Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.40

c11.s38.40

Kauṭilya notes that the Pāṇḍya-kavāṭa, a pearl fishery on the coast of the mainland on the gulf of Mannar, was noted for the quality of the pearls it exported, and that Madhurā, the capital of the Pāṇḍyas, lent its name to some of the finest cotton fabrics of all India¹. The Brāhmī inscriptions in rock caverns in hills have many features in common with the similar records of Ceylon, and these are among the earliest monuments of the Tamil country to which we may assign a date with some confidence. The script employed has much in common with the brief inscriptions from Bhaṭṭiprōlu, and may well be assigned to the third century B. C. Though these inscriptions have not yet been fully elucidated, enough is known to say that they are mostly either brief donative records or simply the names of monks who once occupied the beds or caverns. The close resemblance between these monuments and inscriptions and others of the same age in Ceylon and the name Kaḷugumalai, Tamil for Gṛdhrakūṭa, of one of the places where such inscribed caves are found, have been held to establish an exclusively Buddhist origin for these monuments ; it is, however, premature to formulate any views conclusively on such questions. New caverns and inscriptions are still discovered one by one—witness the inscribed natural cavern at Mālakonḍa in the Nellore district². And tradition is strong that Jainisme ame into South India about the same time as Buddhism if not earlier.