The Colas c34.4.4

c34.4.4

These examples of forgotten poems mentioned in the inscriptions, and nowhere else, attest the existence of a fairly widespread literary activity of a popular character. When we add to this, the list of poems and other works fragments of which are preserved in the older commentaries and glosses, we may safely conclude that much excellent work has been lost beyond recovery. This is true to some extent of the ancient literature of any country; but with regard to South India, the impression is hard to resist that this loss has been very considerable and that, with some remarkable exceptions, the survivals have been the result more of caprice and accident than of deliberate choice or of an active literary criticism.