Rural expansion: In South India, during the ancient period we come across three types of villages; ur, sabha, and nagaram.Ur was the usual type of village inhabited by peasant castes, who perhaps held that in common; it was the responsibility of the village headman to collect and pay taxes on their behalf. These villages were mainly found in Southern Tamil Nadu.The sabha type of village consisted of brahamadeya villages or those granted to the Brahmanas, and of agrahara villages. The brahmana owners enjoyed individual rights in the land but carried on their activities collectively.The nagaram type of village consisted of the village settled and dominated by combinations of traders and merchants.

Western Ganga Dynasty:The Ganga dynasty came into being in about 340 A.D. and they continued to rule the southern part of Karnataka, till about 1025 A.D. The Gangas were another important contemporary of the Pallavas.They set up their rule in southern Karnataka around the fourth century. Their kingdom lay between that of the Pallavas in the east and of the Kadambas in the west. They are called Western Gangas or Gangas of Mysore in order to demarcate them from the Eastern Gangas who ruled in the Kalinga from the fifth century onwards. For most of the time, the Western Gangas were the feudatories of the Pallavas. Their earliest capital was located at Kolar, which may have helped the rise of this dynasty because of its gold mines.The Western Gangas made land grants mostly to the Jainas; the Kadambas also made grants to the Jainas, but they favored the Brahmanas more. Pallavas also granted numerous villages free of taxes largely to the Brahmanas.

States of the Deccan and South India:The Ikshvakus were supplanted by the Pallavas.The term Pallava means creeper and is a Sanskrit version of the Tamil word tondai, which also carries the same meaning. The Pallavas were possibly a local tribe who established their authority in the Tondainadu or the land of creepers. But it took them some time to be completely civilized and acceptable because in Tamil the word Pallava is also a synonym of the robber.The authority of Pallvas extended over both southern Andhra and northern Tamil Nadu. They set up their capital at Kanchipuram. The early Pallavas came into conflict with the Kadambas, who had founded their rule in northern Karnataka and Konkan in the fourth century A.D. Pallavas granted numerous villages free of taxes largely to the Brahmanas. We have as many as 16 land charters of the early Pallavas. A few, which seem to be earlier, are written on stone in Prakrit. But most of them were recorded on copper plates in Sanskrit. The Pallavas, the Kadambas, the Chalukyas of Badami, and their other contemporaries were great champions of Vedic sacrifices. They performed Ashvamedha and Vajapeya sacrifices.

The Administration of the Chola EmpireSettlements of peasants, known as ur, became prosperous with the spread of irrigation agriculture. Groups of such villages formed larger units called Nadu. The village council and the Nadu performed several administrative functions including dispensing justice and collecting taxes. Rich peasants of the Vellala caste exercised considerable control over the affairs of the Nadu under the supervision of the central Chola government. The Chola kings gave some rich landowners titles like muvendavelan (a velan or peasant serving three kings), araiyar (chief), etc. as markers of respect, and entrusted them with important offices of the state at the center.

Northern India: Age of the Three EmpirePolitical Ideas and organization:The village was the basic unit of administration. The village administration was carried on by the village headman and village accountant whose posts were generally hereditary. They were paid by grants of rent-free lands. The headman was often helped in his duties by the elder called grama- mahajana or grama-mahattara.During this period we also hear of officials of the royal household which were called antahpur.

The term Puranaruru refers to one of the anthologies of poems of the Tamil Sangam literature.Puranaruru contains 400 poems of varying lengths. It is composed of more than 150 poets.Puranaruru is an important source of information on the political and social history of pre-historic Tamil Nadu as it is mainly concerned with life outside family – kings, wars, greatness, generosity, ethics, and philosophy.It is traditionally called the last of the Eight Anthologies (Ettuthokai) in Sangam literature.The Purananuru poems use words, phrases, and metaphors that suggest the ancient Tamil society interacted with other parts of the Indian subcontinent.

