/collection
“The Pandyan dynasty [...] were based in the dry upland interior of the Tamil-speaking region.” [1]
[1]: (Fisher 2018, 74) Fisher, Michael H. 2018. An Environmental History of India: From Earliest Times to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/MIEG8XAK/collection
“The crowning achievement of the Śaivite saint Tiruñānasambandar, for example, is said to have been his conversion of a Pāṇḍya king from Jainism to Śaivism. […] Hence, such sacred books of the Tamils as the Dēvāram preserve, among other things, a kind of regional sacred geography of medieval Tamilnad. That such hymns helped to endow various temples with rich, sacred traditions undoubtedly helped to promote the growth of pilgrimage networks and the development of what might be called “regional consciousness” among the Tamils.” [1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48, 49) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection
“The crowning achievement of the Śaivite saint Tiruñānasambandar, for example, is said to have been his conversion of a Pāṇḍya king from Jainism to Śaivism. […] Hence, such sacred books of the Tamils as the Dēvāram preserve, among other things, a kind of regional sacred geography of medieval Tamilnad. That such hymns helped to endow various temples with rich, sacred traditions undoubtedly helped to promote the growth of pilgrimage networks and the development of what might be called “regional consciousness” among the Tamils.” [1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48, 49) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection
“The crowning achievement of the Śaivite saint Tiruñānasambandar, for example, is said to have been his conversion of a Pāṇḍya king from Jainism to Śaivism.” [1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection
levels. 1.Capital : “Although Madurai was a political capital, and a base from which the Pandyan ruler extended his military control over a wider area, the city also had an economic dimension, for it was an inland market center.” [1] :2. Major centers :: “It is easy to outline the approximate boundaries of the “traditional” Pāṇḍyan kingdom, with Madurai (Kūṭal) as its capital, known since the Caṅkam literature in the early centuriesof our era, along with Iḷaṅkōykkuṭi (modern Ambasamudram in the Tirunēlveli district) as an important administrative nexus from the 8th century onwards. In these modern districts of Madurai and Tirunēlveli, to which may be added the districts of Śivagaṅga, Rāmanāthapuram, Virutunakar (Virudhunagar) and Tūttukkuṭi (commonly spelled as Thoothukudi), most of the inscriptions until the 10th century—time of the annexation of this territory by the Cōḻa dynasty—, are dated with a Pāṇḍyan king’s regnal year.” [2] ::3.Towns :::4.Villages ::::“In the heartland of the Pandyan world, however, in the irrigated villages of the Tambraparni valley and in the Tenkasy area, village elites of Brahmans and Vellalas controlled agriculture, and there were no such chiefs. In this old Pandyan core area, a hierarchy of speculative government agents combined “private” enterprise with “public” functions like collecting taxes and dispensing justice. Agents at local and sub-regional levels often came from the Brahman and Vellala landed elite itself. Above these were Brahman and high-castes non-Brahman agents, originally from the Deccan, who had migrated south during the expansion of the Vijayanagar Empire.” [3]
[1]: (Lewandowski 1977, 187) Lewandowski Susan J. 1977. ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’. Modern Asian Studies. Vol 11: 2. Pp. 183-212. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3D6JUUGJ/collection
[2]: (Gillet 2017, 221-222) Gillet, Valérie. 2017. ‘Devotion and Dominion Ninth-Century Donations of a Pāṇḍyan King in Temples along the River Kāvēri’. Indo-Iranian Journal. Vol 60. Pp. 219-283. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/TRKMDSA9/collection
[3]: Ludden 1979, 357) Ludden, David. 1979. ‘Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-term View’. The Indian Economic & Social History Review. Vol 16: 3. Pp. 347-365. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G7TWCIIW/collection
levels.1.Kings :2. Central court (inferred from neighbouring polities) ::3. Higher-ranking provincial government agents (inferred from the next quote) :::4. Middle-ranking provincial government agents (inferred from the next quote) ::::5. Low-ranking government agents (inferred from the next quote) ::::: “In the heartland of the Pandyan world, however, in the irrigated villages of the Tambraparni valley and in the Tenkasy area, village elites of Brahmans and Vellalas controlled agriculture, and there were no such chiefs. In this old Pandyan core area, a hierarchy of speculative government agents combined “private” enterprise with “public” functions like collecting taxes and dispensing justice. Agents at local and sub-regional levels often came from the Brahman and Vellala landed elite itself. Above these were Brahman and high-castes non-Brahman agents, originally from the Deccan, who had migrated south during the expansion of the Vijayanagar Empire.” [1]
[1]: Ludden 1979, 357) Ludden, David. 1979. ‘Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-term View’. The Indian Economic & Social History Review. Vol 16: 3. Pp. 347-365. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G7TWCIIW/collection
In the below quote, Rocher argues that professional lawyers did not exist in India for much of its history. Unhelpfully, Rocher does not provide dates or much in the way of temporal boundaries. However, the use of the word “ever” in the sentence “no written source allows us to draw the conclusion that the experts on legal matters ever developed into a professional group whose regular activities consisted in representing parties in the court” may perhaps be taken to mean that professional lawyers did not exist in India before the colonial era.
