The Mystery of South India

You have written a research paper on south india and didn`t mention heeng even for once. What kind of research is that? Other than heeng I want to know why south indians put camphor in their achaar. The other day I had to throw the whole bottle of achaar into garbage which I unsuspectingly bought because label looked good. It felt like I was having dinner in a morgue.

The very first masjid and the first muslim of India. within 10 years of Hijraa! Amazing.

The first masjid in India: and the First muslim of India :Cheraman Perumal

same masjid rebuilt

Though historians and scholars vary in opinion on the exact time of the advent of Islam to Malabar coast, an analytical scrutiny of the legend of Cheraman Perumal has culminated in its partial acceptance as history.

Perumals were the titular leaders who ruled the powerful Chera dynasty. There are varying opinion regarding their appointment whether they were appointed by the leaders of various independent dynasties, selected by the Brahmins or were foreign appointees of the Chola and Pandiya kings.Originally they ruled for twelve year periods but later they extended this period. Cheraman Perumal was a king of Kerala and the last of the Perumal dynasty. Kesari A. Balakrishna Pilla , an internationally reputed historian, states that Cheraman Perumal had also received a letter in the year 628 AD from the Holy Prophet (S.A.W.) along with many other rulers of the then known world.

Cheraman Perumal , according to Sheikh Zainuddin Al Malbari, is said to have divided his land to 12 rulers before he left for Mecca. It has been established that this last Perumal travelled to Mecca and embraced Islam and that had his `Kalimatul Shahadat` at the hands of the Holy Prophet(S.A.W.) himself. He thus became the first royal Malabari convert to Islam and his Muslim name was Tajuddin. Cheraman Perumal passed away in Shahar Mukhalla reportedly in Hijrah 10.

```` Since the partition, South India has been divided into four states where Tamilnadu speaks Tamil, Andhra Pradesh speaks Telegu,````

If you are publishing it elsewhere, please correct this. Andhra Pradesh speaks Telugu not Telegu...

A nice article.. more thoughts later..

Thanks,
AVkrishna

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NHK, very fascinating. You are in the august company of a long line of Tamil writers who have written authentic sounding books about other countries without even setting foot in them. Perhaps your lack of intimate familiarity is an advantage in one sense: it allows you to aggregate things and see them as parts of a whole. May be you see the elephant as a large animal whereas sops like me who were born & grew up in the ``south`` see it as varigated and complex and can get our hands around parts of it mistaking them for independent entities.
This article, not surprisingly, is riddled with factual errors. There`s confusion between kerala & karnataka and a tendency to see kerala as representative of the ``south.`` May be kerala produces more google hits than the other parts.
What separates south from the north is cuisine, the type of spices used & how they are combined, the clothing and the type of music. Southern architecture also is different when it comes to temples. The languages are not in the indo-eurpoean family.
The south (present-day kerala & tamil nadu any way) have had extensive contacts with the middle east, south & east asia and have influenced & influenced by cultures in these regions.
I`ll read your article in detail and make further comments.

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NK,

Very interesting intro to South India! As a Thamizhan (Tamilian to the northies) I wish it was a more detailed w/less typos though. You probably have a job to feed urself and write about different cultures as a hobby so the typos/lack of details is understandable! Also there are enough meat eaters in the south. Tamilnadu is a state where animal sacrifice is still being followed and cows are slaugthered w/o restrictions in fact other states send their cows to us to avoid breaking the law (yes we are mostly Shaivite Hindus).

NHK

nice start.. I think South India is a bit of a mystery to Pakistanis and perhaps the not too well travelled north indians (of course veeresh is married to one); nowadays north-south marriages are quite common

About 700 to 1000 years or earlier back people from north india (brahmins) migrated to the south and integrated there into the culture. these are the present day Iyers and Iyengars (tamil brahmins mostly) who despite being a miniscule minority in their home state are prominent in the scientific and academic world (and the business world as well). north indians or foreigners are mostly likely to bump into these characters and come away with the impression that south indians are very smart etc. Few of them keep the Iyer or Iyengar as the surname any more (Pico Iyer the writer and BKS Iyengar of Yoga fame are exceptions); I think the film actress Rekha was an Iyengar as was Hema Malini.

An iyer marriage (the full fledged version) is very interesting

See http://shaadionline.com/sol/asp/rnc/rituals-customs.asp?ComID=71

Urstruly:1
Heeng is perhaps the only spice, in the array of spices India is famed for, which has alien origins. It is Irani. I wonder if it is used in Iranian foods as much.

The other one is the green & red pepper. Never existed in the old world before 1492.

NHK

Not bad..except whats with the Maratthas? They are deccans, how about the Yadavs of Devgiri. Arjun pls fill the gaps.
Also, its incorrect to say that SIs are vegetarians. Only the brahmins (and not the goan or karavari brahmins either), which are a small minority are vegetarians. In north, especially Gujjus, or even Bhaiyyas are mostly vegetarians except the Thakurs and Muslim. I also thought that madrasis are veg, but only madrasis who you see outside south in past were brahmins, who kind of dominated the civil service and govt institutes or research centers or public sector companies. they were all veg so i thought all madrasis are. that is just not the truth.

Could someone please write something about that tiny island which is somewhere between sri Lanka and India on the NW side of Sri Lanka. Very very close. Is it still the solid sanctuary from ``civilisatation`` and exists in its uncorrupted pristine state? Is it true that the marauding western ``scientists/anthropologists`` have not yet polluted it by breathing there.

I`ve forgotten the name of this island.

# 42 Warpster

