FlyDie on South India

FlyDie left some excellent comments on the “Tamil” CMs post. I’m reposting them to increase the sabzi and reduce the masala.

The Nayak inheritance. Why does so much of Tamil Nadu’s elite traces to Telugu country? Vijayanagara’s military system let new men rise, and it minted the Nayaks. After Talikota they carved out autonomous states in Tamil lands as “Vadaka-rajahs” and assimilated over generations. The Thanjavur Marathas kept the pattern going. Ethnicity as the three L’s: Land, Lineage, Language.

Against “colonization.” Pre-colonial empires ran on a shared elite culture. Incoming rulers assimilated and left local custom alone. Krishnadevaraya is remembered above all for a Telugu work on the Tamil saint Andal. Telugu in Carnatic music is no stranger than Braj in Hindustani.

The reading list. Heirs of the Vijayanagara, the Nayaka chapter in The Architecture of Sovereignty, Joseph Martin on Telugu Catholic migration in Madras Presidency, and Cynthia Talbot’s Precolonial India in Practice.

India and China. India accepts foreign rulers without demanding assimilation, but never remakes itself for them. China resists outsiders, then lets them rule for centuries once established. The Yuan are a footnote. The Mughals define India’s monuments.

Kerala, the clingy. Onam began in Madurai. Vijayanagara’s caste consolidation passed Kerala by, and Bhakti arrived late. Nestorius was once a revered saint among its Christians, and the Mappilas follow the Shafi school. An ancient land holds on to what everyone else abandoned, communism included.