Urbanisation in South India: The Role of Ideology and Polity

Introduction to Urban History in India

Urban history in India has received comparatively recent interest among historians.
Historical research in India has focused more on agrarian systems, peasant history, and socio-economic change rather than urbanization itself.
Studies on trade patterns, merchant organizations, and the State's role in promoting such activities only marginally consider urban centers.
Existing works on urban centers in the early historical and early medieval periods lack clear orientation and a meaningful framework.
There's a prevailing notion that "a town is a town, wherever it is," leading to studies that merely compile lists of towns by categories (market, trade, political, religious centers).
This approach tends to overlook the causal factors behind the emergence of towns, focusing on the 'form' rather than the 'substance' of urban characteristics.

Processes of Urban Growth

More recent attempts to understand urbanization in early medieval India have understandably focused on the processes of urban growth.
These studies emphasize the need for overall perspectives and analytical frameworks, but acknowledge the challenges due to inadequate empirical research.
A central issue in urban history is whether the visual presence of towns justifies treating a physical object (town) as a social object for analysis.
This involves deciding whether to view the city as a decisive agency in social change or to pursue urban history as part of broader socio-economic changes that generate urban forms.
The proper focus should be on complex societies where cities and their hinterlands are interwoven into tight political and economic webs.
Studying urban evolution carries the risk of overemphasizing a single factor as universally primary or overstressing one aspect as innovative at the expense of others.

Major Periods of Urbanization in India

Despite the challenges in establishing a general framework, research indicates three major periods of urbanization in India:
- The Indus Valley civilization during the proto-historic period.
- The early historical phase from the 6th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., centered in the Gangetic valley and spreading across North India, Central India, Deccan, and Andhra region.
- A third phase in the early medieval period.
The Indus Valley urbanization left no legacy beyond the middle of the second millennium B.C.
The latter part of the early historical phase, particularly from the 2nd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D., witnessed the most visible manifestations of urbanism.

Time Markers and Frameworks

The end of the second urban phase marks the early historical period and serves as a starting point for the theory of "Indian feudalism" or a "land-grant economy."
A new set of urban centers is associated with this period, ending with the decline of feudalism around the 13th century A.D., coinciding with the beginnings of Turkish rule in North India.
These time brackets provide a useful working framework for distinguishing urban phases and working out overall patterns.
Precise chronological limits can break down or become irrelevant when regional evidence is considered, necessitating thorough regional investigations to isolate common elements in urban growth.

Regional Perspective for South India

Given the elusive nature of urban theory and the limited scope of concepts applicable to diverse social contexts, this work aims to provide a regional perspective for South India.
This regional focus highlights the need for fundamental work in this area.

Earliest Urbanization in South India

In South India, the second (or earliest) urbanization phase is represented by its end phases, with evidence appearing at varying chronological points across the Deccan, Andhra region, and Tamil country.
By the beginning of the Christian era, this urbanization had become an all-India phenomenon, originating in the 6th century B.C. in the Ganges valley.
Trade expanded from the early janapadas, reaching significant proportions by the 3rd century B.C. with networks across North and Central India, the Deccan, and arterial links to Central and West Asia.
Overland trade links from the 3rd century B.C. and the expansion of the Mauryan State facilitated the spread of this network into the Deccan and Andhra region.
Maritime trade significantly boosted trade activities in the Deccan and Andhra regions from the 2nd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.

Urban Experience in Tamil Country

In the Tamil country, including modern Kerala, the effects of this urbanization were indirectly felt.
The region exhibited a striking absence of trade networks, organizational coherence like guilds, and a different nature of Tamil polity.
There was also the absence of a dominant religious ideology.
Understanding these differences requires examining the socio-economic environments of the tinai eco-system, within which the emergence of towns and pace of urbanization must be viewed.

Emergence of Ruling Families

The earliest ruling families or "crowned kings" (Vendar), as described in early Sangam Tamil literature, emerged in the marudam tinai, representing fertile agricultural tracts of the major river valleys.
The earliest towns also arose in these tracts and in the neidal or coastal littoral, consciously developed by the ruling families.
The Ceras (Periyar valley), Colas (Kaveri valley), and Pandyas (Vaigai and Tamraparni valleys) dominated these two tinai.
The marudam featured inland towns of political and commercial importance, while the neidal featured coastal towns of commercial importance, such as Uraiyur and Kaverippumpattinam (Puhar) of the Colas, Madurai and Korkai of the Pandyas, and Vanji (Karuvur) and Musiri of the Ceras.
These towns represented the development of dual centers of power.

