CHARLES  ALLEN

Coromandel by Charles Allen ; Published by  Little Brown Group ; Pages  411 ; Price Rs.699/-

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The author of the book under review Charles Allen is a historian and   an acknowledged authority on British Indian and South Asian history who has bagged several awards for his contribution to Asian studies. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society, a  Member of the Kipling Society and a Member of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs. Charles’s most recently published work is a biography of  Ashoka.

 Coromandel  is  Allen’s 22nd book, in over 40  years of writing. He moves through modern-day India, discovering as much about the present as he does about the past. He  makes history riveting  by vigorous narration exploding with delightful nuggets. Coromandel is his latest  history of South India and Sri Lanka.

Coromandel denotes the northern Tamil country or  the eastern coast of India, but the book covers the entire . In fact  Allen begins with the history of humankind, the formative years of the earth, the continental drifts to how the planet is  today. He  looks at the volcanic southern plateau, the land of Agastya, geologically the oldest, with two mountainous ridges in the east and the west (the Western and Eastern Ghats), much higher than the huge trough between the northern mountains. This was a land of peoples who spoke languages very different from the languages spoken by peoples in the north. Scholars of the East India Company tried t o understand and unravel the mysteries of this unknown terrain. 

 It was Francis Ellis christened  the southern languages  ‘Dravidian’ languages.He was followed by a scholar Robert Caldwell  who wrote the monumental work,   “ Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian or the South Indian family of languages”. Caldwell’s work among the Dravidian adivasis and lower caste people gave birth to a “self-respect movement”   leading   eventually  to the rise of  the Dravidian movement. Caldwell’s  has been honoured with his statue being erected on the seashore of Chennai.

Allen has a special interest in the non-Brahmanical religious orders. The 5th century BCE saw the rise of several Nastika philosophical  gurus including Gautama,  Mahavira, Goshala Mankkhaliputta, Ajita Kesakambali, Purana Kasyapa . The word Nastika pointed out those philosophical thoughts which did not accept the authority of the Vedas.

Excepting Buddhism and Jainism, the others had a short life. Both these orders denied the Vedic caste system and flourished among the lower castes with the patronage from the  trading caste. Buddhism developed into a well organised religious order when it received royal patronage from Magadha. Jainism  had  a few royal patrons. The Jain gurus with their unique lives of austerity and self-sacrifice continue to retain their influence.

 Brahmanical religion encouraged by the Guptas became strong and their religious images swept over the entire country. Classical  art flourished  with the best Ajanta frescoes  drawn using the classical norms set out by the Silpasastras, on one hand and the literature of Kalidasa and others on the other. 

 Meanwhile  the Rashtrakutas were becoming important . The ascendancy of the  Cholas state ushered  in a new phase of imperial power. Art and literature flourished. There developed regional varieties of the Gupta idiom - exquisite bronzes, gigantic temples.

Allen meticulously mentions the pioneering works, mostly from the 17th century - even the marauders are given much credit for their observations. He mentions Niuehf, a Dutch, as the first person to mention the customs and costumes of the Nayars. Allen has gone as far as giving Tessitori, an Italian scholar, the credit of discovering the Indus Valley Civilisation and not to RD Banerji. The importance of the site of Mohenjodaro was realised by this officer and he informed Sir John Marshall of its importance

 

The book deals with some of the major dynasties of South India rather cursorily, but spends much time on other unrelated matters. One of the most delightful ­stories the author narrates is about Rous Peter, who was the collector of Madurai in the early years of the 19th century. “According to local folk songs, Rous Peter was woken by a three-year-old girl with three breasts who dragged him by the hand out of his bungalow whereupon it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. The girl then ran into the Meenakshi temple and was not seen again.” Peter is supposed to have made an offering in gratitude to the temple in the form of a pair of golden stirrups studded with rubies.

There are a few bloomers  in the book. Allen proclaims ‘for many Hindus there is only one version of Rama’s journey and that is Valmiki’s Ramayana’!  Allen has perhaps forgotten  Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas.

 Allen without a shred of evidence posits  two Agastyas.One a Sanskrit Agastya and the other a Tamilian who initiated the Tamil language. The literature of the Sangam period is  rightly praised and  the contribution of Jains and Buddhists to south Indian culture is well-presented .

 Allen is all  praise for  I.Mahadevan, a former IAS officer who first identified Tamil-Brahmi, a script adapted for and used by the Tamil language. Allen begins each chapter romantically. He describes the ancient trade route from the Konkan through paddy fields to the cliffs of Ahmednagar and the picturesque Naneghat pass, little known to the outside world, where we see the prototype of modern Devanagari. This was the land of the Satavahanas or Andhras.

 The Buddhist era ends with the warrior king Mahendravarma Pallava who is responsible for Mamallapuram and the temples of Kanchipuram,

Allen covers  the rise of Shaivism and Vaishnavism, whose exponents were Nayanmars and Alwars. One of the early proponents of Shaivism was Adi Shankara, born in Kaladi, who travelled as far north as Kashmir and Nepal and established four maths. The book has significant omissions  --- the spread of south Indian culture to south-east Asia; the Vijayanagar Empire and Hampi; the earliest revolts against British rule, before 1857,etc. 

The most fascinating part of the volume deal with Buddhism and its cultural legacies from an age not often recognised . Allen contributes to inspiring the reader to make further voyages in the realm of  Indian history . This is a book, though it is a personal history , deserves wide readership .

P.P.Ramachandran

10/06/2018