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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.s1: Section I

The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s1

Language
English

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.

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