“Thus, we believe that at an early date—let us roughly say at the time of the dharmasutras—professional lawyers or, to be more precise, specialized dharmasastrins could not exist. The Indian sage in those days was a specialist in all of the texts related to a particular Vedic school. His specialized knowledge concentrated on a specific version of the Vedic samhita and all its related texts: brahmana, aranyaka, upanisad, srautasutra, grhyasutra, dharmasutra, etc. There were no specialists on dharmasastra, and, a fortiori, no specialists on law that were part of it.
“But the situation changed. The texts on dharma grew away from the Vedic schools. Gradually there may have come into being a specialized group of learned men whose main interest was dharma, and the various dharmasastras as such.
“Finally, as the amount of textual material increased, we may assume that certain experts, without detaching themselves completely from aspects of dharmasastra and from Hindu learning generally, accumulated a very specialized knowledge of one aspect of dharma: vivada and vyavahara, or, in modern terminology, law. It is very possible that at this stage the nature of legal representation (niyoga) also underwent a certain change. We do not want to exclude the possibility that, at that moment, in a number of cases legal competence played a role in the choice of a representative. We are even willing to accept that Vyasa refers to the very special circumstance in which the representative was paid for his services. However, no written source allows us to draw the conclusion that the experts on legal matters ever developed into a professional group whose regular activities consisted in representing parties in the court. The impression which we gather from the texts is that, even in cases where the representative was chosen because of his special competence on legal matters, and, a fortiori, in all other cases, the necessary condition for a person to represent a party was the existence, between the former and the latter, of a certain form of close personal relationship.”
[1]
[1]: (Rocher 1969: 399-400) Rocher, L. 1969. "Lawyers" in Classical Hindu Law. Law & Society Review 3 (2/3): 383-402. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/QKMEMIHW/library
“We know that Madurai was famous for its silk production of fine cloth, and its markets contained foreign cloth, silk and wool. From the literary sources one receives and impression of markets filled with luxury goods such as ivory, and pearly which the city exported, emeralds, rubies, diamonds and gold.” [1]
[1]: (Lewandowski 1977, 188) Lewandowski Susan J. 1977. ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’. Modern Asian Studies. Vol 11: 2. Pp. 183-212. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3D6JUUGJ/collection
“Inscriptions reveal that irrigated agriculture grew steadily during the medieval dynasties of Madurai Pandya and Chola kings (c. 750 to 1300). Tanks multiplied, and by the thirteenth century there were thirty recorded nadus (agrarian territories) in Tirunelveli, many relying on tanks for irrigation. Meanwhile, in the western Tambraparni River valley and similar up-river tracts, dams were built to push water out of rivers to irrigate paddy fields. These dams fed relatively short systems of channels and watered directly, for the most part. Most dams, if not all, were temporary. Built on rock foundations, they required reconstruction after each flood season, a design that remains in use today. Fields were irrigated from channels leading from dams; fields drained one into the other down terraced slopes, and emptied back into the river. With such dam-and-channel systems, the up-river tracts became highly productive, but the Tambraparni region near Ambasamudram was the locus of the most dramatic agricultural and political development under the medieval dynasties.” [1]
[1]: (Ludden 1979, 354) Ludden, David. 1979. ‘Patronage and Irrigation in Tamil Nadu: A Long-term View’. The Indian Economic & Social History Review. Vol 16: 3. Pp. 347-365. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/G7TWCIIW/collection
Monumental sculpture. “The sustained Tamil impetus to wholesale temple renovation may also be partly responsible for the limited number of surviving structural monument from the far south in Pandyanadu before the twelfth, or even sixteenth, centuries. The region is well known for the many substantial rock-cut caves with monumental sculpture, but though ruled over by the Pandyans from their capital of Madurai from the sixth to the early fourteenth centuries as contemporaries of the Cholas there are very few surviving structural temples from this period in Pandyanadu compared with the Kaveri region.” [1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2013, 46) Branfoot, Crispin 2013. ‘Remaking the past: Tamil sacred landscape and temple renovations’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Vol 76: 1. Pp. 21-47. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/392CRT4K/collection
“With regard to inland trade Śilappadikāram mentions three highways that existed connecting Madura with Kodumbalur, possibly Cranganore in Kerala. It is known that goods were brought from the Pandyan kingdom over, or through the passes of, the Western Ghats to Chera desam. It is also believed that trade was carried on over the rugged roads linking north and south India.” [1]
[1]: (Lewandowski 1977, 187-188) Lewandowski Susan J. 1977. ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’. Modern Asian Studies. Vol 11: 2. Pp. 183-212 Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3D6JUUGJ/collection
Ceremonial sites. “The sustained Tamil impetus to wholesale temple renovation may also be partly responsible for the limited number of surviving structural monument from the far south in Pandyanadu before the twelfth, or even sixteenth, centuries. The region is well known for the many substantial rock-cut caves with monumental sculpture, but though ruled over by the Pandyans from their capital of Madurai from the sixth to the early fourteenth centuries as contemporaries of the Cholas there are very few surviving structural temples from this period in Pandyanadu compared with the Kaveri region.” [1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2013, 46) Branfoot, Crispin 2013. ‘Remaking the past: Tamil sacred landscape and temple renovations’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Vol 76: 1. Pp. 21-47. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/392CRT4K/collection
“The sustained Tamil impetus to wholesale temple renovation may also be partly responsible for the limited number of surviving structural monument from the far south in Pandyanadu before the twelfth, or even sixteenth, centuries. The region is well known for the many substantial rock-cut caves with monumental sculpture, but though ruled over by the Pandyans from their capital of Madurai from the sixth to the early fourteenth centuries as contemporaries of the Cholas there are very few surviving structural temples from this period in Pandyanadu compared with the Kaveri region.” [1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2013, 46) Branfoot, Crispin 2013. ‘Remaking the past: Tamil sacred landscape and temple renovations’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Vol 76: 1. Pp. 21-47. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/392CRT4K/collection
As Georg Bühler, whose groundbreaking Indian Palaeography was first published in 1896, observed ‘the great simplicity of the [Tamil] alphabet...is explained by the phonetics of the Tamil language’ (Bühler 1980: 93). Like the other Indian scripts the Tamil writing system is a syllabic alphabet. Its basic consonant signs (table 7.10) include the inherent vowel a. Other postconsonantal Vs are written with obligatory diacritics (table 7.11), while twelve independent signs are provided for initial Vs (table 7.12)”. [1]
[1]: (Coulmas 2002, 140). Coulmas, Florian. 2002. Writing Systems An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AHWVP84B/collection
“As Georg Bühler, whose groundbreaking Indian Palaeography was first published in 1896, observed ‘the great simplicity of the [Tamil] alphabet...is explained by the phonetics of the Tamil language’ (Bühler 1980: 93). Like the other Indian scripts the Tamil writing system is a syllabic alphabet. Its basic consonant signs (table 7.10) include the inherent vowel a. Other postconsonantal Vs are written with obligatory diacritics (table 7.11), while twelve independent signs are provided for initial Vs (table 7.12)”. [1]
[1]: (Coulmas 2002, 140). Coulmas, Florian. 2002. Writing Systems An Introduction to Their Linguistic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AHWVP84B/collection
"Hence, such sacred books of the Tamils as the Dēvāram preserve, among other things, a kind of regional sacred geography of medieval Tamilnad. That such hymns helped to endow various temples with rich, sacred traditions undoubtedly helped to promote the growth of pilgrimage networks and the development of what might be called ’regional consciousness’ among the Tamils.” [1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48-49) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection
“Hence, such sacred books of the Tamils as the Dēvāram preserve, among other things, a kind of regional sacred geography of medieval Tamilnad. That such hymns helped to endow various temples with rich, sacred traditions undoubtedly helped to promote the growth of pilgrimage networks and the development of what might be called ’regional consciousness’ among the Tamils.” [1]
[1]: (Spencer 1969, 48-49) Spencer, George W. 1969. ‘Religious Networks and Royal Influence in Eleventh Century South India’. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. Vol 12: 1. Pp. 42-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5XDG98BE/collection
“Historic Indian texts over the centuries, such as Valmiki’s Ramayana (400 BCE–400 CE), Kautilya’s Aarthashastra (400 BCE–200 CE) and stories of the Pandyan kingdom (600 BCE– seventeenth century), relate how famous emperors would visit their subjects incognito to observe and understand their lives and concerns first-hand (Jha, 2004). When particular issues were brought to their attention, exemplary kings would, reportedly, act to improve the welfare of their subjects both collectively and individually.” [1]
[1]: (Kattumuri 2015, 191) Kattumuri, Ruth. 2015. ‘Evidence and the policy process from an Indian perspective’, Contemporary Social Science. Vol 10:2. Pp. 191-201. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/WEKK4R5I/collection