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The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35: Chapter XVI. The Kingdoms of the South

The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35

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English

Contents

Chapter XVI. The Kingdoms of the South

Section I

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*The ‘Three Kingdoms’*

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Southern India, as distinguished from the plateau of the Deccan, from which it is separated by the Krishnā (Kistna) and Tungabhadrā rivers, has a character of its own, and a history generally independent of that of the rest of India. This extensive region may be described in modern terms as consisting of the Madras Presidency, excluding the ‘Northern Circars’ Districts of Vizagapatam and Ganjām, and with the addition of the native states of Mysore, Cochin, and Travancore. It is essentially the land of the Tamil race and speech, and accordingly the greater portion of it was known in ancient times as Tamilakam, or the Tamil country. The earliest tradition fixed the northern boundary of Tamilakam on the east coast at Pulicat, a little above Madras, and on the west coast at the White Rock near Badagara, to the south of Mahé, the frontier line between those two points passing round the hill of Venkata or Tirupathi, 100 miles to the north-west of Madras, and then inclining southwards to Badagara.¹ Later traditions extended the north-eastern boundary as far as Nellore on the N. Pennār river,² and the north-western limit to the Chandragiri river south of Mangalore.³ This chapter is concerned only with the Tamil states and the Pallava dynasty. The dynasties of Mysore have been treated in Chapter XV, being closely connected with the kingdoms of the Deccan plateau.

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¹ *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 10, 17.

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² Elliot, *Coins of Southern India* p. 108.

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³ The Chandragiri is the boundary between Kerala and the Tuluva country.

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The Greek geographer Ptolemy, who wrote his treatise about A. D. 140, was well acquainted with Southern India, which he called Damirikē, a good transliteration of Tamil-akam, *r* and *l* being interchangeable, but unfortunately corrupted in the manuscripts into the unmeaning form Limyrikē, owing to the frequent confusion between Λ and Δ.¹ In his time one language only, the Tamil, was spoken over the whole area; Malayālam, now the speech of Malabar, not having been developed as a separate tongue until some centuries later. The population comprised various elements, of which the Villavar, or bowmen (Bhils), and Mīnavar, or fishermen (Mīnas), are supposed to have been the most ancient. The Tamils seem to be later immigrants.

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¹ Ptolemy, bk. vii, ch. 1, 85; transl. McCrindle, *Ind. Ant.*, xiii, 367. The Peutingerian Tables correctly give the name as Damirikē (*Ind. Ant.*, viii, 144). Possibly, as S. Krishnaswāmi Aiyangar suggests, Damirikē was the transliteration of a Sanskrit form *Dramidaka*.

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The early Tamil poetical literature, dating, according to competent expert opinion, from the first three centuries of the Christian era, gives a vivid picture of the state of society at that period. The Tamils had developed an advanced civilization of their own, wholly independent of Northern India.² Immigrants from the North, who had settled at Madura and some other cities, sought to introduce Hindu notions of caste and ceremonial, but met with much opposition, and the caste system, which for many centuries past has been observed with special strictness in the South, was then inchoate and imperfect.³ The prevailing religion was a form of 'demon-worship', which still survives under new names. For example, the most powerful demoness of the southern races, Kottavai, 'the Victorious,' has now taken her place in the Hindu pantheon as Umā or Durgā, the consort of Siva.⁴

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² See M. Srīnivāsa Aiyangar, *Tamil Studies*, Madras, Guardian Press, 1914, which professes to give 'a complete bird's-eye view of Tamil culture and civilization'.

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³ *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 3, 10, 39.

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⁴ Pope, 'Extracts from the Tamil *Purra-porul Venba-Mālai*, and the *Purra-nānnūrru* (*J. R. A. S.*, 1899, p. 242). Pope was not so decided in opinion concerning the early date of the literature as South Indian scholars are, but subsequent discussion seems to establish the high antiquity of the great classical works in Tamil.

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In addition to the three principal kingdoms, which will be described presently, about a hundred and twenty more or less independent chieftains shared the government of the country, and indulged in unceasing internecine wars, waged with exceptional ferocity by the agency of the aboriginal tribesmen, whose representatives, the Maravar, Kallar, and others, still form an important and turbulent element in the population. ‘These desolating wars’, Dr. Pope observes, ‘account for the multitudes of deserted strongholds whose ruins are yet to be seen, and for the comparative sparseness of the population at the period when authentic history begins.’

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The aboriginal ‘devil worship’, exposed to the persistent attacks of the three northern religions—Jainism, Buddhism, and Hinduism—was gradually forced into the background, and constrained to veil itself behind the names and forms of the more respectable faiths. The introduction of Jainism into the South was effected, according to Jain tradition, by a body of emigrants who were driven out of the North from their homes by the pressure of a twelve years’ famine, in the reign of Chandragupta Maurya. The event is assigned by some authorities to 309 B. C. The strangers settled at Sravana Belgola in Mysore, where their sainted leader, Bhadrabāhu, starved himself to death in the approved Jain manner. The present head of the ancient Jain settlement at Sravana Belgola claims to be the successor of Bhadrabāhu and is recognized as the pontiff of all the Jains of Southern India. The story is associated, as we have seen (*ante*, p. 154), with statements concerning the last days of Chandragupta Maurya which are discredited by some and accepted by other critics. Whatever may be the truth concerning the alleged abdication and suicide of the Maurya emperor, no sufficient reason seems to exist for rejecting the tradition of the Jain immigration, which brought the religion of Mahāvira to the South half a century before Buddhist missionaries appeared. Samprati, a grandson of Asoka, is said to have been converted by Suhastin, and to have sent many missionaries to preach Jainism in the Peninsula, where his creed undoubtedly secured such wide acceptance that Mr. Rice is justified in affirming that during the first millennium of the Christian era Jainism may be regarded as having been the predominant religion of Mysore. Nor was it confined to Mysore; it spread everywhere more or less.¹ In the Pāndya country the decline of Jainism began in the seventh century, but the religion continued to flourish in Mysore and the Deccan for ages after that time.

