(a) How far the Sangam literature acts as a window into the social and cultural traditions of ancient South India? (20 marks) (b)…

(a) Sangam literature as a window into the society and culture of ancient South India

The Sangam corpus, about 2,400 poems in the Ettuttokai (Eight Anthologies) and Pattuppattu (Ten Idylls), with the grammar Tolkappiyam, is dated by most scholars to about the first to third centuries CE. It is the main source on early Tamilakam, and it is a rich window, though a partial one.

What it shows.

(i) Landscape and livelihood. The poems divide experience into five tinais, each with its setting, gods and way of life: kurinji (hills, Murugan), mullai (forest, pastoral, Mayon), marutam (farmland, Indra), neytal (coast, fishermen, Varuna) and palai (dry land, Korravai, cattle raiding).

(ii) Polity and warrior ethos. The three crowned kings, Chera, Chola and Pandya, and the lesser chiefs (velir) supported bards with gifts. Hero stones (natukal) record death in cattle raids and war.

(iii) Economy. Agriculture, pearls and pepper, and Yavana (Roman) trade at Muziris, Puhar and Korkai, which is confirmed by archaeology at Arikamedu and Pattanam.

(iv) Gender and social life. About thirty women poets, such as Avvaiyar, appear. The poems portray love (akam), war and ethics (puram), hard conditions for widows, and Brahmins, artisans, bards and fishermen, in a society without rigid varna.

Limits. The window is framed by the bards' own patronage. The poems follow conventions of tinai, so they idealise. Subordinate groups speak little. The dating and compilation are uncertain, and the tradition of the three Sangams, which is later, is a legend. The poems must be cross-checked with megalithic burials, Brahmi inscriptions in Tamil caves, and Roman finds.

It is therefore a reliable window on elite values, landscape and trade, and a poor one on the lives of the poor.

(b) Contours of imperial ideology in the Mauryan period

Mauryan ideology tried to justify and hold together a vast empire of many peoples, and it had two sides.

(i) The realist side: Kautilya's Arthashastra. The king is the source of order (danda) and protector of the seven elements (saptanga) of the state, and his duty is security and revenue. Spies and officials such as the amatyas and mahamatras were used. The text joins power with a concern for the subjects' welfare.

(ii) Ashoka's dhamma. After the violence of Kalinga (Rock Edict XIII), Ashoka gave up conquest by force for conquest by dhamma (dhammavijaya). Dhamma was an ethic, not a religion: non-violence, obedience to elders, generosity and tolerance of all sects (RE XII). Dhamma-mahamattas were appointed to spread it.

(iii) Paternal kingship. "All men are my children" (Kalinga Separate Edict), with welfare works such as medical care for people and animals, wells and trees (RE II).

(iv) Projection. The edicts were written in Prakrit and local scripts (Brahmi, Kharosthi, Greek and Aramaic), and the Sarnath lion capital and other pillars displayed the power of the ruler as a chakravartin.

Romila Thapar reads dhamma as a means of holding the diverse empire together. Others see it as a legitimising device. Ashoka kept the army and the harsh penalties, so the ideology joined welfare and control.

(c) Status of women in the Gupta period compared with the pre-Gupta era

Status can be judged by property, marriage, education and public role, but the sources, mostly Brahmanical texts, are prescriptive and describe the elite.

Pre-Gupta. Buddhist and Jain orders admitted women as nuns. The Satavahana queens Nayanika and Gautami Balashri appear in inscriptions as donors. The Sangam poems show women poets. The Manusmriti, however, already placed women under the father, husband and son.

Gupta period.

(i) Property. Stridhana, the woman's own property, was defined more clearly in the smritis (Narada, Katyayana), but the widow's inheritance was limited.

(ii) Marriage. Marriage before puberty was recommended, and widow remarriage was discouraged.

(iii) Sati. The earliest inscription is the Eran pillar of 510 CE.

(iv) Education and roles. Women of the elite were still educated and wrote, and the Kamasutra describes courtesans skilled in the arts. Queens such as Prabhavatigupta, who ruled as regent of the Vakatakas, and Kumaradevi, who appears on coins, held political roles.

Hence for most women, status moved down from the earlier period, with more restrictions in the law books, while a few elite women kept power and property. The evidence differs with region and class.