Elements of South-Indian Palæography, from the Fourth to the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.10

c11.10

¹ With the narrow meaning generally given to ‘Kaliṅga’ it is impossible to explain many facts. At Singapore I found the Klings to be all Tamiḻ people, mostly from the upper Tamiḻ coast, though many came from the Tanjore coast. The early Portuguese writers (in the 16th century) make it plain that this was the case even then: Correa (“Lendas”, vol. ii., pt. i., p. 264) says that in 1511 the chief of the Klings at Malacca was Nynapam (*i. e.* Nainappan) which can only be a Tamiḻ name. Pulicat was, then, the chief port of trade with the Straits. A Kling told me (1876) that the only Telugu people he knew of in the Straits were convicts from India.