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¹ For Jain historical traditions, with varying systems of chronology, see Jacobi in *S. B. E.*, vol. xxii, and many articles in the *Indian Antiquary*, vols. ii, ix, xi, xiii, xvii, xx, and xxi, by Hoernle and other writers; also Rice, *Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions*.

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The effective importation of Buddhism undoubtedly was the work of Asoka’s brother Mahendra and the other missionaries sent out by the great proselytizing emperor in the middle of the third century B. C. (*ante*, p. 193). The imperial religion does not seem to have become at any time the dominant creed of the South, although it attained a considerable amount of popularity during several centuries. In the seventh century of the Christian era it was dying out, overshadowed by both Jainism and Hinduism. After that date those two faiths almost exclusively disputed the field, often with great bitterness and ferocity. The early southern Buddhism ignored caste, but the mysterious and insidious power of the Brahmanical organization was too much for it, and won the day. The rules of caste are now enforced in the South with far greater rigour than in the North. It is not possible to follow the subject farther in this place, but it is safe to affirm that there is room for a very interesting book on the history of the conflict of religions in the Tamil and Kanarese country.

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Slavery is said to have been unknown among the ancient Tamils. The statement of Megasthenes that 'it was a great thing that all Indians were free, no slave existing in India' (*ante*, pp. 105 *n.*, 187 *n.*), probably was based on a rash generalization made from information which may have been strictly true for parts of the South.² His strange enumeration of the seven classes of the population, usually mistranslated 'castes', as being (1) philosophers, (2) agriculturists, (3) herdsmen, shepherds, and graziers, (4) artisans and traders, (5) the military, (6) the overseers, and (7) the councillors (*ante*, pp. 140, 141 *n.*), may be compared with the list of the 'five great assemblies', which checked the autocracy of Tamil kings, and comprised the people, priests, astrologers, physicians, and ministers.¹

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² The statement is not true if applied to Malabar or Keraḷa (Dubois, *Hindu Manners, Customs, and Ceremonies*, by Beauchamp, third ed. (1906), p. 56).

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¹ *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 108, 114.

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The frequency and savagery of the internecine wars described in the old literature might seem to justify the opinion that the arts of peace and the amenities of civil life must have been wholly neglected in the ancient Tamil states. But such an inference would be erroneous, for there is no doubt that poetry and other refined arts were carried to a high degree of excellence, and that the dwellers in the cities, at all events, enjoyed all the luxuries which wealth could purchase. In this matter, too, an observation of Megasthenes helps us to understand the apparent contradiction between a state of incessant war and the existence of a rich trading and agricultural community of peaceful citizens.

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'The second class', the Greek ambassador noted, 'consists of the husbandmen, who form the bulk of the population, and are in disposition most mild and gentle. They are exempted from military service, and cultivate their lands undisturbed by fear. They never go to town, either to take part in its tumults, or for any other purpose. It therefore not unfrequently happens that at the same time, and in the same part of the country, men may be seen drawn up in array of battle and fighting at the risk of their lives, while other men close at hand are ploughing and digging in perfect security, having these soldiers to protect them.'

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This pretty picture may be a little overdrawn, although we may accept as true the statement that in the India known to Megasthenes the fighting ordinarily was done by professional soldiers, who interfered little with the work of the harmless and necessary peasant. The fortified towns too, as a rule, were protected by their gates and walls from the injuries of war, and only on rare occasions suffered the horrors of a sack. Thus it was possible for the Tamils, like the mediaeval Florentines and Pisans, to have their fill of fighting and still pay a close attention to careful farming and lucrative trade.

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Tamil Land had the good fortune to possess three precious commodities not procurable elsewhere, namely, pepper, pearls, and beryls. Pepper fetched an enormous price in the markets of Europe, and was so highly prized that when Alaric the Goth levied his war indemnity from Rome, in A. D. 409, his terms included the delivery of 3,000 pounds of pepper.¹ The pearl fishery of the southern sea, which still is productive and valuable, had been worked for untold ages, and always had attracted a crowd of foreign merchants. The beryl or aquamarine gem, which, as Pliny truly observed, is closely related to the emerald, was highly esteemed by both Indians and Romans, and often furnished material for the choicest achievements of the engraver's art. Its scarcity, except in India, tempted clever Indian forgers to fabricate imitations made from rock-crystal. Three Indian mines are recorded, namely, (1) Punnāta, where Ptolemy noted that beryl was found, close to Kittūr on the Kabbani river, a tributary of the Kāvirī (Cauvery) in the south-west of Mysore ; (2) Padiyūr or Pattiāli, 40 miles ESE. from the town of Coimbatore, where a mine was worked successfully as late as 1820 ; and (3) Vāniyambādi, in the north-eastern corner of the Salem District, not far from the Kolar gold-field. The large and numerous hoards of Roman gold coins found in the districts where the mines were situated, testify to the activity of ancient commerce in the gems of Southern India. The fact that the mineral corundum, a variety of the ruby and sapphire, found abundantly in Salem and Coimbatore, bears a purely Tamil name (*kurrandam*), affords another indication of the familiarity of ancient Europe with the products of the Indian gem mines.²

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¹ Gibbon, ch. xxxi.

