Sangam Age: Social Development
Social life in the Sangam Age reveals a society in transition — one where traditional tribal arrangements coexisted with an emerging caste order, where the status of women remained markedly unequal despite instances of learning and religious participation, and where a rich, multi-layered religious landscape combined indigenous deities, exotic Hindu gods, and non-Hindu faiths without serious conflict. Alongside a strong emphasis on education and the fine arts, these currents together defined the distinctive social fabric of early Tamilakam. For UPSC History Optional aspirants, understanding caste, gender, education, and religious life in the Sangam Age is essential to a complete picture of early South Indian society.
Caste and Social Structure
- Sangam literature speaks of many tribes, and also refers to traditional castes — indicating that caste divisions and tribal arrangements existed side by side during this period.
- Tolkappiyar recognises four castes: Andanar, Arasar, Vaisiyar, and Velalar.
- Sangam society was not priest-dominated, although priests were slowly beginning to assume powers of advice and supervision; social life during this period appears to have been lived on a distinctly heroic scale.
The Brahmins in Sangam Society
- Though the number of Brahmins in Tamilakam was small, they played a vital role in the development of Tamil culture — they were noted for their clean surroundings, hygienic environment, and peaceable domestic life.
- The Tamil Brahmins of the Sangam Age formed a respectable and learned community, living apart in their own streets, and scrupulously performing their caste duties.
- They served the king occasionally as judicial officers, and always as purohits (priests) and astrologers; they also performed ambassadorial duties on behalf of kings, and both gave and received patronage.
The Question of Slavery
- We have no positive evidence to show that slavery, as a formal institution, existed in the Tamilakam of the Sangam Age — there are no references to the sale or purchase of human beings.
- This does not mean, however, that there were no low-status servants or labourers whose conditions of life left much to be desired.
Status and Condition of Women
- The status of women in Sangam society was not equal to that of men, either in theory or in practice. Sangam society, however, encompassed many kinds of women.
- There were married women who had settled into life as dutiful housewives, looking after their husbands and children and managing their households — it was these women who either committed Sati, or led a very hard life as widows.
- There were female ascetics of the Buddhist or Jaina orders, such as Kaundi Adigal and Manimekalai, and there were also a large number of courtesans, who served, among other roles, as bodyguards.
- Women were not recruited as soldiers, ministers, ambassadors, or other advisers to the king, and did not own property.
Marriage and the Custom of Sati
- There was also the custom of Sati in Sangam society, whereby the wife perished on her husband’s funeral pyre.
- It appears that the number of women who actually committed Sati was small; since not every woman did so following her husband’s death, she instead had to lead a very hard life as a widow — a life of penance, and, in effect, a degraded existence.
Types of Marriage
- There were different kinds of marriage in Sangam society.
- Some marriages were idealistic, involving no rituals at all, performed simply by the mutual consent of the man and woman, without the knowledge of parents or relatives.
- Another type of marriage involved the performance of numerous rituals.
- A third type of marriage existed, in which the rituals followed by Brahmins, kings, and Vaishyas differed from those followed by the Velalar.
Beliefs and Superstitions
- The Sangam people held their own beliefs and superstitions — they believed in the significance of dreams and omens, and believed in, and feared, ghosts and spirits.
Education
- Education was not merely known and encouraged, but was a genuinely widespread social activity. The pattern of education involved not just the reading and understanding of books, but also listening to learned persons.
- Works on grammar, such as the Tolkappiyam, along with poetics and mathematics, were subjects studied by students generally; astronomy was closely allied to mathematics.
- The fine arts — music, dance, drama, painting, building architecture, and sculpture — were specialised in by hereditary artists. Much of the teaching was oral, with students writing only sparingly, committing practically everything to memory instead.
Religion in the Sangam Age
- The religion of the Sangam Tamils was not of a single, uniform pattern. The Sangam people knew and practised both the ritualistic and supplicatory aspects of religion.
- Their rituals were connected with animism and other forms of deity worship — there was tree worship, stone worship, water worship, animal worship, and the worship of stars and planets, all of which were supposed to be divinely animated.
Three Strands of Religion
- There were three strands of religion during the Sangam period: the indigenous gods, the exotic Hindu gods, and the exotic non-Hindu religious faiths and their associated practices.
- All three co-existed, and until the very end of the Sangam Age, no serious or open clash occurred among them.
Deities and Their Worship
- The cowherds worshipped Tirumal, so that he might bestow many milch cows upon them; the hunters of the hill tracts worshipped Murugan as the god of the hillock, along with other gods and goddesses of the hillside.
- Indra was worshipped by agriculturists, who depended on rain for their produce — a special festival was instituted at Puhar in Indra’s honour, personally managed by the Chola king himself.
- The fishermen and people of the coastal regions worshipped Varuna, god of the wide ocean; the worship of the sun and the moon was also known, with the crescent moon usually the object of worship.
- Murugan was the pre-eminent deity of the Tamils — the word “Murugan” itself means divinity, and he was supposed to reside generally atop hills.
- Indra, Yama, Varuna, and Soma are mentioned as the guardians of the four directions — east, south, west, and north, respectively.
- The name of Rama is not mentioned as a deity alongside other gods in Sangam literature, nor is the name of Ganesha specifically mentioned.
Shiva, Vishnu, and the Absence of Religious Antagonism
- Shiva (Sivan) was considered the god par excellence of the Tamils. Vaishnavism, apart from the worship of Tirumal, is not otherwise found in Sangam literature.
- Tirumal, however, had not been set up as an opponent of Shiva — the great Sangam poets Kapilar and Nakkirar were themselves worshippers of Shiva, yet there was no sense of religious antagonism between the traditions.
Temples
- A large number of temples are mentioned in Sangam literature — the temple was called a Nagar.
- The name “Shiva” itself is rarely mentioned in Sangam literature, though many of his attributes are referred to. The temple of Indra is mentioned in both the Silappadikaram and the Manimekalai.
Conclusion
Sangam society thus emerges as one balancing an emerging caste hierarchy against still-vital tribal structures, a genuinely unequal status for women tempered by pockets of religious and intellectual participation, and a religious landscape in which indigenous, Hindu, and non-Hindu strands coexisted without serious conflict for the length of the age. Alongside its strong culture of oral education and the fine arts, this social fabric — captured almost entirely through the Sangam corpus itself — offers UPSC History Optional aspirants a vivid picture of early Tamil society on the cusp of its more settled, caste-structured future.
