South India

South India is a collective term applied to the southern part of the Indian Subcontinent. It consists of the south Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala. South India or South Indian is a linguistic-cultural entity or identity. South India is also called as DakshinaNad or ‘DravidaNad’ or ‘Deccan’ (the urdu word for south). The people who hail from these states and this geographical region are called as South Indians.

Table of contents

1 The Land
2 The people
3 South Indian worldview and culture
4 South Indian history
5 South Indian heritage

5.1 South Indian music
5.2 Literature and philosophy
5.3 Architecture and paintings

6 South Indian Diversity
7 Selected Bibliography

The Land

South India, is geographically separated from northern India by the Vindhya ranges and the Narmada river. The southern Indian peninsula is bounded by the Arabian Sea on the western coast, the Bay of Bengal on the eastern coast and the Indian ocean on the southern most shoreline. The Western shore line is lined with the western ghats, a mountainous range, which is very dense in vegetation.

The people

South Indias are united by the Dravidian languages a distinct linguistic family, which includes Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Tulu and many other dialects. Few people along the south western coast of the Indian peninsula also speak konkani, a dialect which is of indo-European language family. Originally it included even the Maharashtrians, especially from the Konkan region onwards. But now, the Maharashtrians are linguistically, aryanized Dravidians. South Indians are primarily Dravidians by racial stock.

The south Indian people have a world view which is organic and pastoral. It is matriarchal in conception. The adoration of the generative ethos of the natural world, and the celebration of femininity and motherhood, is the cornerstone of the south Indian weltanschauung.

The chief dressing of South Indian men is the mundu or Lungi, which is also an unstiched drape like the clothing of South Indian women called as the saree. The staple diet consists of rice and fish. Coconut is an important ingredient in many of the dishes of the south Indian people. The People are largely agrarian, although a number of people have also ventured into the information technology field. Education is highly valued in the south Indian community, and is seen as a gateway to a better livelihood.

South Indian worldview and culture

The South Indian world view is essentially, the celebration of the eternal universe through the celebration of the beauty of the body and motherhood. It is exemplified through its Dance, clothing, and sculptures.

South Indian Dance

The South Indian weltanschauung is celebrated in the elaborate dance forms of South India, the Bharathanatyam, and Mohiniattam which literally translates as ‘the dance of the enchantress’. The Bharathanatyam expresses the celebration of beauty and the universe, through its tenets of having a perfectly erect posture, a straight and pout curving stomach, a well rounded and proportionate body mass- to the body structure, very long hairs and a curvaceous waist. These tenets bring to life the philosophy of Natyashastra (the treatise on Dance by the sage Bharatha), ‘Angikam bhuvanam yasya’ (the body is your world). This is elaborated in the araimandi posture, wherein the performer assumes a half sitting position with the knees turned sideways, with a very erect posture. In this fundamental posture of the Bharathanathyam dance, the distance between the head and the navel becomes equal to that between the earth and the navel. In a similar way the distance between the outstretched right arm to the outstretched left arm becomes equal to the distance between the head and the feet, thus representing the Natyapurusha, the embodiment of life and creation.

Traditional clothing

The saree, being an unstiched drape, enhances the shape of the wearer, while only partially covering the midriff. In Indian philosophy, the navel of the Supreme Being is considered as the source of life and creativity. Hence by tradition, the stomach and the navel is to be left unconcealed, though the philosophy behind the costume has largely been forgotten. This makes the realization of ‘sharira-mandala,’ where in ‘Angikam bhuvanam yasya’ (the body as the world) unites with the ‘sharira-mandala’ ( the whole universe), as expressed in the Natyashastra. These principles of the sari, also hold for other forms of drapes, like the lungi or mund worn by men.

Sculptures and figurine

The traditional South Indian sculptor starts his sculpture of the divinities from the navel which is always represented unclothed by the saree. A koshta or grid of the sculpture would show the navel to be right at the centre of the sculpture, representing the source of the union of the finite body and the infinite universe.

South Indian history

South India has been at the crossroads of the ancient world, linking the Mediterranean world and the far-east. The Southern coastline from Karwar to Kodungalloor was the most important trading shore in the Indian sub-continent. This brought about a lot of intermingling of the natives with the traders. The South Indian coast of Malabar and the tamil people of the Sangam age had trade with the Graeco Roman world. They were in contact with the Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Syrians, Jews and the Chinese. There were several rulers and dynasties significant in South Indian history. These included the Chola Empire, Pandyas, Pallavas, Cheras, Chalukyan Empire and the Vijayanagaram Empire.

See History of South India, Middle kingdoms of India, History of India.

South Indian heritage

South Indian music

The music of the South Indian people is called as Carnatic music. It includes sensuous rhythmic and structured music by composers like Thyagaraja, Purandara Dasa, Vasudevachar and swathi Thirunal.

See Carnatic music

Literature and philosophy

The artistic expressions of the South Indian people shows their admiration of the magnificence of nature and its rhythms, as in the epic Silappadhikaram by Ilango Adigal, also called as the cilappatikaram. Other works include the Tholkappiam written by Tholkappiar, and Thiruvalluvar’s Thirukural. In South Indian literature and philosophy, women are considered very powerful. A married woman is regarded as auspicious, her shakti or mother-feminine power, protects and empowers her husband and their children. The female form is highly regarded.

Architecture and paintings

The inspirational temple sculptures of Hampi, Badami and Mahabalipuram, and the mural paintings of Travancore and Lepakshi temples, also stand as a testament to south Indian culture. The paintings of Raja Ravi Varma are considered classic renditions of many a scenes of South Indian life and mythology. There are several examples of Dravidian mural paintings in the mattancherry palace and the Shiva kshetram in Ettamanoor. See also South Indian architecture and also Dravidian mural painting.

South Indian Diversity

The main spiritual tradition of South Indians has been saivism or shaivite philosophy, although Jain philosophy had been influential in Southern India several centuries earlier. There is also a vibrant muslim community in South India, like in the Malabar coast, which began from the times of the trade with the Arabs. The oldest Synagogue in the former British Empire is the Cochin jewish synagogue in Kochi, in South India. Christianity has also flourished in South India right from the earliest times of its inception. The last remnants of the Nasranis, the earliest christian-jewish tradition, including the Knanaya community survives in kerala, in south India.