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² References for the beryl trade are : Πουννάτα ἐν ᾗ βήρυλλος, Ptolemy, *Geogr.*, Bk. vii, ch. i. 86, transl. in *Ind. Ant.*, xiii, 367 ; Pliny, *Hist. Nat.*, Bk. xxxvii, ch. v ; Walhouse, 'Aquamarina Gems, Ancient and Modern', *Ind. Ant.*, v, 237, with a full account of the Padiyūr mine. The mine at Vāniyambādi rests on the authority of Sewell (*J. R. A. S.*, 1904, p. 595). The correct identification of Πουννάτα, which in the second edition I wrongly identified with Padiyūr, following Sewell, is due to Lewis Rice. Ptolemy's name, *Pounnata*, is an accurate transcription of Punnāṭa (al. Punāḍu or Punnāḍu), an ancient principality mentioned in an early inscription, perhaps of the fifth or sixth century, and also in the *Brihatkathākośa* of Harisheṇa, dated A. D. 931. Kittūr, a village on the Kabbini (Kapini) river, a tributary of the Kāviri (Cauvery), in the south-west of Mysore, represents Kitthipura or Kīrtipura, the ancient capital of the Punnāṭa State (Rice, *Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions* (1909), pp. 4, 10; *Ind. Ant.*, xii, 13; xviii, 366). The Mamballi copper-plates from Yelandūr taluk, Mysore, of Rāshtravarma, Rāja of Pumrā-shtra [=Punnāṭa], mention the Kāvēri and Kapini rivers, and show that the capital Kittūr (Kīrtipura) was on the Kapini in Heggaḍadēvankōt taluk. The plates, written in the Hale-Kannaḍa script, are clearly genuine and date from about A. D. 550 (*Mysore, A. S. Rep.* for 1917, pars. 87–9). Full details about the mines of corundum in Balfour *Cyclop.*, s.v.

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The Tamil states maintained powerful navies, and were visited freely by ships from both east and west, which brought merchants of various races eager to buy the pearls, pepper, beryls, and other choice commodities of India, and to pay for them with the gold, silver, and art ware of Europe. The Roman *aureus* circulated in Southern India as freely as the English sovereign passed on the continent of Europe before 1914, and Roman bronze small change, partly imported and partly minted at Madura, was commonly used in the bazaars.¹ There is good reason to believe that considerable colonies of Roman subjects engaged in trade were settled in Southern India during the first two centuries of our era, and that European soldiers, described as 'powerful Yavanas, dumb Mlechchhas [barbarians], clad in complete armour,' acted as bodyguards to Tamil kings, while 'the beautiful large ships of the Yavanas' lay off Muziris (Cranganore) to receive the cargoes of pepper paid for by Roman gold. It is even stated, and no doubt truly, that a temple dedicated to Augustus existed at Muziris. Another foreign (Yavana) colony was settled at Kāviripaddanam, or Puhār, a busy port situated on the eastern coast at the mouth of the northern branch of the Kāviri (Cauvery) river. Both town and harbour disappeared long since, and now lie buried under vast mounds of sand.² The poems tell of the importation of Yavana wines, lamps, and vases, and their testimony is confirmed by the discovery in the Nīlgiri megalithic tombs of numerous bronze vessels similar to those known to have been produced in Europe during the early centuries of the Christian era, and by the statements of the *Periplus*.¹

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¹ Sewell, 'Roman Coins found in India,' *J. R. A. S.*, 1904, pp. 591–637, a valuable article. See especially pp. 609–13.

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² According to S. K. Aiyangar, the destruction took place in the first quarter of the third century after Christ at the latest. The Tamil tradition is that the city was 'overwhelmed by the sea' as stated in the *Epic of the Anklet* and the *Jewel-Belt*, referred to in S. K. Aiyangar's *Ancient India*, p. 352. M. Srīnivāsa Aiyangar in

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¹ *Tamil Studies*, p. 60, puts the date of its 'destruction' in the second century A. C. This theory of the ruin of the city does not accord with the view held by C. P. Venkatarāma Ayyar (*Town Planning in Ancient Dekkan*, Madras, 1916) that 'this ancient sea-port, which had an extensive commerce, has ceased to be of importance owing to the silting-up of the Kavery'. *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 16, 25, 31, 36, 38. Puhār is also written Pugār or Pukār. The 'Peutingerian Tables', a collection of ancient maps believed to date from about A. D. 226 (ed. Scheyb, 1733; Mannert, Leipzig, 1824; Charles Ruelens, Brussels, 1884; Walker, *On the Tabula Peutingeriana*, Cambridge, 1883, in *Cambridge Antiquarian Society's Communications*, vol. v, p. 237), are the authority for the temple of Augustus at Muziris, which is indicated on the map by a rough sketch of a building marked 'templ. augusti' inserted beside 'Muziris'. The identification of Muziris with Cranganore is well established. Kāviripaddanam = Puhār; = Kākanthi (Kākandi of Bharhut inscription, No. 101, *Ind. Ant.*, xxi, 235); = Kamara (*Periplus*, ch. 60, *Ind. Ant.*, viii, 149); = Khabēris (*Ptolemy*, Bk. vii, ch. 1, 13, *Ind. Ant.*, vii, 40; xiii, 332). For the bronze vessels see the collection in the British Museum, and the labels on the specimens; *Ind. Ant.*, 1905, p. 229; Breeks, *An Account of the Primitive Tribes and Monuments of the Nīlagiris*, London, 1873; Foote, *Catal. Prehist. Antiq. Madras Museum*, 1901, pls. x–xiii. The *Periplus* (ch. 56), states that 'ships which frequent these ports are of a large size, on account of the great amount and bulkiness of the pepper and malabathrum of which their lading consists'. A full list of exports and imports is then given. Malabathrum (μαλάβαρρον) was not 'betel', as McCrindle erroneously supposed, but the leaves of different species of *Cinnamomum*, especially *C. Zeylanicum* (Schoff, transl. of *Periplus* p. 84; with references). The massacre at Alexandria, perpetrated in 215 by Caracalla, stopped most of the direct trade between that port and India (*J. R. A. S.*, 1907, p. 954).

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So far as I can judge, the scholars who maintain the early date of the best Tamil poems are right, and the 'Augustan age' of Tamil literature may be placed in the first three centuries of the Christian era. One authority would assign it to the first century, but the wider limits indicated may be accepted with some confidence.² Other arts besides poetry were cultivated with success, including music, the drama, painting, and sculpture; but the statues and pictures apparently were executed in perishable materials, and have wholly vanished. The plays are said to have been of two kinds—the Tamil or indigenous, in numerous varieties, which permitted the insertion of love scenes; and the Aryan or northern, which were more formal, and restricted to eleven stock subjects.

