Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Glossary of terms
- Map 1 Madras Presidency, 1900
- Map 2 Pudukkottai State
- The Tondaiman line of Pudukkottai
- PART 1 INTRODUCTION
- PART 2 HISTORY AND ETHNOHISTORY
- PART 3 A LITTLE KINGDOM IN THE OLD REGIME
- 4 Pudukkottai and the old regime: gift, order, and authority in a south Indian little kingdom
- 5 The early history of the Pudukkottai region
- 6 Tondaiman Raj: 1686–1801
- PART 4 SOCIAL RELATIONS OF A LITTLE KINGDOM
- PART 5 COLONIAL MEDIATIONS: CONTRADICTIONS UNDER THE RAJ
- PART 6 CONCLUSION
- Appendix: Land and privilege: inams in Pudukkottai
- References
- List of records and abbreviations
- List of archives and record offices
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES
5 - The early history of the Pudukkottai region
from PART 3 - A LITTLE KINGDOM IN THE OLD REGIME
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Preface
- Glossary of terms
- Map 1 Madras Presidency, 1900
- Map 2 Pudukkottai State
- The Tondaiman line of Pudukkottai
- PART 1 INTRODUCTION
- PART 2 HISTORY AND ETHNOHISTORY
- PART 3 A LITTLE KINGDOM IN THE OLD REGIME
- 4 Pudukkottai and the old regime: gift, order, and authority in a south Indian little kingdom
- 5 The early history of the Pudukkottai region
- 6 Tondaiman Raj: 1686–1801
- PART 4 SOCIAL RELATIONS OF A LITTLE KINGDOM
- PART 5 COLONIAL MEDIATIONS: CONTRADICTIONS UNDER THE RAJ
- PART 6 CONCLUSION
- Appendix: Land and privilege: inams in Pudukkottai
- References
- List of records and abbreviations
- List of archives and record offices
- Index
- CAMBRIDGE SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES
Summary
The settlement of Pudukkottai
Settlement in the Pudukkottai area was relatively sparse until the early Cola period, that is the ninth and tenth centuries. However, the construction of a number of early rock cut temples of the Pallava style, the occupation of the area's numerous natural caves by wandering hunters and herders, Jaina ascetics, and early settlers, occasional Caṅkam literary references to chieftains in the area, and a few lithic inscriptions detailing such events as the feeding of Brahmans, the construction of a sluice, and the provision of arrangements for sacrifice and puja worship suggest that the area had been by no means unoccupied (Ayyar 1940, 526–527, 542, 546; IPS nos. 1–19; CLIPS). With the coming of the Cola era there is strong evidence of increasing agrarian settlement, the growth of locality institutions such as community, village, and town assemblies, and the construction and expansion of temples. During the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, which included periods of both Cola and Pantiya hegemony over the region, many of the local level social and political institutions which remain important in Pudukkottai through to the nineteenth century are already identifiable.
Oral traditions and palm leaf manuscripts provide accounts of settlement in Pudukkottai which express certain fundamental features of social and political relations in the early medieval period. Perhaps the most cited version is found in the Tekkattur palm leaf manuscript:
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Hollow CrownEthnohistory of an Indian Kingdom, pp. 139 - 155Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988