The war filled history of North India is well chronicled. Indians often conflate the history of modern day India with that of its capital- Delhi. However, India as it is currently defined has only existed since 1947. However, the modern republic is a vast empire, not a single kingdom. In other words, the story of India is not one linear chapter but a vast compendium, an entire library even of regions, religions and relations.
In stark contrast to the north, the South has been relatively stable. Guarded by the ocean on both coasts, and far removed from the ravaging armies of the north, Southern empires had the luxury of time in economic and cultural development.
The Vijayanagara Empire is hardly a focus in comparison to the attention heaped on the Delhi Sultanate or the Rajput clans. Little is said about the their music that evolved into modern day Carnatic music. Even the most devout barely credit them with the expansion of the Venkateswara temple at Tirupati to an opulence that lasts today. It is of much surprise to most that the official name of the empire, that covered all of south india back then, was adopted by the state of Karnataka.
Expounding on it’s beauty, in The Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru writes:
A later visitor was [Domingo] Paes, a Portuguese who came in 1522 after having visited the Italian cities of the Renaissance. The city of Vijayanagar, he says, is as “large as Rome and very beautiful to the sight”; it is full of charm and wonder with its innumerable lakes and waterways and fruit gardens. It is “the best-provided city in the world” and “everything abounds.” The chambers of the palace were a mass of ivory, with roses and lotuses carved in ivory at the top–“it is so rich and beautiful that you would hardly find anywhere, another such.”
– Jawaharlal Nehru, the Discovery of India
Further down memory lane, the exploits of the world conquering Cholas are entirely ignored in Indian history. Far from the 300 odd year Mughal dynasty, the Chola dynasty dominated Southern India from 848 AD to 1279 AD. Their boundaries at their greatest extent included all of the Deccan, parts of Thailand, Malaysia and Sumatra. They were preceded by an earlier Chola dynasty for nine hundred years spanning 300 BC to 600 AD whose influences have formed modern day Sri Lanka. The name Eelam commemorates Ellalan, the Chola founding patriarch. The Mahavamsa, a gospel to Sri Lankan buddhists extols the defeat of Ellalan by Dutugemunu while still paying tribute to him as a just and great king.
I have a few theories why this indifference to Southern Empires persists in modern India. For one, the linguistic organization of modern Indian states shortchanges the empires of South India. The Chalukyas spoke at least Kannada, Marathi, Sanskrit and Hindustani. The Cheras were fluently bilingual between Malayalam and Tamil. Needless to say, multilingual dynasties do not serve the purpose of modern day linguistic nationalism at the state level. And even if they were, southern state governments are rarely from the same political alliance, making a common cause difficult to achieve.
Another cause is complexity. The north’s timeline of wars makes for quick perusal and easy amplification. In fact, the one famous South Indian king, is Tipu Sultan, who’s war ravaged years saw Mysore go down with guns blazing against Arthur Wellesley. It also helps that Tipu was the subject of a well watched Sanjay Khan television serial in the early 1990s.
However, that war filled dynasty requires less effort to document than the secular literature of the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda. The story of Ashoka’s adoption of non violence after the pillaging of Kalinga makes for more sensational storytelling than how coinage was introduced under the Satavahanas around modern day Telengana. The Zamorin of Calicut and the Kunjali Marakkars are barely footnoted as a naval power to rival the Portuguese. Entirely ignored are Calicut’s trade links with the Chinese, Portuguese and the Arabs. In fact, Calicut’s centrality to the spice trade has vanished from history textbooks since Marco Polo.
As a result, movies are rarely made about Krishna Deva Raya or Rajendra Cholan. In fact they barely have streets named after them.
Even credible historians anoint Punjab as the cradle of Indian kingdoms. Four seminal battles are held up as decisive inflection points. The 1192 battle of Tarain that led to the Delhi Sultanate, the battles of Panipat especially the first battle in 1526 that begat the Mughal Empire and the 1857 revolt that established British hegemony over India. However, the confirmation bias in these assessments is inherently evident. Most of these battles were simply the culmination of events that were well underway.
Arab muslim traders were trading with the Chera empire long before Muhammad Ghor stepped into India. The Bahamani sultans from northern Karnataka predate the Mughals by more than 200 years. It is often forgotten that the East India Company set up their first trading port in Masulipatnam on the Andhra Coast in 1611. Madras, not Calcutta was the first major English city.
The gateway to India has often run through the South. The roads have neither been straight nor well paved. But it is in the complex understanding of the South’s incredible contribution that the full richness of India’s history unravels.
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