Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.46

c11.s38.46

We must now turn to a consideration of the references to the Nandas and Mauryas in early Tamil literature. They occur in five poems, three of which are by one writer, Māmūlanār whose statements are the clearest, and one each by two other poets. The relative chronology of the Śaṅgam poets is by no means settled, and the whole body of Śaṅgam literature can only be dated within broad limits in the first three centuries A. D. Thus the mention of Nandas and Mauryas in these poems is by no means a reference to contemporary facts, but to events preserved in the memory of people or in other ways of which we have no knowledge now. It may even be doubted if two poets whose references are not half as intelligible as those of Māmūlanār were really referring to the Mauryas of history or some aspects of an obscure mythology; that they both refer to the same fact or myt his clear beyond doubt; the expressions used are identical, though one, of them Kaḷḷil Āttiraiyanār¹, gives more details than the other—Paraṅgorranār². The fuller account refers to the Mōriyar, their victorious lance, their sky-scraping umbrella, and their chariots bearing banners; it then states that their strong bright-rayed wheel cut across a mountain at the end of the earth and rolled past it and past the broad disc of the sun fixed near the pass so made. The commentator ekes out the sense by some additions of his own; he says that the Mōriyar ruled the whole world, and that the mountain cut across by their discus was the silver-mountain which separated this earth from another world, and that the sun's disc was fixed near the pass by the gods. He also adds that the Mōriyar were the Chakravāla emperors or Vidyādharas and Nāgas, an interpretation which would suit the alternative reading ‘Ōriyar’ much better than the Mōriyar, the Mauryas of history. But stress need not be laid on the alternative reading, because, the cutting of the hill and the rolling of the wheel are features that, as we shall see, recur in the unmistakable references of Māmūlanār to the Mauryan emperors. It is clear at any rate, that if these two other poets were also thinking of the Mauryas, they had but vague notions about them and their achievements, and classed them with the superhuman beings whose deeds fill the annals of universal history for many aeons after the dawn of creation according to the Purāṇic lore of India.