Early Chiefdoms and Potential Monarchies

Located in the rice-producing marudam tracts, early chiefdoms or potential monarchies with janapada-like polities evolved from earlier tribal organizations.
The agricultural potential of the major river valleys attracted settlers from early times, with numerous settlements emerging by the beginning of the Christian era, especially in the Kaveri delta.
It's unclear if the ruling families aided this process, though a late tradition credits an irrigation work on the Kaveri to one of the Colas.

Influence of Trade

The impact of trade, particularly maritime trade, may have intensified inter-tinai exchange, incentivizing the extraction of surplus from agricultural tracts and its channelization towards trade.
However, the 'crowned kings' did not appear to establish direct and organized control over the agricultural tracts, lacking a regular tax structure.
The institutional forces that defined and appropriated 'excess' resources and determined their utilization are unknown to have existed under the Colas, Ceras, and Pandyas.
The hegemony of the Vendar was loosely held.
Performance of Vedic sacrifices and patronage to brahmanas were not intrinsic to the legitimation process, though evidence exists in Sangam anthologies.
Wealth from sacrifices would have been distributed rather than accumulated as a resource.
Inter-tribal warfare and war loot served to supplement resources, primarily redistributed as patronage to poets and bards and channeled into trade.

Resource-Rich Kurinji Tinai

The kurinji tinai (hilly area) was rich in resources like aromatic wood, exported outside the Tamil region, fostering a symbiotic relationship with the marudam and neidal tracts.
In return for paddy and salt, the marudam and neidal acquired resources from the hilly tracts.
Inter-tribal warfare was another means by which the ruling families of marudam obtained such resources.
Wars among the Vendar themselves are significant as they represent attempts to control each other's resources.
The Cola's interest in the pearl fisheries of the Pandya coast and the pepper areas of the Ceranadu show their intent to establish an exchange system.

Mullai Tinai

The mullai tinai, on the fringes of settled agricultural tracts, was a transitory ecological zone that gradually merged with the latter through agricultural expansion and irrigation.
Some mullai tracts, like the Kongu region (Coimbatore and Salem districts), were important routes and areas of contention among the Vendar.

Inter-Tinai Relations

While inter-tinai exchange introduced a symbiotic relationship, the contrasts in productivity led to competition and hostility.
Predatory raids were common, and references to razing fields and despoiling water tanks indicate that kurinji and mullai chiefs resisted the increasing influence of the Vendar when basic resources were scarce.

Settlements as Foci of Inter-Tinai Contacts

The process of establishing inter-tinai exchange led to the emergence of settlements as foci of inter-tinai contacts.
These settlements, though not classifiable as urban centers by modern standards, were perceived as distinct from their hinterlands in size and antiquity.
Such settlements can be recognized by terms like mudur (old settlement) and perur (large settlement), usually found at the junction of inter-tinai exchange bordering on marudam land or as centers of kurinji and mullai chiefs.

Coastal Pattinams

The more commercially active and organized towns were the pattinams located on the coast.
The limited number of urban settlements in the interior and their presence only in the marudam and neidal tracts reflect this pattern.
Even these were primarily trade enclaves, particularly the pattinam on the coast like Puhar (Kaverippumpattinam).
Puhar was an emporium and entrepot, comparable to a gateway city to its hinterland, the Colanadu.
However, evidence of an extensive network connecting this port through subsidiary towns or nodal points does not exist.
The situation was similar for ports like Nirpeyarru (for Kacci or later Kancipuram), Arikamedu (Virai, a Velir port), Korkai (of the Pandyan coast), and Musiri (of the Cera coast).

Local Exchange Systems

Local exchange was hardly linked to the wholesale or bulk activities of these enclaves, being primarily subsistence-oriented.
The transport of goods from and into the ports was managed by individual traders and merchant families, with minimal guild activity in the Tamil region.
The focus was on luxury and exotic imports, some functioning as prestige goods or primitive valuables.
The significance of this trade as a resource potential to the rulers, who were little more than tribal chiefs, is unclear.
However, their interest is evident in the levying of duties on goods (ulgu porul) and in using imported luxuries as an alternative to directly taxing the people of the agricultural tracts.
Social distance and a symbolic contrast between the ruler and the ruled may have been a major advantage.

