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Megalith Culture in South India • The megaliths are the graves encircled by big pieces of stone. They are found in all upland areas of the peninsula, but their concentration seems to be in Eastern Andhra and in Tamil Nadu. • The people used various types of pottery, but black and red ware popular with them. • The practice of burying goods in the graves with the dead bodies was based on the belief that the dead would need all these in the next world. • The Cholas, Pandyas and Cheras mentioned in Ashokan inscriptions were probably in the megalithic phase of material culture. • The megalithic people in the Southern districts of Tamil Nadu had certain peculiar characteristics. They buried the skeletons of the dead inside urns made of red pottery in pits. • The practice of urn-burial was different from that of list- burial or pit-burial surrounded by stone circles, which prevailed in the Krishna-Godavari valley. • Although, the megalithic people produced paddy and ragi, apparently the area ...

 THE SANGAM LITERATURE The Sangam literature explains the early history of Tamilakam (the entire Tamil region), which is of immense historical importance. Tolkappiyam, a discourse by Tolkappiyar on Tamil semantics and syntactics, that is evidently composed during the second Sangam, is the oldest extant literary work in Tamil. Now, the research ers use the term 'Sangam Literature' for only those works in verse (prose is of much later origin), which are controlled in the academic and literary compositions, like the Ettuthogai (Eight collections), Pattupattu (Ten village songs) and Pathinenkil- kanakku (The Eighteen Minor Works), which are believed to have been produced during the period 150-250 CE. The recurrently called 'Five Epics' (the five great poems) which entailed of Jivaka Chintamani, Silappadikaram, Manimekalai, Va- layapathi and Kundalakesi are dispensed on much later dates. Of these, the last two are not extant. So, of the three 'great poems' that we no...

 THE SANGAM AGE The period between the third century BC to third century AD in South India (the areas of modern Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh) is known as Sangam Period.  It has been named after the Sangam academies held during the period of three great dynasties of Cheras, Cholas and Pandyas. It flourished under the royal patronage of the Pandya kings of Madurai. At the Sangams, eminent scholars assembled and functioned as the board of censors and the literary works were compiled in the form of anthologies. These literary works were the earliest specimens of Dravidian literature. According to the Tamil legends, there were three Sangams (Academy of Tamil poets) held in the ancient South India popularly called Muchchangam. -Mythologically the first Sangam is believed to be held at Madurai, attended by Gods and legendary sages. No literary work of this Sangam is available. - The second Sangam was held at Kapatapuram and the only text during this Sangam that s...