Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.30

c11.s38.30

The most direct clues to the condition of South India and Ceylon in the Mauryan epoch are furnished by the references to the Southern kingdoms in Megasthenes, in the edicts of Aśoka, and in the short Brāhmī inscriptions in natural caverns with rock-cut beds scattered all over South India and found in somewhat larger numbers in the Madura and Tinnevelly districts, and much more on the island of Ceylon. The oldest strata of extant Tamil literature cannot lay claim to equal antiquity, but they contain references to Nandas and Mauryas, and it will be necessary to review them in their contexts, particularly because they have been made the basis of far-reaching theories regarding a Mauryan invasion of South India by some writers, while others have seen in them a reference to the Mauryas of Koṅkaṇ.