Inland Towns as Consumption Points

Inland towns can be described as consumption points, though limited evidence indicates that Uraiyur, Kacci, and Madurai were textile manufacturing centers.
Archaeological finds have not been particularly illuminating, except for Puhar, where harbor facilities are attested, but manufacturing activities are not indicated.
The 'monumental' architecture unearthed in Puhar is chronologically later than the period of intensive commerce.
The Coimbatore region, specifically Kodumanal on the banks of the Noyyal river, shows potential archaeological significance with concentrated commercial and artisanal activity.
The provenance and distribution of punch-marked and Roman coins in the Coimbatore region further support its importance.
The details of archaeological evidence regarding other centers, inland and coastal, the artefactual remains of Roman objects, and the Roman factory site at Arikamedu have been previously highlighted in studies on the Sangam period and early Indian trade contacts with the Roman west.

Impact of Maritime Trade on Tamil Society

The major concern in discussing the impact of maritime trade on Tamil society is assessing the nature of urban development and societal transformation through trade influence.
Tamil society, particularly in the Cola region (Kaveri valley), had evolved into a farming society from former tribal origins, with survivals of tribal organization still appearing in early anthologies.
Similar to other traditional peasant societies, it retained a high degree of subsistence production, not directed to the market place, which was located only in a few urban centers.
The market principle did not govern its exchange, and the hinterland people were not dependent on long-distance commerce for daily requirements, as it primarily involved trade in luxury goods.
Luxury goods circulated through networks of kinship, patronage, and clientele, through redistribution and presentation.
The market centers on the coast were the foci of long-distance trade, the urban clientele being the rulers and elite (Canror and Uyarndor) who gained social prestige and associated political privileges.
Ruling families like the Colas consciously encouraged external trade connections, developed ports, and appointed agents to supervise and control the flow of goods.

Kurinji and Mullai Tracts

The kurinji and mullai tracts were not directly involved in this commerce but were brought into the commercial circuit through the marudam rulers.
These were largely tracts of relative isolation, characterized by simpler forms of socio-political organization.
Processes leading to socio-economic diversification were limited in these tracts, which could sustain only segmentary tribes in small, dispersed settlements.
As primitive valuables or prestige goods, the luxury and exotic items could have induced the chieftains of these tracts to encourage the flow of goods, enhancing their socio-political status.

Social Stratification

Ethnographic data suggests that trade alone rarely brings about the evolution of social stratification from a non-stratified society due to built-in mechanisms that prevent destabilization.
In the marudam tinai, agricultural settlements saw diversity through the evolution of crafts related to agricultural activities, with smiths, carpenters, jewelers, goldsmiths, weavers, and metal workers frequently mentioned in literature.
Evidence of a broad dual division is provided by references to the Canror or Uyarndor and the Ilicinar.
The chiefs/kings and the landed local elite (Velir, Kilavan or Kilan, talaivan, entai), collectively referred to as Uyarndor and Canror (the superior ones), occupied the position of dominance.
The lower category, Ilicinar, engaged in various 'inferior' activities or subsistence production.
Medieval commentaries on Sangam works refer to superior Velalas (land owning group) and inferior Velalas (cultivators) alongside the Velir chiefs as the dominant land-owning groups controlling large areas of agricultural land, suggesting that stratification based on land distribution and control existed even in this early period.
The Sangam works describe the Velir as lesser chiefs, pastoral-cum-agricultural, but next in importance to the Vendar as a dominant socio-political group and patrons of the Tamil poets.

Differentiation in Marudam and Neidal Regions

Differentiation became more marked in the marudam and neidal regions, where the capital and ports were located, and where an increase in trade ventures introduced diversification, including individual traders, vanigaccattu (groups of merchants), king's officers, customs agents, and warehouse guards, leading to a more complex society.
The relatively undifferentiated 'tribal' society was disintegrating, and differentiation had set in.

