Were there Brahmins in South India 2,000 years ago?

We normally assume that Brahmins have been present in every corner of India for the last 5,000 years. But this is not true. The Vedic people lived mainly in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab about 3,000 years ago. Roughly 2,500 years ago, the Vedic practices began to be challenged by new monastic traditions that arose in the lands we now associate with Bihar and Jharkhand. This led to migrations of Brahmins to the south less than 2,000 years ago.

By the time Alexander arrived, followed by waves of Persians, Scythians, Parthians, and Kushans between 200 BC and 200 AD, North India had become fairly cosmopolitan. Highways connected the Gangetic plain with the passes of the Hindu Kush and beyond. Traders, soldiers, and scholars moved back and forth. But what was happening south of the Vindhyas?

That story is rarely told. Crossing the Vindhyas was never easy. One route was by boat down the Narmada to the Gujarat coast, and then further south along the Konkan and Malabar shores. Another was through the thick sal forests of present-day Chhattisgarh, followed by a boat trip down the Mahanadi to the eastern coast, and from there, ships could sail along the Bay of Bengal, even reaching Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, and the Mekong Delta. Many Buddhist monks took these routes. We do not hear of Jain monks doing the ocean trips, and perhaps only a few Hindu rishis dared. Chinese chronicles around 300 AD mention a sage named Koundinya who travelled to Funan, in the Mekong Delta, and married a local Naga woman.

The Mahabharata contains memories of such movements. There is the tale of the rishi Dirghatama, encouraged by King Bali to father children through his queen, Sudeshna. Their offspring become rulers of Anga, Vanga, and Kalinga – regions that map onto Bihar, Bengal, and Odisha. There are also tales of Agastya migrating south and Vishrava marrying rakshasa and yaksha women. Are these just later interpolations to explain dynasties, or faint echoes of early Vedic expansions into the south?

From inscriptions, we begin to get firmer evidence. Tamil Brahmi script inscriptions dated to 200 BC refer to Jain monks. In the Nashik region, the Naneghat inscriptions of the Satavahana kings record Vedic sacrifices being performed south of the Vindhyas. These are scattered signals that Vedic practices were slowly moving beyond the Ganga basin.

In 225 BC, Ashokan edicts declared that brahmanas and shramanas were found across the land. But he does not refer to ‘varna’; so, the Brahmins he mentions were probably not the Brahmin caste we know today, just a general title for priests. At his time, we find no evidence of permanent Brahmin villages, the brahmadeya grants that became a hallmark of later times.

The first clear evidence of settled Brahmin communities comes only around 300 AD. Here, we find clusters in Gujarat, reached via the Narmada, and in Odisha, reached via the Mahanadi. From these beachheads, Brahmin settlements spread steadily under the patronage of southern kings – the Pandyas, Pallavas, Cholas, Kadambas, and Chalukyas.

By about 500 AD, after the Gupta age, the migration of Brahmins to the south accelerates. Kings like Yayati Keshari of Odisha or Adi Sura of Bengal invite Brahmins from distant Kashi or Kannauj to settle in their lands. Tamil Sangam poetry of this period begins to speak of Brahmins. Familiarity with the Ramayana and the Mahabharata grows. The great migration was underway, transforming the cultural landscape of the South. The migration is in waves. In Kerala, there is evidence of earlier migration of Purva-shikha (literally “with the tuft at the front”) Brahmins who brought a different version of the Mahabharata around 300 AD, and the Apara-shikha (meaning “with the tuft at the back”) Brahmins who brought a later version of the Mahabharata around 800 AD.

About 1,500 years ago, there is no doubt that Brahmin settlements were firmly established across South India. But can we say the same for 2,000 years ago? The evidence is thin. We must be careful not to project the later ubiquity of Brahmins back into the earlier centuries.

What is most striking is how the migration out of Arya-desha – the Ganga-Yamuna Doab – was not only southward into the Indian peninsula but also outward, towards Southeast Asia. Koundinya in Vietnam appears at roughly the same time as Brahmin land grants in the Deccan. It is almost as if the idea of Aryavarta itself was travelling, being carried far beyond its heartland.

Early southern temples, built after 600 AD, placed Ganga and Yamuna as guardian figures at their doorways, visual reminders of the rivers of the north. They stood as symbols of continuity, but also as markers of a great journey – the journey of Vedic ideas moving south, and sometimes sailing east, reshaping the religious map of Asia.

The writer works with gods and demons who churn nectar from the ocean of Indian, Chinese, Islamic, Christian, even secular mythologies.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.