Coromandel: A Personal History of South India

by Charles Allen

These two Indias may form a political whole, but in cultural terms they are chalk and cheese, old and new, volcanic and alluvial, shakti and shiva, rice and wheat, todi (think toddy) and soma (the mysterious intoxicant drunk by the early Arya), dosa (rice pancake) and chapatti (unleavened flatbread), water buffalo and cow, Dravida and Arya.

Indra, the thunderbolt-wielding lord of heaven, to whom a quarter of the hymns of the R-V (289 in number) are directed. Next in popularity comes Agni, god of fire, to whom 218 hymns are directed. Vishnu and Shiva, so dominant in later centuries, are all but insignificant to the early Arya. Vishnu merits six hymns in the R-V while Shiva is entirely absent under that name, although part of his multifarious character lurks there as Rudra, ‘the howler’, god of wind.