This culture was essentially Dravidian in nature.
The origins of the Dravidians are still a matter of dispute, but the South Indian culture known to current researchers by the first century was probably based largely on the Neolithic cultures that developed in the area. However, these cultures were influenced in prehistoric times to varying degrees by the filtering of some remnants of a Negroid culture originating in East Africa; by migrations from the eastern Mediterranean world refracted through the Elamite and Indus civilizations; by a megalithic culture that made its way into Southwest India by the eighth century BCE; and by a people sometimes called "Proto-Australoid" who came into the subcontinent by way of northeastern India from the Malay peninsula.
The religious life of the Tamil civilization of Cankam times gave evidence of no significant mythological or philosophical speculation nor of any sense of transcendence in a bifurcated universe. Rather, it was oriented by a fundamental veneration of land and a sense of the celebration of individual life. Colorful flora and fauna were extolled and ascribed a symbolic significance that bordered on the sacred; for example, peacocks, elephants, and the blossoms of various trees were used as images for the basic realities of individual and cosmos.
This is a free page. This page contains 171 words. This
article contains 6,354 words (approx. 21 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Article with our Tamil Religions Access Pass.