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² Gover was of opinion that Tiruvalluva, the famous author of the *Kural* (*Cural*), 'probably flourished about the third century of our era' (*The Folk-songs of Southern India*, 1872, p. 217). Gover penetrated into the Hindu mind perhaps more deeply than any other European writer, and any one desirous of understanding Southern India should read, if possible, his admirable book, which, unfortunately, is now scarce.

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Such was the state of civilization in the three Dravidian or Tamil kingdoms of the South during the early centuries of the Christian era, when they are disclosed dimly to view in the pages of the ancient native literature and the scanty notices of Greek and Roman authors, as supplemented by a few archaeological and numismatic observations. With the exception of the Asoka edicts, the Bhattiprolu casket inscriptions, and a small number of other records, epigraphic testimony does not go back so far. General tradition recognized the existence of three important kingdoms, and only three, in the Tamil country—namely, the Pāndya, Chola, and Chera or Kerala. The poet sings:

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The pleasant Tamil lands possess
For boundary the ocean wide,
The heaven, where tempests loud sway not,
Upon their brow rests as a crown.
Fertile the soil they till and wide:
Three kings with mighty hosts this land divide.¹

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¹ *Pura-nannūru*, No. 35, in *Tam. Ant.*, vol. i, No. 6, p. 50.

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Asoka calls the Chera realm by the name of Keralaputra, 'son of Kerala', which appears in corrupt forms in Pliny's work and the *Periplus*, and he adds a fourth name, Satiyaputra, not recorded elsewhere.² Mangalore is the centre of the Tuluva country, in which Tulu, a language allied to Kanarese, is spoken.

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² See *ante*, pp. 171, 194.

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The Pāṇḍya kingdom, as defined by tradition, extended north and south from the Southern Vellāru river (Pudukottai) to Cape Comorin, and east and west from the Coromandel coast to the 'great highway', the Achchhankōvil Pass leading into Southern Kerala, or Travancore; and thus was nearly co-extensive with the existing Districts of Madura and Tinnevelly, with part of Travancore in which Cape Comorin is now included.

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According to the most generally received traditions, the Chola country (*Choḷamaṇḍalam*) was bounded on the north by the Pennār, and on the south by the Southern Vellāru river; or, in other words, it extended along the eastern, or Coromandel, coast from Nellore to Pudukottai, where it abutted on the Pāṇḍya territory. On the west it extended to the borders of Coorg. The limits thus defined include Madras and several other British districts on the east, as well as the greater part of the Mysore State. But the ancient literature does not carry the Tamil Land farther north than Pulicat and the Venkata or Tirupathi Hill, 100 miles to the north-west of Madras. On the other hand, in the seventh century, the Chola country, as known to Hiuen Tsang, was a small territory, nearly coincident with the Cuddapah District, and did not extend to the south. Chola-mandalam, or the Coromandel coast, called Dravida by the pilgrim, was then in the hands of the Pallava kings, whose capital was at Kānchī (Conjeeveram) 45 miles WSW. from the city of Madras.

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Scholars are now agreed that Chera and Kerala are only variant forms of the one word.¹ The name of Kerala is still well remembered, and there is no doubt that the ancient kingdom so called was equivalent to the Southern Konkans or Malabar coast, comprising the present Malabar District with Travancore and Cochin. The southern portion of Travancore, known as Ven or Venādu, was attached to the Pāṇḍya kingdom in the first century after Christ. In later times the Chera kingdom included the Kongu country, the modern Coimbatore District with the southern part of Salem, but it is doubtful whether or not such was the case in early days. Generally, Kerala means the rugged region of the Western Ghāts south of the Chandragiri river. Of course, the boundaries of the three kingdoms varied much from time to time.

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¹ *Keraḷa* is the Kanarese form of the Tamil *Cheraḷa*. The country was anciently called Cheraḷam or Cheraḷa-nāḍu, and the kings were Cheraḷ-ādan or Cheraḷ-Irum-Porrai, *Cheraḷam* means 'mountain-range', and so is equivalent to Malabar (Pundit D. Savariroyan in *Tamilian Antiquary*, No. 1, pp. 69–71).

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From about the fourth to the eighth century the Pallava dynasty plays a great part in the history of Southern India. But there was no Pallava country with traditional limits. The Pallava domination, while it lasted, extended in degrees varying from time to time over all the three ancient kingdoms, the extent of such domination being in proportion to the vigour of the Pallava chiefs and the weakness of their rivals. This fact has been held to indicate that the Pallavas, like the Marāthās, were a predatory clan, tribe, or caste, which rose to power by violence, and superimposed its authority upon the Rājas of the territorial kingdoms. It is, however, possible that the Pallavas were not one distinct tribe or class, but a mixed population, composed partly of foreigners and partly of south Indian tribes or castes, differing in race from the Tamils, and taking their name from the title of an intruding foreign dynasty, which obtained control over them and welded them into an aggressive political power.¹ The tradition of the Pallava rule is faint, and the existence of the dynasty was unknown to European scholars until 1840, when the discovery of a copper-plate inscription drew their attention to the subject.² Since then many similar discoveries have been effected, and much progress has been made in the reconstruction of the dynastic framework of Pallava history.

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¹ See pp. 491-3, *post*.

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² Elliot, *Coins of Southern India*, p. 39.

