When Archaeology Authenticates History
By Shri Ravi Kumar, Writer and MP
Today’s The Hindu Tamil Thisai morninger
03 August 2021 💜
[Just a few excerpts from his insightful article [translated into English by this blogger] for the benefit of a wider reading public!]
Here goes - 👇
In Tamil Nadu, the State Department of Archaeology, [established in the year 1961] is celebrating its 60th year of inception, this present year.
Although there are requests galore for celebrating the 60th anniversary of its inception in a grand manner, there is also some criticism that’s put forward, on the ‘futility of such archaeological research’!
Well, to go back in time,
it was a British Officer by name Sir William Jones, who in the year 1784, after having done much research on the subject, put forth the proposition that the name Sandrocottus – that’s quite popular in Greek history - is actually the name of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya who ruled over ancient India.
Later, in the year 1886, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) appointed the German Indologist and epigraphist Hultzsch as Chief Epigraphist to the Government of Madras.
After carefully deciphering and studying through the inscriptions of the Thanjavur Big temple, Hultzsch was the first to declare that it was the Tamil king Raja Raja Chola who built the temple.
Interestingly, there are no substantial documents beyond the 20th century literary tracts and notes, to ascertain with reasonable conviction on the exact dating of the Sangam Period - an age concerning which we are so proud of - today!
The same is the case with the Pallava Period, as well. No historian is able to ascertain on the history that pre-dates the Pallava period.
As such, it was K. V. Subramania Iyer who heralded a great revolution in the realm of Tamil inscriptions and epigraphy.
In a 1924 Seminar that happened in Chennai, K. V. Subramania Iyer presented an essay in which he states that, the inscriptions found in the natural caves of Tamil Nadu are inscribed only in Tamil!
Up until then, historians were convinced that, all those inscriptions found in the natural caves of Tamil Nadu were written by Buddhist monks in Brahmi script and in the Prakriti language, and hence there was no relation whatsoever between Tamil history and those inscriptions in any possible way!
Refuting these arguments, Subramania Iyer proved with substantial evidence that the letters exclusive to the Tamil alphabet like ழ, ள, ற, ன, were found in those inscriptions and hence they belonged exclusively to Tamil inscriptions.
The history of India, and subsequently the history of Tamil Nadu could be written with reasonable clarity and conviction only after the Department of Archaeology was formed.
The excavation works initiated by the Department of Archaeology, and the inscriptions that they have subsequently unearthed, have greatly helped in clarifying and authenticating much on our history.
Interestingly, before this could happen, we did not have a proper way of documenting history the way the European Nations have done!
Added, our history is intermingled in our epics!
And because of the amplifications that are an usual part of any epical treatise, none accepts them as historical facts!
As a result, there has always been great confusion on compiling the entire gamut of Indian history.
That’s when inscriptions and epigraphs were discovered in India!
Noboru Karashima, the renowned Japanese historian, outlines the statistical data thus -
In India, 59,800 inscriptions have been discovered thus far. And among them, 44,000 belong to South India. In particular, as many as 28,000 inscriptions are in Tamil. The Sanskrit inscriptions are just 7,800 in number, he writes!
Only after having discovered and researched on the texts found in these inscriptions, the history of the State of Tamil Nadu has attained to a certain amount of clarity.
These archaeological excavations have in fact brought about a sea-change in the perspectives of historians as well!
To all those who were thus far celebrating the Age of the Guptas as the Golden Age, there has now arisen a dire necessity that,
If the history of India has to be written, it has to start from Tamil Nadu!
To be continued…
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