The Colas c12.82

c12.82

In no sphere is the influence of Aryan ideas on Tamil culture in early historical times more evident than in that of religion and ethics. These ideas embodied in a number of myths, legends and social practices which form the common stock of practically the whole of India, had already become an integral part of the civilisation of the Tamils, and the Śaṅgam literature affords instances without number of the thorough acquaintance of the Tamil poets with the Vedic and epic mythology of Sanskrit, and the ethical concepts of the Dharmaśāstras. An exhaustive study of the history of Indian Mythology, by tracing the stages through which each single legend passes before attaining a final and fixed form which it retains ever after, might lead to results of value to the internal chronology of the body of Śaṅgam literature. Even otherwise, one can see that poems like the *Śilappadikāram* and the *Maṇimēkalai* which differ from the other poems of the Śaṅgam, not only in their great length and their literary form, but in the much freer use they make of these northern legends and myths, must be accounted to come rather late in the period if not after its close. In any case, it seems best not to mix up the evidence of the anthologies in these matters with that of the *Śilappadikāram* and the *Maṇimēkalai*, but keep these apart.