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In the following sections of this chapter an attempt will be made to give an outline of the political history, so far as it is known, of the three Tamil kingdoms, the position and character of which have been described, and also of the intrusive dynasty of the Pallavas. But the time for writing in brief the history of the southern kingdoms in a satisfactory manner has not yet come, and at present any sketch such as that now offered must be tentative and incomplete. In its revised form it is less imperfect than the account in the earlier editions of this work, but, until specialists intimately acquainted with the languages and local conditions shall have worked out detailed monographs for each dynasty, it will not be possible to compile an adequate early history of the southern kingdoms in a form suitable for inclusion in a volume dealing with India as a whole. Still, notwithstanding the inevitable defects incident to the attempt, it is worth while to make it. I do not know of the existence of any book which professes to give the student or general reader a view of the history of Southern India before the Muhammadan conquest, as it has been partially recovered by the patient labours of modern scholarship.¹ I feel assured, therefore, that my effort to supply the want, however imperfectly executed, will not be wasted, and that expert critics who know the difficulties of the subject will be the most ready to pardon my shortcomings. *Tout connaître c'est tout pardonner.*

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¹ The volume of collected essays by Mr. S. Krishnaswāmī Aiyangar, entitled *Ancient India* (Luzac, 1911), although valuable, and freely utilized in the following pages, does not profess to be the desired book.

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Those difficulties are great. The sources of southern history prior to the ninth century are far scantier than those available in the north. The eighteen *Purānas* pay small attention to the south, early inscriptions are extremely rare, the coinage gives little help, the publication of archaeological investigations in a finished form is backward, and the exploration of the ancient literature is incomplete.² On the other hand, from the ninth century onwards, the mass of epigraphic material is so enormous as to be unmanageable. The southern princes and peoples have bequeathed to posterity many thousands of inscriptions, which often attain portentous length. Eight volumes of Mr. Rice's *Epigraphia Carnatica*, which are concerned with both the Deccan and the Tamil kingdoms, give notices of 5,800 inscriptions. The staff of the Archaeological Survey in Madras during a single year copied more than 800 inscriptions, none of which, probably, are included in Mr. Rice's work; and every year makes a huge addition to the unwieldy accumulation of historical material. The length of individual documents is illustrated by the fact that one important record is engraved on thirty-one sheets of copper, fastened together on a massive ring. It is obvious that the thorough examination of the epigraphic sources alone of the early history of Southern India must be the work of specialists for many years to come, and that additions to knowledge of the subject must continue to be made from day to day. With these preliminary explanations I proceed to give the best account that I can of the three Tamil kingdoms, and of the intruding Pallava dynasty which for a time overshadowed them all.

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² Southern India has *Purāṇas* of its own.

Section II. The Pāṇḍya, Chera, or Kerala, and Satiyaputra Kingdoms

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The Pāṇḍya kingdom, approximately equivalent to the modern Madura and Tinnevelly Districts, with part of Trichinopoly and sometimes also of Travancore, is supposed to have been divided into five principalities, the chiefs of which were known as the ‘five Pāṇḍyas’. Details as to the jurisdiction of the several chiefs are unknown, and the evidence for the existence of ‘the five kings’ is of doubtful value.¹

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¹ See Sewell in *Ind. Ant.*, Aug. 1915, vol. xliv, p. 176. He holds that the monarch was always single and that the belief in the ‘Five Kings’ grew out of the legend of the Five Pāṇḍavas.

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As early as the time of Pliny, in the first century after Christ, the capital was Madura or Kūdal; but there is reason to believe that in still more ancient days Korkai was the chief place of the kingdom, and there is some evidence that a place called South Mañalūr on the east side of the Madura District had been the capital of Pāṇḍya chiefs in prehistoric times.² All native traditions indicate Korkai or Kolkai, the Greek Κόλχοι, as the cradle of South Indian civilization, and the home of the mythical three brothers who were supposed to have founded the Pāṇḍya, Chera, and Chola kingdoms. The city, now represented by an insignificant village on the bank of the Tāmraparni river¹ in Tinnevelly, was a great seaport in the days of its glory, and the head-quarters of the trade in pearls and conch-shells (*Turbinella rapa*), which constituted the special source of wealth enjoyed by the Pāṇḍya kings. Even when the royal court was established at Madura, the Crown Prince resided at Korkai in order to control the important revenue and commercial interests centred there. In the course of time the slow elevation of the coast² rendered Korkai inaccessible to ships, and the city gradually decayed, like the Cinque Ports in England.

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² Pliny, *Hist. Nat.*, Bk. vi, ch. 23 (26). He describes Becarē, the harbour on the Malabar coast, the Bakarai or Barkarē of Ptolemy (Bk. vii, ch. 1, 8), which is Vaikkarai, the landing-place for Kottayam; and adds that ‘there Pandion used to reign, dwelling at a great distance from the mart, in a town in the interior of the country, called Modura’. At the time he was writing Caelobothras (Keralaputra) was sovereign of the Malabar coast. The *Periplus* (ch. 54, 55) shows clearly that while Muziris belonged to the kingdom of Keralaputra, Bakarē, farther south, was included in the Pāṇḍya dominions; which, therefore, must have comprised the southern parts of the modern Travancore State. This tract was called Venāḍu or Ven. For identification of Becarē and many other places, see *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 17-20. Pliny's work was published in A. D. 77, as is proved by the dedication to Titus, before his accession. The Periplus may be dated about A. D. 70, and Ptolemy about A. D. 140. For Mañalūr see *Ind. Ant.*, 1913, pp. 66, 72. North Mañalūr, of which the position is not known, is supposed to have been the earliest Choḷa capital.

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¹ The river was also called Porundam and Muḍigoṇḍaśōlapperāru (*Ep. Ind.* xi (1914), p. 295). It is mentioned in Rock Edicts ii and xiii of Asoka and in chap. xi of the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya. Caldwell (*Tinnevelly*, p. 5) points out the great commercial importance of the river. See also the author's article in *Ind. Ant.*, vol. xlvii (1918), p. 48.

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² The gradual elevation of the land is proved specifically by a piece of pottery resembling modern ware being found in grit stone at Kulasēkhara paṭṭanam, a mile from the seashore. Caldwell concludes that the grit stone which contains recent shells is of comparatively modern formation (*Hist. of Tinnevelly*, Madras, 1881, p. 5).

