Page 556 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - India

554  SOUTH INDIA

A PORTRAIT OF

SOUTH INDIA

The term “South India”, though it conveys a sense of geographical
unity, also encompasses a multitude of differences. While the three
states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh – share, to some
extent, an ancient heritage, they speak different languages, and each
has its distinct artistic, cultural and political tradition.
A popular view holds that while the ruled by two regional parties.
history of North India is one of wars Though arch-rivals, they share
and invasions, the south remained a common platform, based
cocooned in peaceful stagnation. In on a strong advocacy of Tamil
actual fact, the three states witnessed language and culture. Tamil is
bloody conflicts between Jainism the oldest-surviving Dravidian
and Buddhism on the one hand, and language, with a literature
Brahmin ical Hinduism on the other. that goes back to AD 300. This
They saw the rise and fall of powerful period, known as the Sangam
kingdoms, who fought many wars era, derives its name from the
to establish their dominance. In Tamil Sangams, gatherings
the beginning of the colonial Wooden effigy, of poets and writers, which
period, South India was also a Thiruvananthapuram produced countless poems
battleground between the Europeans that were remarkably secular in nature,
and the regional kingdoms. All these and of which over 2,000 have survived.
upheavals have left their mark on Another enduring expression of Tamil
the region. culture is visible in Tamil Nadu’s Hindu
Tamil Nadu, the heartland of Dravidian temples – it has no fewer than 30,000
India has, for over three decades, been of them.

A 16th-century Catholic church, overlooking a little fishing village at Kanniyakumari

554-555_EW_India.indd 554 26/04/17 11:48 am
Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Portrait template “UK” LAYER
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Date 5th December 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm