The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s1.29

c35.s1.29

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.