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Its commercial business was transferred to the new port, which was founded at Kāyal,³ 3 miles lower down the river, and continued for many centuries to be one of the greatest marts of the east. Here Marco Polo landed late in the thirteenth century, probably more than once, and was much impressed by the wealth and magnificence of both prince and people.¹ But the same process which had ruined Korkai caused the abandonment of Kāyal, and compelled the Portuguese to remove their trade to Tuticorin, where a sheltered roadstead, free from deposits of silt, offered superior convenience. The site of Kāyal is now occupied by the miserable huts of a few Muhammadan and native Christian fishermen.²

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³ This Kāyal is now Old Kāyal, and is not to be identified with Kāyal-paṭṭanam (Caldwell, *ibid.*, p. 38). For alteration in the eastern coast-line, see *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, p. 236.

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¹ Medlycott, *India and the Apostle Thomas*, pp. 85 and 87. The first visit seems to have been made in 1288 and the second in 1293.

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² Bishop Caldwell, *Ind. Ant.*, vi, 80–3, 279.

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It is impossible to name a date for the abandonment of Korkai as a port, but the coins of that mint are supposed to extend up to about A. D. 700. The special crest or cognizance of the princes of Korkai was the battle-axe, often associated with the elephant. The kings of Madura adopted a fish, or a pair of fishes, as the family crest.³

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³ Loventhal, *The Coins of Tinnevelly* (Madras, 1888), p. 9.

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The capital of the country, as already mentioned, was at Madura in Pliny's time, but the kingdom had existed from much earlier days. The Pāndyas were known to the Sanskrit grammarian Kātyāyana, whose date probably is not later than the fourth century B. C. ;⁴ and in the same century, Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator at the court of Chandragupta Maurya, was told strange tales about the southern realm, which was supposed to be under the regimen of women. He was informed that 'Herakles begat a daughter in India whom he called Pandaia. To her he assigned that portion of India which lies to the southward and extends to the sea, while he distributed the people subject to her rule into 365 villages, giving orders that one village each day should bring to the treasury the royal tribute, so that the queen might always have the assistance of those men whose turn it was to pay the tribute in coercing those who for the time being were defaulters in their payment.’ This female potentate was credited with having received from her hero father 500 elephants, 4,000 cavalry, and 130,000 infantry. She possessed a great treasure in the fishery for pearls, which, as Arrian observes, had been eagerly sought by the Greeks, and in his time were equally prized by the Romans.¹

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⁴ Bhandarkar, *Early History of the Dekkan*, 2nd ed., in *Bomb. Gaz.* (1896), vol. i, part i, p. 139. I accept the view of Professors Goldstücker and Bhandarkar concerning the antiquity of Pāṇini and Kātyāyana as necessarily resulting from the ascertained date of Patañjali, 150 B. C. In an essay, *Systems of Sanskrit Grammar*, published Poona, 1915, with the permission of the University of Bombay, Shripad Krishna Belvalkar, M.A., Ph.D., remarks (p. 18) that there is nothing in Pāṇini's Ashṭadyāyi inconsistent with his having flourished in the seventh century B. C. He believes in this early date, while admitting that none of the arguments are decisive when taken singly, and on p. 15 gives 700 to 600 B. C., 'as near an approximation to Pāṇini's time as, in our present state of knowledge, or rather want of knowledge, we are likely to get.'

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¹ Megasthenes, Fragm. I, lvi B, lviii, in Schwanbeck’s text and McCrindle’s translation; Arrian, *Indika*, ch. viii. The story may have been suggested by distorted reports of the Malabar system of succession through females. Mr. F. Fawcett informs me that at the present day the Laccadive islands are administered by the women while the men are at sea.

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We hear of a mission sent by ‘King Pandion’ to Augustus Caesar in 20 B. C.;² and both the author of the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea* (*c.* A. D. 80) and Ptolemy the geographer (*c.* A. D. 140) were well informed concerning the names and positions of the marts and ports of the Pāndya country. Caracalla’s massacre at Alexandria in A. D. 215 checked, or perhaps put an end to, the direct Roman trade between Southern India and Egypt,³ so that for long ages the history of the Pāndya realm is hidden from our eyes.

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² Strabo, Bk. xv, ch. 4, 73; Merivale, *History of the Romans under the Empire*, iv, 118, 175.

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³ *J. R. A. S.*, Oct., 1907, p. 954.

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The ancient Tamil literature, now being vigorously explored by many patriotic students in Southern India, mentions numerous kings by their clumsy names or titles, of whom some may be referred to an extremely early period. But the first Pāndya king who can be placed in a chronological position at all definite is Nedum-cheliyan, who lived in the second century of the Christian era, and was more or less contemporary with Nedumudi Killi, grandson of Karikāla Chola, with Chenkuttuvan, a powerful Chera king, and with Gajabāhu I of Ceylon. As is usually the case in Indian history, the key is obtained by the synchronism with a foreign prince. Although it cannot be said that the chronology of the early kings of Ceylon has been settled definitely, Professor Geiger's dating of the reign of Gajabāhu between A. D. 173 and 191 may be accepted as a close approximation to the truth.¹

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¹ K. G. Sankara Aiyar, in 'The Age of the Third Tamil Sangam' (*J. Mythic Soc.*, 1917) prefers A. D. 154–76—anyhow the second half of the second century A. C. The same author puts the third Sangam about the same time, which seems reasonable. dated Tiruvallava in the third century (*Folk Songs of Southern India*, p. 217). See *Ancient India*, by S. K. Aiyangar, ch. xiv; 'The Augustan Age of Tamil Literature'; Dr. J. Lazarus on the *Kural* in *Tam. Ant.*, vol. ii (1913), pp. 53–72, and various other papers in vol. i of the same periodical.

