Abhilash Mohanty

quora.com/Why-are-the-South-Indian-dynasties-of-Rashtrakutas-and-Chalukyas-undermined-in-Indian-history-whereas-
the-Tamilakam-dynasties-and-North-Indian-dynasties-were-given-importance/answer/Abhilash-Mohanty-34

Tamils and Nortn Indian Hindus don't get much coverage either but OP is right in his
contention that they're far better known in pop history, such as it is, than other Southern
kingdoms.

Why is that then?

Well, the reasons are three-fold, and like with most of Indian historiography- or lack thereof-
have to do with the usual suspects.

Tamil Nadu had the (mis?)fortune to be conquer by the Angrej far earlier than most places
in the Continent. Unlike their Peaceful counterparts, the Angrej had relatively less interest in
vandalism and book-burning (relatively, as much as they try to hide the facts in recent days,
the fact is that the Angrej were no slouches when it came to desecrating Temples and
burning libraries). Nonetheless they did their bit - a far larger bit than any Endian Gormint
has since- in studying Hindu history. Madras lucked out; Hyderabad and Pune didn't.

Soon after came a period of region-wide insanity wherein a bunch of Tamils, having
concluded that the Vedas were evil, and a certain Jewish carpenter was THE Tamil God,
decided to go around burning books, beating up Brahmins, fucking teens, and opposing
“Aryans”. Nevertheless the chief vandals of the time - desperate to build their own local
historical narrative- invested heavily in studying the more “flexible” parts of Tamil history.
They couldn't actually appropriate most of it- since then they'd have found just how Hindu
Tamil states were (like all Bharata states) but their violence and vandalism did isolate Tamil
Nadu from the third great mitigating factor…

The Liberals. The Liberal narrative of Bharatas being tree-dwelling, long-tailed, raw cow
meat-eating, tongueless savages- before the Peacefuls civilized us, of course- would not
have passed muster in the brave new past brave new Tamil Nadu was building (except for
the parts on cow murder). Further the two groups shared similar goals- the annihilation of
Hindu society and history, among them- and so there came a tacit idea that while the
Eminent Historians north of the Vindhyas would maintain an appropriate silence on the
South, their counterparts on the Kaveri would restrict themselves to periodic bile-sweeping
on the North in their local tongue.

The rest of the South thus, kind of, fell by the side.

It's no wonder that most substantial pop/academic history texts on the Rashtrakuta or the
Satavahana or the Kakatiya or the Kadamba have come from the 30s-50s which was
probably the only time in history a Hindu School of History existed, led by greats such as
RCM, KMM, SRG, RBD etc.

Of course, even then Tamil historiography was primarily occupied by those trying to find
links between Assyria and Lemuria and Galilee and Mars, for all I know- so even then the
study of the “non-Tamil South” remained a “Fascist Hindu Nazi” endeavor, which the
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Liberals quickly put an end to as they grew in strength. As it is, Tamil history will be
forgotten the day “Fascist Hindu Nazi” history is forgotten.

After all, who even cares what pre-Christian Poland or pre-Islamic Yemen were like?

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