URBANISATION IN SOUtH INDIA 6^ I In South India, the second (or strictly speaking the earliest) urbanisation is represented by its end phases, evidence of its spread appearing at slightly different chronological points in the Deccan, the Andhra region and the Tamil country. By the beginning of the Christian era, it had become an all India phenomenon. The beginnings of this urbanisation are placed in the 6th century B.C. with its epicentre in the Ganges valley, where expansion of trade in ripples10 around the early janapadas assumed significant proportions by the 3rd century B.C. with a network all over the north. Central India and the Deccan and with arterial links with Central Asia and West Asia. The spread of this network into the Deccan and Andhra region was undoubtedly brought about by overland trade links from, the 3rd century B.C. and the expansion of the Mauryan State. However, it would be erroneous to assume that without the impact of maritime trade, the phenomenal increase in the trade activities of the Deccan and Andhra regions from about the 2nd century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. could have taken place. In the extreme south, i.e., Tamil country (including modern Kerala), the effects of this urbanisation were only indirectly felt. Visible clues to the contrastive urban experience of this region are the striking absence of trade networks, lack of organisational coherence (i.e., guilds) and the nature of Tamil polity. No less evident is the absence of a dominant religious ideology. The key to the understanding of these differences lay in the distinctive socio-economic milieux of the eco-system called the tinai,11 within which the emergence of towns and the pace of urbanisation have to be viewed. It is not a matter of coincidence that the earliest ruling families or "crowned kings" (Vendor), as they are described in early Sangam Tamil literature, emrged in the marudam tinai representing the fertile agricultural tracts of the major river valleys. The earliest towns also arose in these tracts as well as in the neidal or coastal littoral. Such centres were consciously developed by the ruling families. These two tinai were dominated by the Ceras (Periyar valley). Colas (Kaveri valley) and the Pandyas (Vaigai and Tamraparni valleys). The marudam was marked by an inland town of political and commercial importance and the neidal by a coastal town of commercial importance, e.g., Uraiyur and Kaverippumpattioam (Puhar) of the Colas, Madurai and Korkai of the Pandyas and Vanji (Karuvur) and Musiri of the Ceras. These towns in effect represent the development of dual centres of power.12 Located in the rice producing marudam tracts, the early chiefdoms or potential monarchies with their janapada like polities18 evolved out of earlier tribal organisations. The agricultural potential of the major river valleys attracted settlers from very early times and numerous settlements had emerged by the beginning of the Christian era, the Kaveri delta showing a