Keeladi is the Key to Indian History! Part-1

Abstract / Overview

The architectural remains, bricks, water management structures, beads, potsherds, industrial artifacts, and Tamizhi script inscriptions found at Keeladi reveal various facets of ancient urban life. This multi-part analysis reads Keeladi through the lens of historical materialism—focusing on labor, productive forces, and empirical evidence rather than royal lineages or mythologies.

How do we come to know Indian history?

Is it truly the comprehensive history of the Indian subcontinent? Or has the history of a few specific communities been generalized under the name "Indian History"?

This question is not merely about the past. Who writes a society's past, and whose voices are included in that history, are directly linked to the political and cultural understandings of today’s society.

For a long time, there was a strong tendency to understand ancient Indian history through kings, empires, wars, Sanskrit literature, and mythologies. However, developments in modern archaeology, anthropology, linguistics, and genetics have expanded that perspective.

The bricks, potsherds, wells, beads, tools, and written inscriptions buried under the soil have now become historical documents.

Keeladi stands as one of the major windows of this new historical perspective.

Exalting Keeladi is not meant to reject North India, nor is it meant to destroy the Vedic tradition. Instead, it serves as a reminder that Indian history is a pluralistic history created by diverse peoples, languages, modes of production, and cultures.

This article is an effort to understand Keeladi from that standpoint.

This is not an archaeological report on Keeladi. Nor is it an attempt to create a new "Tamil myth."

It is an effort to understand history based on evidence and to read Keeladi through the tools of historical materialism.

Part – 1: Why Should Indian History Be Re-read?

History is not a finished, closed book.

When new archaeological evidence emerges, old ideas are re-evaluated. When new genetic studies come to light, our understanding of human history evolves. New linguistic studies test past assumptions regarding the spread of languages.

Therefore, history is not a final, permanent judgment passed on the past; it is a scientific endeavor that continuously re-evaluates the past based on available evidence.

This is where the significance of Keeladi begins.

At one time, Indian history was largely written as the history of kings. Which king ruled when, who conquered whom, and the territorial extent of each empire formed the core of history.

However, historical materialism poses different questions:

• What did the people produce?

• How did they produce it?

• What tools did they use?

• How did they transform nature?

• How did they establish settlements?

• How did technology evolve?

• How did property rights emerge?

• How did social relations transform?

When viewed through these questions, it is not the king, but man who stands at the center of history.

When writing the history of a city, it is not enough to merely ask where its palace was located. Who built that city? Who manufactured the bricks? Who crafted the pottery? Who engaged in weaving? How did they manage water? Who forged the tools?

The true foundation of a civilization lies in the hands of the working people who built it.

From this viewpoint, Keeladi serves as a crucial historical window.

Part – 2: How Did Man Make History?

Human history does not need to begin with kings, wars, or temples.

It must begin with how human beings produced the material means necessary for their existence.

Humans were part of nature. To survive, they had to struggle against nature. Gathering food, hunting, fashioning tools, using fire, practicing agriculture, and building settlements—every step of progress was tied to human labor.

That labor was not individual labor alone. Humans acted collectively. They hunted collectively, faced dangers collectively, and produced collectively.

Marxist anthropologist George Thomson emphasizes the reciprocal connection between labor, language, and social relations in the early development of human society. The insight that human beings transformed themselves through the very labor by which they transformed nature is central to his research.

The implication of this is paramount: humans first created life, and only then began to reflect upon that life.

Therefore, if we begin human history solely from stories of gods, we risk missing the actual productive life of human beings.

The potsherds, terracotta objects, beads, architectural remains, and industrial traces found in Keeladi reveal to us the everyday life of a society.

According to the dating by the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department, certain samples from Keeladi date back to the 6th century BCE; the dating of the Tamizhi script also aligns with this timeframe.

Here, the protagonist of history becomes clear: the working human.

Part – 3: From Cave to City: The Development of Productive Forces

In the struggle against nature, humans first created tools.

They sharpened stones, learned to use fire, and transitioned from hunting to pastoralism, and later to agriculture.

Agriculture marked a monumental turning point in human history.

Settled communities emerged. A surplus in food production was created. With surplus production came an expanding division of labor. Artisans emerged, exchange developed, settlements grew larger, and eventually, cities were born.

Historical materialism understands this process on the basis of the development of productive forces.

In his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Friedrich Engels links production, family structure, property rights, social stratification, and the formation of the state to historical progression.

A city is not merely a collection of buildings. Behind it lies food production, water management, handicrafts, storage, trade, division of labor, and communication.

Thus, a city is the social expression of productive forces developed to a specific degree.

The architectural remains, bricks, water management structures, beads, potsherds, industrial artifacts, and Tamizhi script inscriptions at Keeladi manifest these varied elements of urban life.

The critical historical inference here is that the history of urbanization in the Indian subcontinent does not end with North India; South India possesses its own distinct history of urbanization.

Part – 4: Indus Valley: Civilization of Kings or Working People?

The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the most vital chapters in ancient Indian history.

Cities like Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro, and Dholavira featured planned streets, brick buildings, water management, artisanal production, and trade.

One of their most remarkable features is the absence of grand royal palaces or portraits of monarchs.

Although there is no evidence of a monarchy or a despotic state, the size of houses, granaries, and urban planning indicate the existence of a division of labor and social stratification. Nevertheless, that society cannot be explained centered around a king.

Here, the contribution of D.D. Kosambi is pivotal. In An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, he approaches the Indus Valley, the Aryans, rural economy, trade, property rights, and caste by connecting them with socio-economic transformations.

From this, we gain an important historical lesson: it cannot be assumed that all societies that subsequently inhabited the same geography shared the same socio-economic system.

The urban civilization of the Indus Valley is not identical to the society reflected in Vedic literature. Their timelines and socio-economic contexts are distinct.

Therefore, history does not accept the equation: Indus Valley Civilization = Vedic Civilization.

Part – 5: Vedas, Aryans, and the City: Distinguishing Historical Contexts

The simplistic equation "India means the Vedas" obscures the inherent diversity of history.

In the Indian subcontinent, different communities—foragers, farmers, pastoralists, artisans, traders, and urban dwellers—coexisted across different eras. Their languages and cultures were distinct.

Thus, reducing Indian history to the history of a single religious tradition is scientifically unsustainable.

Tony Joseph’s book Early Indians integrates research from genetics, archaeology, and linguistics to understand the formation of the Indian population.

The central insight highlighted by his research is that the formation of the Indian people did not occur at a single time, in a single place, or by a single group. Migrations, intermixing, and cultural contacts across various eras contributed to the formation of Indian society.

The term "Aryan" must also be used with care. It is incorrect to consider it a pure "race" in the modern sense. Language, culture, population movements, and genetics are not synonymous concepts.

At the same time, the view that "Indian civilization began only with the arrival of the Aryans" does not align with historical evidence. Indus Valley cities predated them. Distinct socio-economic developments took place in South India as well. Keeladi serves as vital archaeological evidence for one such development.

Therefore, while the Vedic tradition may be regarded by some as one part of Indian history, it is not the defining name for the whole of Indian civilization.

(To be continued…)

Tamilmani