Essay:
Temple Urbanism in Medieval South India
By James Heitzman
Published in The Journal of Asian Studies - 1987

The Tamil country of South India experienceda flowering of political, economic, and cultural forces during the Chola period (849-1279). The environments supporting this expansion were nucleated settlements focused on temples, surrounded by verdant paddy fields with artificial irrigation networks. This article is a study of the sacred sites and nucleated settlements that were the heart of this medieval civilization. The purposes of the study are two: first, to portray the dynamics of early urbanism during a crucial period of regional integration in South Asia, and especially to portray the geography early centres; second, to provide the basis for a comparative study of early South Indian urbanism and premodern urbanism in other world areas.

The examination of South Indian data concentrates on four major questions:

(1) What did early centers look like in terms of settlement areas, monumental structures, and relationships with land or water resources?

(2) What were the processes that caused small settlements to evolve into more complex social environments that exhibited the traits associated with cities? In particular, this article explores the evolution of ceremonial sites as central mediating institutions for growing complexity.

(3) Who were the actors responsible for the processes of urbanization?

(4) To what extent did urban sites perform central-place functions for their hinterlands?

The far south of India participated in the ancient urban revolution. Early cities such as Madurai, Kanchipuram, and Pumpuhar were centers of the typical ancient Indian combination of long-distance trade (especially with the Mediterranean world) and political unification under early kingdoms (Cholas and Pandyas).l As in the case of North India, this early flowering faded after about A.D. 400 followed by a period of several hundred years that have yielded few data and seem to have been a time of migrations and disunity. A new type of urban development began under the Pallava dynasty (sixth-ninth centuries), centered especially in the capital city of Kanchipuram. Donative inscriptions at major temples in the capital indicate that religious institutions, especially temples, lay spatially and conceptually at the heart of growing political and commercial networks. The developments originating in the Pallava period came to fruition during the subsequent reigns of the Chola kings, when many areasof medieval Tamil Nadu experiencedthe growth of small urban sites around temples.
The Chola kings, based in the fertile Kaveri River delta, united all of Tamil Nadu under their rule and expanded their political influence over peninsular India, Sri Lanka, and even Southeast Asia.

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Image:
Photograph of the east gopura of the Ghritapuresvaraswami Temple, Tillaisthanam, Thanjavur District, taken by Alexander Rea in around 1892. Tillaisthanam is located in the modern state of Tamil Nadu. The Ghritapuresvaraswami temple is two-storeyed and has a number of features typical of the Muttaraiyar period. This dynasty of rulers flourished just before the advent of the Cholas and built a number of temples in southern India. It has been suggested that the temple could date to the early years of the Chola period or to the Pandya occupation (A.D. 864-878). This is because the temple does not fit easily into a single architectural style, but incorporates features of many different styles. The temple faces east and enshrines a lingam. The tall pyramidal gopura consists of diminishing storeys and ends with a vaulted roof.

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