Economic Activities in Neidal Tracts

Apart from trade, the primary economic activities in the neidal tracts were fishing and the manufacturing and selling of salt, involving the Valainar and paradavar.
The paradavar gradually diversified into pearl fishing and trading, and their increasing participation in coastal trade dealing in expensive items like pearls, gems, and horses is indicated in descriptions of their commerce and lifestyle.
Salt manufacture and trade also became specialized activities with a group called Umanar.
Overall craft specialization was at a rudimentary level, with few exceptions.

Guilds and Commercial Organizations

There is no evidence of craft or artisan guilds.
Merchant guilds are also not known to have been a regular part of the commercial organization, although there is a single epigraphic reference to a nigama from Tiruvellarai and literary reference to a merchant of Kaverippumpattinam as a Masattuvan (Sarthavaha).
The producer was often also the dealer in the commodities manufactured, and manufacturing activities were generally at a low level.

Money as an Exchange Medium

Money as an exchange medium was evidently used only in larger transactions, long-distance trade, and possibly only by itinerant merchants.
Numismatics for this period in the Tamil region is one of the most problematic of sources, despite the availability of numerous hoards of punch-marked and Roman coins and stray pieces from stratified archaeological levels.
With the exception of a single hoard of punch-marked coins attributed to the Pandyas and another to a lesser chief in the North Arcot region, no regular 'dynastic issues' are known.
In short, available evidence is hardly indicative of a regular system of monetary exchange.

Social Organization

The varna-based organization of society is not clearly attested, despite frequent references to the priestly brahmanas as a distinct social group with high status.
The Tolkappiyam's reference to the four-fold division of society occurs in the Porul adikarams, suggesting a later date for the use of this framework among the Tamils.
The idea of ritual pollution was prevalent, and groups associated with impure activities lived separately.
This may have been a survival of the tribal system, even in the marudam region where the varna differentiation first emerged.

Spread of Buddhism and Jainism

The spread of Buddhism and Jainism, coinciding with increased trade and commercial activity, introduced further diversification, especially in urban centers.
Jainism was more often represented in inland towns, while Buddhism was more prevalent in coastal towns, particularly Puhar.
Their patrons mainly came from the commercial community, i.e., merchants and craftsmen, and some ruling families.
The heterogeneity of the urban population included Yavanas (people of West Asian and Mediterranean origin), demonstrating that people of various ethnic origins and religions aggregated in towns, with brahmanical and folk cults also well represented, but no single dominant religion.

Archaeological Evidence of Social Complexity

Archaeological evidence for establishing social complexity is limited.
Some indication is seen in megalithic burials coeval with the period of the Sangam classics.
Burials with war weapons and agricultural implements may be associated with high-status warrior and chieftainly groups.
The Manimekalai mentions five kinds of burial practices that suggest differentiation in the rank and status of the groups involved, which require further study.

Impact of Trade on Eco-Zones

The ultimate manifestation of trade impact is primarily seen in the marudam and neidal eco-zones, with greater occupational diversity and a more complex division of labor.
The pace of social differentiation and urban development was slower and did not reach the level of a system with tight institutional networks, unlike the Deccan and Andhra region.

Urban Growth in Pandya and Cera Countries

Within the Tamil country, urban growth in the Pandya and Cera countries differed significantly from that of the Cola-dominated regions.
A thesis on the effect of coastal sea traffic on the Pandya coastal region and northern Sri Lanka suggests that the Pandyas pioneered coastal and overseas trade and introduced the Brahmi script to the Tamil country, with the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions found in the Pandya region.
The Pandyas may have been associated with the earliest dynastic coinage and their patronage of the Tamil literary academy called the Sangam, making Madurai the Tamil city par excellence.
In the Pandyan context, the impact of western sea trade in the "urbanization/civilization" of this part of the peninsula and the Sri Lankan coast was minimal, with the initial stimulus attributed to coastal traffic from Gujarat to Bengal in pre-Mauryan and Mauryan times, while overland traffic was of lesser importance.
The most important transpeninsular route connecting Karnataka and Kerala with Tamil Nadu passing through the Kongu region, is marked by Brahmi inscriptions later than those of the Madurai region.
The commercial importance of the Kongu region has been noted, and the route through it was popular among itinerant merchants down to the medieval times.

