[L0KoxewQ]

govinda,

i hear and read you. i understand what you are trying to say, ie the south indian kings did not rule in isolation, but considered themselves part of the continuum that is india.

but then, how did the attitude at the beginning of the 20th century turn up, that tamil brahmins, were 'aryans' as opposed to the rest of the tamils being dravidians. if i heard right, it was the tambrams themselves who promoted this line of thought.

If you see the early pAndyas had a similar class concept like that of northern varna, settled down under 5 regions (chEri) - mullai, pAlai etc. depending on the resource and skills. I also read that down south (India), the women had more restrictions (of clothing/dressing/obedience to family/husband), more conservative than North. Also, Pandaram were their priests possibly like pundita. We could easily see these features among the tamil kings/queens - titles like nachiyar, sati among kinds/warriors etc. These ideas though appear more dravidian, are still similar in thought/concept with the Northern varnas. The word Pandya means old country in contrast with Chola meaning new country, Cherameaning hill country and Pallava meaning branch in Sanskrit. So, I would think, the northerner and southern had common origin, and due to time/distance gap, the southerners had came up with colloquial forms of Sanskrit dialects. [so do even northern states!]

Plus, for the tamil kings, the kings of North India were challenging to their power-complexes. They had to oblige to Maurya/Kalinga, Gupta and even earlier the Pandyas were defeated by Arjuna, SahaDeva etc. One may see why the Pandya kings might have participated in KrishnA's war to earn supremacy/influence. [Ref-MB: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/m08/m08020.htm] Even during Chera/Chola kings, they travelled and en-slaved few kings (in case of Senguttuvan building Kannagi statue!). The dravidians had an envy for the Northern Power, but they brought lot of north architects to build their temples. The dravidians excelled in PRIDE! [which runs even in the new blood] In the same way, in the later years, the place for Brahmins in the vedic shAstrAs might have been too much for their dignity, though the priests of tamil saiva agamas were not that well regarded, IMO . [ The same was the case, why Mahabharata was fought, by the kshatriyas/krishna-yadavas against pAndavAs. The similar emotional/ego-play by the opponent-races in the worship of Lord Shiva to challenge the Rama/Krishna campaigns. ]

The Aryan/Dravidian must be a British understanding of Indian culture, as they saw Sanskrit and vedic culture more pre-dominant in the North than the South. They would not have attempted to know the background and history of our ancient India.

Plus, one might see that the 3 Tamil Kingdoms had a treaty around Kalinga period that they will be united and win over the North kings. But, once Pandya kings came to power around 3BC, the unity didn't last long. [though chera/chola ruled to-gether] and they defeated each other, and sub-dued the other from coming up to higher positions. Such power struggle always existed, even if the 3 kingdoms later changed into various castes based on skills/position/power/reign. Actually, the caste tag was only a 'dis-guised reason' for their power struggle/past enmity of rulership.

Only after 3BC, the tamil kings had complete reign without interference from North and could focus on the temple building, arts, architect and encourage Brahmins/temples and also the 'RE'-evolution of Tamil. Plus, they need frequent yagnas/pujAs to gain confidence for military campaigns among the 3 rulers. Over-time, they divided into many castes that were focussed on Power shifts, only these later periods, IMU, Brahmins started working under the power-holders for jobs (accounts etc.). I guess, Brahmins could not have influenced much, but the poets/leaders of same castes have been giving clear messages on dharma time and again. The NBs of Tamilandu, had been very powerful, dignified and those who could not keep up ended up in bad state. So, casteism was not the major reason, superiority (power/strength/status) was the main reason.

Kunjuppu sir, these are just my views from reading/understanding, so you may differ.