A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c7.40

c7.40

In the Coromandel area the ghats, as noted already, turn away from the coast to converge with the Western Ghats in the Nilgiris. There are offshoots like the Javadi, Shevaroy, Pachaimalai, and so on, which retain something of the plateau aspect; but the Carnatic or the Tamil plain increases in width steadily southwards until in the Kaveri basin it stretches for about 170 miles. This plain presents a great contrast to the other parts of the coastal plains and to the Deccan plateau in topography, in climate and in history. This is the real old India of the South, the land where all the great historical kingdoms of South India fixed their capitals, ‘the land of unnumbered temples, of indigenous arts and of almost prehistoric industries’. Here artificial irrigation was practised from remote antiquity, and the irrigation system of the fertile river belt between Karûr and Tanjore must be almost as old as agriculture itself.