Ecological and Cultural Factors

The differences in urban experiences between the Deccan and the Tamil country are traceable to ecological and cultural factors and political organization.
The river system of the Deccan plateau limited the growth of agriculture, leading to smaller agricultural areas, but was suitable for communication and transport networks, with Western Ghats passes linking the coast to the interior and drier zones aiding travel.
The expansion of these routes to include the Andhra region in a commercial network occurred when the Satavahanas acquired a larger agricultural base in the Krishna Valley.

Satavahanas

The Satavahanas adopted brahmanical ideology for legitimating their rule, probably originating from priestly affiliations, adopting the Varnasnama ideal.
They conceded the dominance of Buddhist ideology over merchants and others involved in trade, both overland and overseas.
The symbiotic relationship between the political structure, commercial groups, and the Buddhist order has been recognized in the Deccan.
The power structure evolved reflecting Mauryan ideological influences or the continuation of Mauryan institutions in what may be seen as 'secondary state formation', with a regular tax structure and a monetary system controlled by the ruling dynasty.
Royal patronage of expanding trade and a dominant Buddhist ideology, which helped evolve institutions such as the monastery and guild to support it, mark the contrastive processes in urban growth in the Deccan and Tamil country.
The only common element was overseas trade.

Urban Growth in the Tamil Region

The importance of the tinai in determining socio-economic development in the Tamil country is paramount.
Key characteristics include tribute rather than tax, warfare for loot, unstable hegemony, absence of regular dynastic coinage, use of money in long-distance trade by itinerant traders, local exchange remaining outside inter-regional commerce, and the absence of institutional forces like the Buddhist monastery and traders' guild.
Additionally, there was a lack of clear varna-based social stratification, and the emergence of urban enclaves left kinship and communal organization relatively untouched over vast agricultural plains.

Vendar Chiefdoms

Under the Vendar, the chiefdoms, which appeared to mark a transitional stage in the evolution of the state, never progressed to the state level.
Their decline may be attributed to the sudden arrest of urban growth due to the withdrawal of western trade and the lack of coercive power and institutional control over the agricultural plains.
These ruling families were overtaken by a crisis caused by a decline in trade and the ambitions of chiefs from other eco-zones who descended into the plains and occupied rice-yielding tracts, over which the Vendar had tenuous control.
If urbanization resulting from long-distance trade could induce state formation, this did not occur in the Tamil region to the same degree as in other parts of India during the early historical phase.
Long-distance trade may be seen both as a cause and an effect of state formation, depending on factors other than trade itself.
Territorial expansion and political unification were less indirect consequences of urban genesis than functionally inter-related processes "at the very core of the transformation."

Tamil Society

The cultural ethos of Tamil society, given to ideals of love and war (aham and puram), kinship-oriented value systems, and predominant folk components in worship and religion, indicate that social norms had not yet shed their tribal moorings.
What was needed was a formalized religious system and its universalization through acculturation, combining folk elements with the Puranic-Sanskritic tradition.

Sangam Period

The Sangam period has often been stretched from 300 B.C. to A.D. 300 and even beyond, making the use of Sangam works as a single corpus hazardous due to differing internal chronologies.
It is more valid to treat them as representing different layers of poetry and at least two levels of social organization: a tribal stage in the mullai and kurinji regions and an incipient stage of urbanism in the marudam and neidal.
This change was arrested by the decline of trade and a lack of institutional coherence and resource base.

Early Historical Phase of Urbanism

The early historical phase of urbanism resulted from external trade, an 'urban revolution' in a restricted locus, leading to trade enclaves.
The discontinuity caused by the decline of trade around the 3rd century A.D. is represented as a period of crisis in Tamil society of the post-Sangam era in later literary and epigraphic records.
This period may be described as one of flux and instability due to the decline of the three traditional Vendar and competition among new aspirants to social and political authority, lesser chiefs, and among brahmanical, Buddhist, and Jain religions for patronage.

Early Medieval Urbanization

The early medieval urbanization can be located within a broad time span from the 7th to 13th centuries.
Understanding it requires studying the major shift in agrarian organization and the significant agrarian expansion that characterized the centuries of Pallava-Pandya rule and continued into the Cola period.

