The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c8.3

c8.3

WE have no information as to the exact steps by which the transition was brought about from the conditions reflected in the Śangam literature to those of the Age of the First Empire, as we propose to call it,—an age comprising roughly three centuries from, say, the beginning of the seventh century to the beginning of the tenth. And the great danger at this point of the story is the temptation to make hasty reconstructions by piecing together fragments from literature and epigraphy which at the first blush seem to have a connection with one another, but on closer scrutiny fail to support the superstructure they have been made to bear. Great impediments to a proper understanding of the records result sometimes from chance suggestions thrown out by authoritative scholars which are often repeated by their followers without the reservations with which they were originally given and occasionally even palpable errors are handed down as gospel.¹ In the present account no attempt will be made to carry the story beyond what is exactly warranted by the state of our sources and the distinction will be carefully maintained between facts as such and subjective impressions. If in consequence we get an account which is discontinuous, that is unfortunately a result which in the present state of our knowledge cannot be helped.