The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c6.s2.5

c6.s2.5

There is no reason for thinking that the conquering expeditions of the Mauryan Emperors in the south reached the Pāṇḍya country as has been suggested.⁴ The earliest indubitable reference to the Pāṇḍyan kingdom is still that in the Asoka edicts. Recently,⁵ the existence of rock-cut beds and Brāhmi inscriptions in natural caverns in several places in the Madura and Tinnevelly Districts has been brought to light. ‘None of these inscriptions have so far disclosed any king's name. But they show that the possession of an alphabetical system was one of the factors in the civilization of the Pāndyan kingdom in the second and third centuries B.C.’, if not earlier. These monuments go also to show the presence very early in the south of strong Buddhist and Jaina influences. They seem to confirm the impression derived from a careful study of the Tamil classics that while Buddhism came in earlier, Jainism was perhaps the more persistent in its influence on Tamil literature. Mr. Krishna Sastri has observed that ‘it is strange how these sects did not exercise any influence with their patrons in the matter of their being provided with comfortable rock-cut cells, during their retirement to the hills in the rainy season, as their compatriots of the north did. Perhaps, the South Indian kings of those times were inclined more towards Brahmanical institutions than Buddhist or Jaina.’