Production, Environment, and Society Chingleput, India : Long-term fluctuations from the 18th to 20th century

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The project has aimed at clarifying historical changes in South India with special reference to a district called Chingleput, Tamil Nadu State, India. The research has revealed many findings, among which the following may be important.1. The period from thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries withessed an important change in the local society. Though the term nattars or nattavars, meaning the people of nadu, appears in Tamil inscriptions through out the period, their importance as the local corporate bodies seems to have been lost in most parts of Tamilnadu after the sixteenth century.2. The mirasi system, which had functioned as the core system in reproducing the local society, was deformed in the centuries before 1800 by the newly emerging village leaders.3. The Tamilnadu economy witnessed the growth of rural industries in the period between the two world wars. The development was partly underpinned by changes in consumption pattern among the lower classes of people.4. While the god Aiyanar, which is found to be worshiped in Tamilnadu, shares certain features in common with Karuppu and other male deities, in several important respects he exhibits major differences from these gods. He is endowed with qualities fundamentally different from Siva, Visnu and other major bhakti gods in orthodox Hindu religion. This ambiguity of the god Aiyanar seems to be connected to the essentially marginal character of this deity, bestraddling the two separate value systems of Brahmans and non-Brahmans.