Genesis of a New Socio-Economic Formation

The first intelligible records pointing to the genesis of a new socio-economic formation are from the 7th-9th centuries.
Signs of change were visible earlier in the marudam region with its tendency to extend agricultural activities.
The earliest attempt to introduce large-scale agriculture in non-marudam areas is evidenced by the Pulankuricci record of early brahmadeyas (datable in the 5th century A.D.).
New integrative forces like the brahmadeya and the temple, under the aegis of the Pallava-Pandya ruling families, led to the extension of agricultural activities and a more intensive organization of production geared to support large populations.
Clusters of such settlements emerged as the foci of urban growth by the end of the 9th century A.D., with the Kaveri delta and Tamraparani-Ghatana valley showing examples of such clusters.

Pallava-Pandya Period

The Pallava-Pandya period represents a stage of incipient urbanism, when royal centers or seats of the ruling families show growth around temples, such as Kancipuram and Madurai.
These cities had long historical pasts as centers of the Tiraiyar and Pandyas of the Sangam classics.
It is important to perceive the changing character of these cities in the early medieval period as a result of the new institutional forces of integration, which brought them into a closer relationship with their hinterlands and ports.
In the process, brahmadeyas emerged in the hinterland with temples as their nuclei, appended to which were pre-existing agricultural and pastoral settlements with subsistence production.

Institutional Forces

The brahmadeya and the temple were evolved as institutional forces by the brahmana-ksatriya allies in power and hence were products of brahmanical ideology expressed through Vedic and Puranic religion and initially sponsored by the ruling families.
That they developed into institutions of substantial political and social power with economic privileges has been demonstrated.
However, the nature of economic advantage to the kings who sought to establish their sovereignty through them is due to the problems of interpretation of the sources.
One way to approach this problem is to view resource mobilization as logically inseparable from the process of redistribution of resources to integrative elements within the state structure, as the failure to understand this has led to the theory of the "politics of plunder".

Irrigation and Agriculture

Two important spheres in which the brahmadeya and temple may be seen as harbingers of advance farming methods were the technology of irrigation and the seasonal regulation of the cultivation process.
For the introduction of both these steps for improving cultivation, there seems to be reliable evidence from the Pallava-Pandya records.
With each brahmadeya and temple settlement, an irrigation system was invariably established either in the form of tanks, canals, or wells.
Many were initiated by the rulers but managed by the local bodies.
Elaborate arrangements for their upkeep were made by the Sabhas or assemblies of the brahmadeyas, including maintenance, repair, attention to silting, and control of water supply through cesses and committees.
Effective management was indeed the key to the difference in the farming societies of the earlier and later periods.

Brahmanas

The brahmanas were organizers and managers of production in the brahmadeyas, and the Velalas were land-owning peasants in the non-brahmadeya settlements, where the brahmanical temple was the focus of activities.
The brahmanas would have introduced an element of predictability in yields through specialized knowledge of astronomy, knowledge of seasonal sowing and cropping patterns, and effective management of water resources.
In the records of this period, demarcation of boundaries, establishment of ownership rights, nature and category of land, and the number of crops to be raised become important details.

Resource Management

Brahmadeyas in most cases may have meant giving away rights to the donees, but instances show that they were not completely exempt from revenue payments to the king.
The real advantages lay in integrating older settlements and non-brahmadeya villages into the new agrarian system and bringing virgin lands under cultivation, which applied to waste land and forest.
There are also examples of pre-existing settlements being clubbed together into a new brahmadeya or integrated into it.
Tax exemptions given to the brahmadeyas do not obviously apply to such villages thus brought into the system, unless otherwise specified.
Regular dues reached the royal bhandar (treasury) as is also clear from the structured circulation of resources through the nadu or kurram and the brahmadeya or temple to the king.
The bhakti ideal disseminated through the temple facilitated the circulation of resources.
The coordination of production and distribution processes were in the hands of the Sabha and ur, which has been regarded as a result of a brahmana and dominant peasantry alliance.
The land grant system has also been interpreted as feudal, providing evidence of emerging intermediaries between king and cultivator and suggesting exploitative relations between a land-controlling class and a laboring class of peasants.
The Cola situation does not fit the models of brahmana-peasants alliance because the Tamil city depended of royal trade.

