Do ancient Tamilakam sites deserve rediscovery?

PAMA Institute for the Advancement of Trans-disciplinary Archaeological Sciences is presently engaged in the project of rediscovering ancient Tamilakam for various reasons. The Indian historiography has treated the historical experiences of peninsular India, compared to other regions, as secondary if not inferior.
From mythologies to colonial and post-colonial historiography this prejudice seems to have continued unabated.This is quite evident in any work that engages the history of the subcontinent. This situation needs a critical and balanced engagement. P J Cherian, who is the director of PAMA, speaks to M T Saju about the relevance of rediscovering the ancient Tamilakam.
Could you please tell us about your new project, ‘rediscovering the ancient sites in Tamilakam’?
We have taken up the early historic phase (500BC to 500AD) that is the Tamilakam period for scrutiny mainly because of the exponential increase in the archaeological data of the period. In the last ten years, the Tamilakam region has witnessed a few pathbreaking excavations. To mention just three, Pattanam, Keezhadi and Kodumanal have unearthed intimidatingly huge volume of material data, facilitating and necessitating new readings.
Another great advantage of this phase is the already available large volume of textual sources of the Sangam age. Scholars have interpreted these sources at a time when the new archaeological evidence was not at their disposal.
Literary sources can be considered trustworthy only to the extent that they can be substantiated by archaeological evidence. Tallying of the new archaeological evidence with a re-reading of the textual source is one of the goals of our project.
If we follow the biography of the artefacts from Pattanam, it may take ancient Tamilakam not only to the remote corners of the Indian subcontinent but also to the ends of the then known world. To be precise, Pattanam has unearthed artefacts that belong to regions from Catalonia in Spain to Hepu archaeological site in South China. Rediscovering ancient Tamilakam may take us to the cultural foundations of pre-modern humanity; Tamilakam had interfaces with more than 30 cultural groups and more than 40 port sites across the Indian Ocean, Red Sea and Mediterranean. It was an exchange-network of people, goods, cultures and technologies. This 2nd maritime urban and exchange revolution took place 15 centuries before Vasco da Gama reached India and Columbus reached the American continent.
P J Cherian during a field trip
A little about the geographical location of Tamilakam?
Thanks to the geographical location of Tamilakam jetting into the middle of Indian Ocean, her natural and human resources, which were critical for her presiding role in the first ever global transactions. The European and American scholars who were familiar with the classical Greek and Latin sources say Muziris could have been the modern New York or London or Shanghai port, 2000 years ago.
Another reason is to distance us a little from the socio-cultural and political captivities of the present times. How many educated people of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, South Canara and Southern Andhra know that once they belonged to the same human geography, sharing numerous socio-cultural and technological aspects of life?
We may not fail to realise that the religious, political, social and administrative walls that separate us today could be lines drawn on water. Engaging archaeological evidence can have a subversive potential to make us rethink on our immediate identities.
How’s the project working out?
Well, in the first phase of the project we are trying to document the unearthed archaeological evidence of the Tamilakam region. This exercise will be critical in reconstructing the material culture of Tamilakam and beyond.
As far as Kerala region of ancient Tamilakam is considered, this project has greater relevance. With little proximity to Sangam literary sources and the later Malayalam identity dominating under Sanskritic influence, Kerala region lost her organic intellectual and social connections with Tamilakam.
With the birth of modern states and the confining of the vestiges of classical Tamil phase to Tamil Nadu, the Kerala region’s historical past virtually begins from 9th century AD. The Kerala historiography is still dominated by the perception that the pre-9th century was a period of primitive backwardness.
What are the main evidences that you have received to justify this?
We had an on-hand documentation of the Kodumal, Alagankulam, Korkai, Pattaraiperumbudur excavated materials under the custody of Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department. We could also document the artefacts excavated from Adichanallur and the Nilagiri sites at the department of Museum. We could discern from them the technological and cultural connections of those artefacts with the Pattanam archaeological data. They represent the society of Tamilakam from mature Iron Age to the Early Historic period.
You have mentioned that only a little part of the Pattanam area has been excavated so far. Why?
From 2006 to 2015 we could excavate only less than one percent of the Pattanam archaeological mound. From a barefoot archaeology project Pattanam evolved into a collaborative exercise of global academic impact. I feel sorry that we couldn’t excavate Pattanam in the tenth season though the ASI had given the necessary licence.
I recently met the chief minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan and appealed to him to allow Pattanam excavations to continue.
Do you think many archaeological sites in Tamil Nadu deserve a rediscovery? How does 'rediscovery' work?
Yes. Absolutely. The prerequisite is science and respect for ancestors. Tamilnadu/Tamilakam could be one of the most sensitive societies in the subcontinent since we tend to be more scientific and emotional. Excavations, unlike what is practised today, need to be conceived as one important procedure in the long chain of scientific collective procedures.
The subtropical climate of Tamil Nadu which ranges from dry sub-humid to semi-arid condition is more conducive to site formation process and the preservation of underneath artefacts compared to Kerala region.
In the number of excavated sites also Tamil Nadu is much ahead of Kerala and most other states. It has a track record of 40 sites excavated by the state department of which 20 plus belong to the broad Tamilakam phase. Tamil Nadu has to take the lead by extensive excavations and imaginative and scientific conservative measures.
Keezhadi archaeological site
How do you look at the findings of the Keezhadi site near Madurai?
Keezhadi is an important site as far as the emergence of urban or complex societies in south India. There is a perception among a section of scholars that Tamilakam society was rural in character and the urban shift that north India witnessed around 6th century BC is absent in south India. The complex features found earlier at Veeram Pattinam (Arikamedu) and recently at Pattanam were dismissed as the left-overs of the foreign traders.
True to the colonial tradition they termed the sites as Roman or later Indo-Roman. Keezhadi has given a severe blow to the colonial spectre haunting Veeram Pattinam and Pattanam. The elaborate structural remains found at a hinterland site in the vicinity of Madurai is the clinching evidence of south Indian urban process that begins in the mature Iron Age of Tamilakam around 1000 BC.