The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c31.s3.8

v1.c31.s3.8

Before the first century of the Christian era there are very few allusions in the literature and historical records of other nations that testify to the vigorous life of these southern kingdoms. Of the evidence of their commerce with the west we have already spoken (above, p. 594). Megasthenes, who visited the court of Chandragupta the Maurya towards the end of the 4th century b.c., has left on record some rumours concerning them, including a legend that Heracles (i.e. the god Çiva) put the south under the rule of his daughter 'Pandaia.' The Sanskrit epics mention them vaguely, as foreign lands outside their purview, though the legendary connexion of the Pāṇḍyan kings of Madura with the Pāṇḍava heroes of the Mahābhārata seems to have been acknowledged in the north as early as the second century b.c., if any reliance is to be placed on the scholion to Pāṇini iv, 1, 168. Açoka in his inscriptions speaks of them among the foreign nations who have accepted the teachings of Buddhism². Lastly, Strabo (xv, 4, 73) makes mention of an embassy sent to Augustus Caesar about the year 22 b.c. by a king 'Pandion,' possibly a Pāṇḍya of the Tamil country. Even in the next century the history of the Tamils is sadly obscure. Ancient Tamil poems and the commentaries upon them, supplemented by meagre notices in Pliny and other western writers, are almost the only sources of information, and their data are very uncertain. It seems however fairly probable that the course of events was as follows.