```` About 700 to 1000 years or earlier back people from north india (brahmins) migrated to the south and integrated there into the culture. these are the present day Iyers and Iyengars (tamil brahmins mostly) who despite being a miniscule minority in their home state are prominent in the scientific and academic world (and the business world as well). ````

This looks like one more theory which fits into the Aryan invasion theory and Aryans being superior to Dravidians.. Even DMK founders had a similar theory..

Can you give me your sources?

Thanks,
Avkrishna

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Nazar Khan

Decent attempt at giving an introduction to the land south of the Vindhyas. I just hope that you dont fall into the familiar trap of categorizing all of South India into one bracket, as your article seems to suggest. The land is as diverse as a mini continent. Let me begin with the geography. Kerala for example receives some of the highest rainfall in the country, however on the other hand, large parts of Andhra face severe water shortage almost every summer and the hottest region in India is a place in Andhra called Ramagundam. Even Hyderabad reaches 45 degrees Centigrade now and then. Not all of South India is matriarchal. It is only found in Kerala in the South and that too mostly among the Nair communities. In the north east, I believe it is found among Mizos. A miniscule percentage of South is vegetarian. Large number of Brahmins even, depending on where they are from, are great lovers of meats and sea food. You`d be hard pressed to find decent veg food in an Andhra restaurant. The food is mostly fiery meats, fish and poultry. The chettiars of Tamil Nadu (P. Chidambaram is a chettiar), master tradesmen, have invented an entire cuisine of their own, devoted almost entirely to meat and seafood. And rice too is not the staple of many South Indians. The northern parts of the Deccan, which has black soil and not alluvial fertile soil, eats mostly bajra and other such grain based food. This is found in North Karnataka and north Andhra. Soupy dals and curries are another misconception. Because dosas and idlis are the only things Northies and others know of South Indian food. Having been born and brought up for a while in Andhra, I have to date, not eaten in a banana leaf. This practice is mostly observed in households which believe in the caste system. For fear of having their plates and utensils contaminated. This is limited to a few households such as maybe extremely orthodox Brahmins. They are a minority.

There have been very few communal riots since Independence. Communal riots were unheard of during partition and the aftermath. Unlike certain linguistic groups, who love to tom tom their love for one another inspite of their religion, caste etc, people living in South India did not go for each others` throats at the time of independence. This is not to say that South Indians did not have grievances among themselves. Andhra was the first state to be organized on the basis of language. From as much as I know of Andhra history, there was no butchering and naare baazi such as ``leke rahenge``. A man, known as Sri Ramulu, self-immolated himself and this was the event that triggered the formation of Andhra and Tamil Nadu from out of the Madras Presidency.

Arabs have been trading, settling and intermarrying in the South since even before the advent of Islam. St. Thomas the Apostle brought Christianity to the south and ancient Jewish communities have lived in harmony in the south for millenia. It is significant that minority communities in the south speak their native tongues and not some other language which they perceive as more in tune with their religion.

On the negative side...well there is a lot that is negative also. though Kerala trumpets its literacy rate, it has the highest unemployment rate in India. ditto for suicide and drunkenness. Tamil Nadu suffers from a masochistic complex where it elects as Chief Minister, candidates from just two parties that are equally corrupt and h@rami. Andhra likes to trumpets its achievements in IT, but even Hyderabad does not have 24/7 running water. People wait for days and designated times when they fill their tanks and all other utensils in the house with water. Karnataka, the IT hub of India, cant settle its water disputes with its neighbours and its govt. acts in a manner that encourages linguistic hooligans such as banning English in govt. schools and bowing to the demands of a brigand to secure the release of a popular Kannada filmstar.

What I`m trying to say is, (I have said too much already), the south is way too diverse to even begin thinking of it as one entity, as the land and peoples have been moulded by far too many differing influences and events in history. About half of the South was ruled by Kings and the other half by the British until independence. And that is just one of the causes for its diversity.

regards,

Kabuli

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Jang # 10

The areas in Southern Maharashtra have been Arayanized - so they have fallen out of the South India concept. There is a language konkani there, I guess.

In the comparative sense, South India is more vegetarian.

NHK