The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c7.38

c7.38

There appears to be no means at present of fixing the chronology of the Śangam age more exactly than we have sought to do so far. We are in the dark as to when and how the period came to a close. The data that have been gathered together from the Śangam literature may, one may venture to suggest, carry us to about the middle of the third century A.D. or perhaps a little later. When next the curtain rises, it is on a scene that belongs to the middle or even the end of the sixth century A.D. We thus seem to have in between these two periods, a veritable dark age of about three centuries of which we know nothing at present. Even the contemporary Pallava history of the age, into which we get some glimpses from various sources, seems to throw little light on the history of the extreme south.