Ancient Fortifications in the Tamil Country as Recorded in Eighteenth-Century French Plans

Jean DELOCHE

Collection : Collection Indologie

Collection's number: 120

Edition: EFEO, Institut français de Pondichéry (IFP)

Publication date: 2012

Status : Available

30,00

ISBN-13 : 9782855391281

ISSN : 0073-8352

Width : 21 cm

Height : 28 cm

Weight : 0,6 kg

Number of pages : 142

Distributor : EFEO Pondichéry Contact : shanti@efeo-pondicherry.org, distributeur online : scholarswithoutborders@gmail.com, distributeur Chennai : jibh.rkc@gmail.com

Geography : India

Language : English

Place : Pondichéry

Support : Papier

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Abstract

Today, very few Indians know that, in the eighteenth century, the southern part of the peninsula was richly studded with fortifications, great and small, as most of them were dismantled by the British at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These strongholds, some of which had considerable administrative or political importance, were once crowded with large bodies of troops and resounded to the blaring noise of the guns; now they are completely abandoned and silent. In addition to this, temples, edifices dedicated to the service of gods, were also used as forts, though no vestiges of military structures are found around their enclosures today. Fortunately, eighteenth-century French engineers have drawn the plans of several of these defence works. These magnificent watercolour plans preserved in the French Archives are presented here: they illustrate in an extraordinarily precise and explicit manner the technological level of the South Indian fortifications and enable us to comprehend the role they played in the life of the Tamil Country.

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