Narasimha Varman I:Narasimha Varman I, surnamed Mahamalla (630-668 A.D.), was the son and successor of Mahendravarma I and considered as the greatest of the Pallava rulers. He is credited with repelling the second invasion of Pulakesin II, killing him and capturing the Chalukyan capital Vatapi and won thereby the title of Vatapikonda (conqueror of Vatapi). It was possibly in his struggle with Pulakesin II that he received aid from the Sinhalese Prince Mana-Vamma whom he afterward assisted in securing the crown of Ceylon. Hiuen Tsang visited Kanchi about the year 642 A.D. during the reign of Narasimha Varman I. He is also said to have defeated the Cholas, the Cheras, the Pandyas, and the Kalabhras.He was an ardent lover of art and consecrated cave temples at different places such as Trichinopoly and Pudukkotai. His name is, however, best known in connection with the so-called Rathas of Mahabalipuram. The original name of the place, Mahamallapura commemorates its royal founder, Mahamalla, i.e., Narasimha Varman I.

The earliest literature of South India is represented by a group of texts in old Tamil, often collectively referred to as Sangam literature. The Sangam corpus includes six of the eight anthologies of poems included in the Ettutokai (The Eight Collections), and nine of the ten pattus (songs) of the Pattuppattu (The Ten Songs). The earliest parts of the first two books of the Tolkappiyam can also be included in Sangam literature. The Tolkappiyam is essentially a work on grammar, but it also includes a discussion of phonology, semantics, syntax, and literary conventions. The style and certain historical references in the poems suggest that they were composed between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century AD.The poems are of two types—akam (love poems) and puram (heroic poems).The poets had diverse social backgrounds and their poems, modelled on the songs of the humble bards and drummers of earlier times, are a rich and evocative source for the society of Tamilakam (the Tamil land) between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century AD.

Sangam literature is the compilation of the earliest available Tamil literature. The word ̳Sangam ‘literally means association. It implies an association of Tamil poets that flourished in ancient southern India. The three chief Tamil kingdoms of this period were the Cheras, the Cholas, and the Pandyas. The Sangam period roughly extends between 300 BC and 300 AD, although most of the work is believed to have been composed between 100 CE and 250 CE.The Sangam texts are different from the Vedic texts, particularly the Rig Vedic texts. They do not constitute religious literature. The short and long poems were composed by numerous poets in praise of numerous heroes and heroines. Thus, they are secular in nature. They are not primitive songs, but they show a high quality of literature. Many poems mention a warrior or a chief or a king by name and describe his military exploits in detail. The gifts made by him to bards and warriors are celebrated. These poems may have been recited in the courts. The Sangam texts refer to many settlements including Kaveripattanam whose flourishing existence is now attested archaeologically. They also speak of the Yavanas (foreigners) coming in theri own vessels purchasing pepper with gold and supplying wine and women slaves to the natives. This trade is not known only from Latin and Greek writings but also from archaeological records. The Sangam literature is a very major source of our information for the social, economic and political life of the people living in deltaic Tamil Nadu in the early Christian centuries.

The founder of the Chola Empire was Vijayalaya, who was at first a feudatory of the Pallavas. He captured Tanjore in 850 AD. By the end of the 9th century, the Cholas had defeated both the Pallavas of Kanchi and weakened the Pandyas, bringing the Southern Tamil country (Tondamandala) under their control. But the Cholas were hard put to defend their position against Rashtrakutas. The Cholas rulers built a network of royal roads that were useful for trade as well as for the movement of the army. Trade and commerce flourished in the Chola empire, and there were some gigantic trade guilds that traded with Java and Sumatra.The Cholas also paid attention to irrigation. The river Kaveri and other rivers were used for this purpose and many tanks for irrigation were built and a tank committee that looked after the distribution of water to the fields was formed.The Cholas also had a strong navy, as we have seen, which dominated the Malabar and Coromandal coast and for some time, the entire Bay of Bengal.

The first literary works in Malayalam, dated to about the twelfth century, are directly indebted to Sanskrit.Interestingly enough, a fourteenth-century text, the Lilatilakam, dealing with grammar and poetics, was composed in Manipravalam – literally, “diamonds and corals” referring to the two languages, Sanskrit and the regional language.