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The most remarkable characteristic of the Pāndya state in those times was the maintenance at Madura of a flourishing literary academy or Sangam, the members of which produced much literature of the highest quality. The famous *Kural* of Tiruvalluva—which lives in the hearts of the Tamil people—may be assigned to a time a little before or after A. D. 100. The interesting 'Epic of the Anklet' and the 'Jewel-belt' are a century or so later. It is impossible at present to write out a 'connected relation' of the story of the Pāndya kings during the early centuries of the Christian era, and the reader must be content with these few observations.²

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² *The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago*, pp. 80, 81, 88. Gover

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When Hiuen Tsang visited Southern India, in A. D. 640, he spent a considerable time, doubtless including the 'rest' during the rainy season, at Kānchī (Conjeeveram), then the capital of the Pallava king Narasimhavarman, the most considerable potentate in the South at that period. The pilgrim did not personally visit the Pāndya country farther south, and was content to record notes from descriptions supplied by his Buddhist friends at Kānchī. He gives the name of Malakūta, or Malakotta, to the country, but fails to indicate the name or position of the capital, which presumably was Madura, and is silent on the subject of the mode of government. It is probable that the Pāndya Rāja at that time was a tributary of the powerful Pallava king of Kānchī. In Malakūta Buddhism was almost extinct, the ancient monasteries being mostly in ruins. Temples of the Hindu gods were numbered by hundreds, and the nude (Digambara) Jains were present in multitudes. The inhabitants were reputed to care little for learning, and to be wholly immersed in commercial pursuits, especially the pearl trade.¹

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¹ Beal, ii, 228–30; Watters, ii, 228–33. See remarks by Hultzsch, *Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 242. What has happened to the ruins of the Hindu and Buddhist buildings anterior to the seventh century? It seems tolerably certain that some of them were converted at a later date to Brahmanical use. This is clearly the case with the Buddhist apsidal chaitya hall at Chazarla in Guntūr District, converted into a Saiva temple of late Pallava style (*A. S. Ann. Rep. S. Circle, 1917–18*, p. 35). See ‘Bouddha Vestiges in Kānchīpura’, by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, M.A., Trivandrum (*Ind. Ant.*, 1915, pp. 127–9) with plates. In twelve hours the author discovered five images of Buddha, two being inside the Kamākshi Temple, which probably occupies the site of a Buddhist Tārā temple, the image inside at A being 7′ 10″, including pedestal, which is not likely to have been moved far. All five images are of considerable size. See also Wilson in Introduction to Mackenzie Coll. (ed. 1882), p. 40.

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An inscription furnishes a list of Pāṇḍya kings who reigned from about the middle of the eighth to the beginning of the tenth century, but they are little more than names. Arikesarin, who lived in the eighth century, is said to have defeated the Pallavas, and there is reason to believe that the accession of Varaguṇavarman, who was defeated by the Pallava, Aparājita, at the battle of Sri Purambiya, may be assigned to the definite date A. D. 862–3.² During this period the Chola kingdom, ground between the Pallava and the Pāṇḍya millstones, was weak and unimportant, and the business of resisting Pallava aggression seems to have devolved chiefly on the Pāṇḍyas. The defeat of Nandivarman by Vikramāditya Chalukya, in A. D. 740, had greatly weakened the Pallava power, which was still further reduced by the victories of Āditya Chola at the close of the ninth century.³ From the beginning of the tenth century the Pāṇḍya kings were constrained to acknowledge the ever-growing power of the Cholas. Whether independent or tributary, the Pāṇḍya dynasty continued to exist throughout the ages, and its conflicts with neighbouring powers are noticed in inscriptions from time to time, but few of the events recorded are deserving of remembrance.¹

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² *Progress Report, Epigraphy, 1906–7*, in *Madras G.O., Public*, No. 503, June 27, 1907, pp. 62–70. That report by the late Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya Avargal gives a summary of the few known facts about the early Pāṇḍya kings, as ascertained to date. Additions have been made by T. A. Gopinatha Rao in the *Travancore Archaeol. Series*, especially No. 7 (1911).

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³ *Progress Report, Epigraphy, 1905–6*, in *Madras G.O., Public*, No. 492, July 2, 1906, paras. 10, 16. ‘The Chōḷa king who extended his sovereignty over the Tōṇḍaināḍu was, as we know from other sources, Rāja Kēsarivarman Āditya, the first. He allied himself with the Pāṇḍya king, Varaguṇa Pāṇḍya, and uprooted the Pallava dynasty, and extended his dominions over the whole of the Tōṇḍaināḍu. Therefore, Āditya ought to have lived about the second half of the ninth century, for we know Varaguṇa Pāṇḍya reigned from A. D. 862–3 upwards’ (*Travancore Archaeol. Series*, vol. ii, p. 77). Jouveau-Dubreuil (*Pallavas*, p. 66) dates Varaguṇa's accession about A. D. 854.

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¹ The Pāṇḍyas could never be completely subdued. They continued in a state of chronic revolt against the Choḷa yoke during the whole period of Choḷa supremacy. For about fifty years in the eleventh century Choḷa-Pāṇḍya kings governed the Pāṇḍya country, i. e. Choḷa princes acting apparently as viceroys under the Choḷa suzerain at Tanjore. The first Choḷa-Pāṇḍya was the son of Rājendra-Choḷa I (A. D. 1011–44). Two others are recorded, and there are inscriptions of two out of the three (K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar, *Ep. Ind.*, xi (1914), p. 293). For further details, see *Epigraphy (G.O.*, No. 1035, Home (Education), Aug. 10, 1917, pp. 106, 107.

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The Pāṇḍya state, in common with the other kingdoms of the South, undoubtedly was reduced to a condition of tributary dependence by the Chola king, Rājarāja the Great, about the year 994, and continued to be more or less under Chola control for nearly two centuries; although, of course, the local administration remained in the hands of the native Rājas, and the relations of the two states varied from time to time. Some revival of the Pāṇḍya power took place in the first half of the thirteenth century.

