My fondness for quora is increasing day by day. I am not taking the effort to write long eloquent answers on things which I have some knowledge and the past few months that I have spent on quora is simply amazing. I have SO much quora.

I found a question “What’s the best thing to ever come out of Tamilnadu, India“.

I think there are so many things that have come from Tamil Nadu, so I’ll try answering it with a timeline.

It is to be noted that Tamil Nadu which is a state among the 28 states in India today, was once a huge dynasty with its own culture, flourishing trade and great so much rich history in this state.

The kings, architecture and the early Tamil dynasties:

The first thing that comes to my mind is the Tamil Kings and their influence in the world politics and trade.

Chera, Chola, Pandya and Pallava were the four major dynasties that governed the Tamil kingdom. Their timeline dates back to 500 BCE.

This is the map of Chola empire under Rajendra Chola circa 1030 C.E. , who was the son of Raja Raja Chola a.k.a Raja Raja the Great.

If you see, the influence of the Tamil dynasty was also in the south eastern countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Phillipines, Cambodia etc. The Tamil traders also sailed towards the west covering Lakswadeep, Mauritius.

This is the picture of Angkor wat (meaning:”Temple City”), the world’s largest religious monument. This is aVishnu temple and has a Dravidian architecture.

There are a lot of noteworthy Tamil kings such as
Raja Raja Chola,
Rajendra Chola,
Kulothunga Cholan,
Kochadaiyan Ranatheeran,
and many more.

But I respect the Tamil kings for the following reasons:

1) They placed language, knowledge and culture ahead of themselves:

If you note, unlike northern India or the any other powerful king in the world, the Tamil kings never had huge palaces. Though Raja Raja Chola could have built a huge palace for himself, it was a common practice among Tamils that their houses never used to be larger than the temples that they built.

( Raja Raja chola and his guru Karuvurar )

Knowlegable people were placed ahead of the king himself. This is one of the reasons why the expenses spent for arms and infantry was very less. The Tamil kings unlike the Greeks never spent much on conquering other lands, as Tamil empire was fertile and there was no need to conquer other lands.

2) Their contribution to architecture :

The Brihadeeswarar Temple ( The Big temple )

Build by Raja Raja chola is a marvel of architecture.
Note: The Kumbam itself, a 60 ton granite stone carved in one piece, on top of the main gopuram is believed to have been taken to the top by creating an inclined slope to the height of 66m to the top of the gopuram. The prevailing belief is that a mud-slope, which starts at about three miles from the temple site, from Thirukoilore (birthplace of Raja raja’s mother) near Sri Virateshvara swamy temple. Elephants might have been used to drag the stone up the slope.

The Madurai Meenakshi Amman temple:

The shore temples of mahabalipuram built by the Pallava Kings

The reason these temples are considered to be the best of tamilnadu is because they served as the center place of the society during those days. The temples were a busy and a thriving place which fed, housed and gave employment to a lot of people.

The great tamil dynasties were brought to a stop by the Islam and the British invasions.

But these tamil people weren’t tired and they kept progressing in a lot of fields.

Freedom fighters from Tamilnadu:

1. Subramanya Bharathi

2. Tiruppur Kumaran

3. Vanchinathan

4. C. Rajagopalachari

5. Veerapandiya Kattabomman

6. V. O. Chidambaram Pillai

When these guys were fighting for freedom, there were bunch of other guys who were making breakthroughs in science and Maths.

1. C. V. Raman

2. Srinivasa Ramanujan

3. M. S. Swaminathan (Father of Green Revolution)

4. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

So many great people from a small state. A state with a history really old and a culture very unique.

Tamil (language), Tamil culture, and Tamilnadu has managed to stay close to it’s roots for over 2500 years. Isn’t that something great by itself?

Tamilan Endru Sollada – Thalai Nimirndhu Nillada