Kottam and Nadu

The evolution of agrarian units like the kottam and the nadu were reflected in the religious architecture emerging in the 7th-9th centuries in the form of rock-cut caves, monolithic temples, and structural edifices.
Land relations were organized around the brahmadeya and temple with three categories of landowners: the brahmana, the velala, and the temple, emerging as the local elite.
Societal organization was based on the varna framework, but expressed through two broad categories: the brahmana and the non-brahmana.
Occupational groups were placed in a ritual hierarchy around the temple, with the concept of purity-pollution operating at all levels, keeping the untouchables out of the temple precincts.

Social Hierarchy

The tribal groups such as the paraiya became the untouchables in South India.
This may be due to an absence of a Vaisya as a group, because the brahmanical agrahara was more successful there than trade.
In the 8th-9th centuries, trading communities emerged as a distinct class by the 8th-9th centuries; this was modified with a more regional version because it became increasingly important.
The participation of indigenous ruling families was intended to determine political socio economic dominance using religious networks.

Occupation Diversification

Occupation diversification through the expanding agrarian system necessitated an ideology to accommodate the newly emerging occupational groups.
This diversification, and social differentiation accompanied the growth of brahmadeya and temple centers along with the third dimension as institution.
Social differentiation appears to be the crux of the problem of urbanization.

Urbanization Preconditions

Agricultural growth and surplus became a necessary precondition to urban growth.
The degree of importance of commerce and overseas trade were important in the development of commodity production.

Emergence of Royal Centers

Urban forms generated by the end of the Pallava-Pandya period manifested in two categories of centers: royal centers and market or commercial centers.
Our immediate concern here is with the market or commercial centers, i.e., nagaram, and as the royal centers were also commercial centers, they were inevitably a part of the expansion of the trade network in the subsequent centuries.
The commerce of this period was organized around these two cities.
The distribution of the nagaram shows there was no direct link between such market centers and their kottam or nadu: the exchange nexus was more oriented toward royal centers than the kottam

Nagaarams

Regular marketing facilities were a pressing need from the early Cola period onward and led to increased interregnal exchange.
The nagarattar were the original merchant communities, becoming agriculture traders using the Tamil language.

Cola Commercial Activities

Their status was no different from that of agriculture groups since they took a secular element in society (as agricultural people).
The nagaram became an official local body and also broke up the local familial ties of a city with the brahmadeyas, used an agent of state
The proliferation of the nagaram kept pace with the expansion of Cola power with marginal increase under the late Colas and then rising during the Pandya. This illustrates the importance of political power in power organizations and their activities.

Cola Specialization

There was further trading specialization through textiles from Saliva and Sankarappadi and oil from Paraa.
Arab trade in horses was especially important in the region.

South Asian Trade

This shows that the expansion of organized commerce was important south asia's and china's economies.
This pushed merchant corporations to become a major source of urbanisation.

Trading Communities

Organized merchant communities were important but hard to recognize fully, known as Ayyavole and Nanadesi (guilds or Samaya).
This organized confusion can be seen in relation ship to the Nagaram and Manigramam, with specific regional economies.

Manigramam

The Five Hundred originated in Ahiole and spread across Tamil with the local traders.
The Anjuvannam was originally from Tamil traders in Kerala but became symbiotic

The Ayyavole

The Ayyavole was started to institute commerce and expanded outside South India and the Mahajanas had a stake in the profit.
The comprehensive terns and Tamil scripts were Nano desi ya Ayala Ainnurruvar and Velanjiiyar, the valanjiyars were often militant and heterogenous.

Trade and Regional Kingdoms

With the growth of regional kingdoms trade became more important and bifurcated. Though they still worked together this was caused by the colas invading .
After the colas it was controlled by the royal family.

Towns and Agriculture

Itinerant marches created an influx of towns and rural activity.
This then changed how the land was built and run.
This created more accessibly land due to economic power.

Citirameli Periya Nadu

New trade organizations such as the Citirameli Periva Nadu increased during the era.
The Citirameli however had the right of jusuce , which the Valanjiiyattil did not. THis was the first mark of dominance in agrarian contact."
The five hundred however made connections with Jain communities.

Urbanization

The right and left hand castes in Tirumadi Vilagan made this an 11 centuries urbanization . This then made it a multi temple center
This lead to trade a wealth a economic power among certain group.

Numismatic Studies

The nature of urbanism is a problem in numismatic studies of the area and no coin can provide a valid picture of