Tamiznattil aarambakaala kaalaniya arasu 1700–1835 marapuvazi samudaayamum kovilgalum  is the Tamil translation of Kanakalatha Mukund’s  The View from Below: Indigenous Society, Temples and the Early Colonial State in Tamil Nadu, 1700–1835 published by Orient BlackSwan. This Tamil translation is published under the ‘Muththamizarignar Mozhipeyarppu Thittam’ of Higher Education Translation series by Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation with Orient BlackSwan for the benefit of students.

In The View from Below The author considers the ‘attitudes’ and ‘responses’ as dialogic, whereby the colonial state and indigenous society are locked in a fierce but subtle combat for attention and dominance in the Madras region.

The Tamil institution upon which author focuses her study for the most part is the temple. Moving further on from this politically crucial and socially focal site, the study covers a number of other related phenomena: the staging of sectarian and caste conflicts aimed to seize the control of the temples; the new social leadership and patterns of patronage; the construction of identity by aspiring elite groups of both parties; and the folk representations of Poligar rebellions.

This book will be valuable to historians, anthropologists and specialists on south India, and those interested in the history of Madras.