Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s2.t3.1

c9.s2.t3.1

In comparison with the North-West our information regarding the Far South of India beyond the river Godāvarī in the age of the Nandas is extremely meagre. The region falls into three well-marked natural divisions: (1) The high land enclosed between the Western and the Eastern Ghats, which has its ‘orographical apex’ at the Nilgiri where the great mountain systems of the south merge into one another; (2) a narrow strip of territory on its west extending as far as the shores of the sea, intersected by numerous coves and creeks, but “unbroken by the passage of any considerable river”; and (3) the broader eastern sea-board embracing the fertile deltas of the Godāvarī, the Kṛṣṇā and the Kāveri as well as the “open treeless plains” of Madura and Tinnevelly.