After my return to India from the U.S, since the year 2016, we have been visiting very frequently to Kanchipuram, also known as Kanchi, is an ancient city in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state. Considered a holy pilgrimage site by Hindus, it is home to many temples. The distance from Bangalore to Kanchipuram is close to 285 kilometers or around 5 hours clean drive. This city which is filled with magnificent, stately, eclectic, splendid, eloquent and gingerly painted temples has been revered by the human kind for centuries. I have been attracted to it’s scintillating arts and culture, this motivates my inner spirit again and again. I sought out solace in the presence of goddess Kamakshi Amman! Anthromorphism in nature!! Today, while skimming through some of notes and photos, Kanchi with full of appellations awestruck my attention to keep it’s history fresh into my thoughts again! Here are some of my collective notes about Kanchipuram History!
THE City of Kanchi holds a unique and honoured place in the cultural history of South India considered as a holy place by the Hindus and the Buddhists alike. It is also one of the oldest cities of our country. Even though Kanchi played a conspicuous part as a key City of South India throughout its long and chequered history, it was in the seventh century, when it was the capital of the Pallavas, that its glory attained the fullest bloom. It not only outshone other cities in importance but virtually presided over the destinies of South India.
Kanchi was singularly fortunate in the seventh century in having been ruled by a glittering array of eminent kings like Mahendravarman I, Narasimha Varman or Mamalla, Parameswaran and Raja-simhan who were at once the most powerful and the most cultured of kings. Inevitably, under their spell, Kanchi witnessed a spectacular outburst of cultural and artistic activity. Rarely equalled by any other period in history. Personally accomplished as these kings were, they brought to bear on their many-faceted activity the wealth of their learning and creative thinking with the result that Kanchi became a veritable treasure-trove of cultural greatness. Architecture, music, painting, literature religion—all these strongly felt the impact of these Kings. If Mahendravarman I could write full treatises on subjects like painting, and music, one can easily imagine how advanced the knowledge about, these arts must have been at that time. As if to confirm this impression we have the beautiful paintings in the Pudukkottai which bear ample evidence to his generous patronage of music and dance.
Adorned by great literary luminaries Kanchi at this time was the very nerve-center of literary efflorescence. If Madura was the seat of Tamil learning under the Pandyas, and Nalanda of Sanskrit learning under Harsha Kanchi under the Pallavas represented a harmonious blending of both Sanskrit poets like Bharavi and Dandi as well as the Tamil poets like Appar and Sundarar found in Kanchi a convenient home and in the Pallava Kings lovable patrons. The king Mahendravarman was himself the author of the famous farce, Mattavilasaprahasana. Added to these was the celebrated metaphysician Dharmapala who was also the Vice—Chancellor of the Nalanda University for some time. According to Huen-Tsang (who visited Kanchi at that time) Dharmapala lived and studied at Kanchi for a considerable time. Some scholars are also of the view that Bhasa’s Sanskrit plays were adapted to the stage and enacted at the Pallava Court.
The main promoters of the Tamil language at this time were the Alwars and the Nayanmars who were also the promoters of Hinduism. Hinduism at this time, underwent a revolution, thanks to the Bhakti-cult which was so ardently fostered by the Vaishnavite Alwars and the Savite Nayanmars. Emotional outpourings of devotional songs expressed through chaste and mellifluous language roused the spirit of Bhakti among the people and brought about so successfully a reaction against Buddhism and Jainism. The decline of these two religions definitely began to set in and could be easily gauged from the fact that Mahendravarman himself forsook Jainism and embraced Saivism. Thanks to the missionary zeal of Appar. Thus the Thevaram Tiruvasagam and Nalayiraprabandam are not only the embodiments of the Tamil language at its purest and loftiest but also they represent a revolutionary stage in the growth of Hinduism.
The innumerable temples with which Kanchi is studded give special beauty to the City. Many of those temples including the famous Kailasanathar temple were built in this century. Furthermore, the very style of architecture underwent a through-going change inasmuch as new techniques or methods were Introduced. For the first time temples were carved out of single pieces of stone thus eliminating the use of brick and mortar. In exhibiting this peculiar style of Architecture, Kanchi together with Mahabalipuram took a leading part. Well do the scholars considered the architecture of Kanchi and Mahabalipuram as an important landmark in the evolution of South Indian architecture. In short, such a glorious cultural burgeoning that Kanchi witnessed in the seventh century that one is tempted to rank it with bright Periclean Athens.
sivaayyala 