ABSTRACT
The early (Sangam) Tamil texts present the innate relationships between culture and nature through the perceptions of the poets and also the nature–culture continuum that existed in society. This is evident in the ancient grammar text, Tolkappiyam which presents the classification of cultural landscapes into five-fold tinais. The term tinai in Tamil means “category” and in this context tinai refers to the ecocultural entities conceived by the poets based on the prevailing realities of the landscapes. In the five tinais of kurinji, marutam, mullai, neytal, and palai, the last category pertains to the dry landscape, which is the subject under discussion here. Perusal of the early Tamil texts reveals how the poets have actually experienced the landscapes and the cultural forms that flourished therein. The narratives of the palai landscape in the Sangam literature can be experienced even today in certain desolate landscapes of Tamil Nadu. The excessive focus on the rivers and deltaic landscapes and the obsession with civilizations in the nationalistic historical approaches of the early 20th century sidelined the marginalized landscapes and cultures. The dry regions had their own cultural adaptations and development throughout history. With the expansion of pastoralism and agriculture, certain landscapes became denuded and communities that depended upon natural resources for their hunting–gathering economy were forced to migrate to marginalized landscapes, (i.e., forested or uninhabited or thinly populated regions) or adopt alternative modes of subsistence. Besides focusing on the representation of dry landscapes in the early Tamil texts, the paper traces the cultural developments in dry landscapes of Tamil Nadu using archaeological and historical sources.