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When Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, visited Southern India in A. D. 640, Digambara Jains and Jain temples were numerous in both the Pallava realm (Dravida) and the Pāṇḍya kingdom (Malakoṭṭa).² His account does not offer the slightest indication of religious persecution. We must hold, therefore, that the persecution which certainly occurred about that time was subsequent to the pilgrim's visit. It is well established that king Kūna, Sundara, or Neḍumāran Pāṇḍya, who had been brought up as a Jain and was married to a Chola princess, was converted about the middle of the seventh century, by his consort and the famous saint Tirujñānasambandar, to the faith of Siva, which was warmly supported by the Chola dynasty. King Sundara displayed even more than the proverbial zeal of a convert, and persecuted his late co-religionists, who refused to apostatize, with the most savage cruelty, inflicting on no less than eight thousand innocent persons a horrible death by impalement. Certain unpublished sculptures on the walls of a temple at Trivatūr (Tiruvattūr) in Arcot record these executions, and are regarded as confirmation of the tradition.¹ The position of the Jain religion in the South was much shaken by the persecution, which evidently was a reality, although possibly exaggerated.

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² Hultzsch, *Ind. Ant.*, xviii, 240.

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¹ The date of Tirujñānāsambandar and Kūna Pāṇḍya was settled by Hultzsch in 1894–5 (*Ep. Ind.*, iii, 277). See also *Tam. Ant.*, vol. i (1909), No. 3, p. 65. The approximate date thus determined is one of the most important fixed points in the early political and literary history of the South. The event took place at Madura, where it is celebrated as 'the impalement of the Jains' on the 7th day of the *mahōtsava* of Siva, and is treated as an *utsava* (T. A. Gopinatha Rao, *Elements of Hindu Iconography*, 1914, Introd., p. 55). The persecution is described in the 62nd and 63rd *Tiruvalliadal* (*Wilson, Mackenzie MSS.* 2nd ed., Calcutta, 1828, p. 41). The story is repeated in Rodriguez (*The Hindu Pantheon*, Madras, 1841–5), illustrated by a plate depicting the horrid tortures of the victims; also by Gribble in *Calc. Rev.*, 1875, p. 70; and by Elliot, *Coins of Southern India* (1885), p. 126. The Pāṇḍya king is named Neḍumāraṇ in the *Periyapurāna* (*Ind. Ant.*, xxii, 63). All the southern kings had many names and titles, which cause much confusion. For the sculptures, see Sewell, *Lists*, vol. i, p. 167.

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Wars between the Pāṇḍya kings and the rulers of Ceylon frequently occurred. The most notable incident in this protracted conflict was the invasion of the Pāṇḍya territory, in or about A. D. 1166, by a powerful force under the command of two generals in the service of Parākrama-bāhu, the ambitious king of Ceylon. Two detailed accounts of this event, written from different points of view, are extant. The story, as told in the island chronicle, the *Mahāvaṁśa*, naturally represents the victorious career of the invaders as unbroken by defeat; but the rival account, preserved in a long Chola inscription at Arpakkam near Kāñchī, which is the more trustworthy record, proves that the invading army, having gained considerable success at first, ultimately was obliged to retire in consequence of the vigorous resistance of a coalition of the southern princes. The occasion of the Sinhalese intervention was a disputed succession to the Pāṇḍya throne of Madura, contested by claimants bearing the oft-recurring names of Vīra and Sundara.² This recurrence of names is one of the difficulties which hinder the reconstruction of the dynastic framework of Pāṇḍya history.

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² Full details will be found in the article appended to *Madras* *G. O., Public*, Nos. 922, 923, dated Aug. 19, 1899, pp. 8–14. See also Hultzsch, ‘Contributions to Singhalese Chronology’ (*J. R. A. S.*, 1913, pp. 517–31).

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Prof. Kielhorn has succeeded in working out the dates of seventeen Pāṇḍya rājas who ruled a territory more or less extensive during the long period between A. D. 1100 and 1567, but the list of names is believed to be incomplete, and most of the princes were merely local chiefs of slight importance.¹ By far the most powerful of the mediaeval Pāṇḍya Rājas was Jaṭāvarman Sundara I, who reigned from A. D. 1251 to at least 1271, and made himself master of the whole eastern coast from Nellore to Cape Comorin. Some of his coins can be identified.² The partial Muhammadan conquest effected by Malik Kāfūr and other leaders in A. D. 1310 and subsequent years, did not destroy the local dynasties, although it marks a change in political conditions which has been taken as the limit of this history.

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¹ ‘Supplement to the List of Inscriptions of Southern India,’ in *Ep. Ind.* viii, App. ii, p. 24. In the second half of the sixteenth century the Pāṇḍyas ‘became more or less Polygars, and had to wait, like vassals, on the proud Telugu Kartas’ (‘The History of the Naik Kingdom of Madura,’ *Ind. Ant.*, 1915, p. 39).

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² *Ind. Ant.*, 1911, pp. 137, 138.

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The earliest reference to the Kerala or Chera kingdom is that made in the edicts of Asoka under the name of Keralaputra, which was known in slightly corrupted forms to both Pliny and the author of the *Periplus* as still used in their time, the first century after Christ. The ancient Tamil literature, dating approximately from the same period, or a little later, proves that the Chera kingdom comprised five *nādus* or districts, namely : (1) Pooli, ‘the sandy,’ extending from Agalappula to the mouth of the Ponāni river, about 10° 50′ N. lat. ; (2) Kudam, ‘the western,’ extending from the Ponāni to the southernmost mouth of the Periyar river near Ernakulam, about 10° N. lat. ; (3) Kuddam, ‘the land of lakes,’ about Kottayam and Quilon ; (4) Ven,³ from below Quilon nearly to Cape Comorin ; and (5) Karkā, ‘the rocky,’ the hill country to the east of No. 2. Pliny’s Cottonara or Kottanara, the pepper coast, corresponds with No. 3.

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