History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c14.s6.22

v1.c14.s6.22

A second cause of this difference in populousness which may also be noticed here is that the seaboard of a country is usually more fertile though less healthy than the inner tableland and that it is also more prosperous on account of trade. The Dravidian population therefore on the sea-coast of the Madras Presidency was thriving and denser and more advanced than the population of the tableland of the Deccan and it is hence that we find the real Dravidian peoples (treated as Mlechha even in the Mahābhārata) settled all along the coast viz. Chola, Dravida, Pāndya and Kerala, (Kalabhra ?) on the eastern and western coast upto Malabar. There were Kalinga and Andhra on the eastern coast and Konkan on the western higher up. But the former two had come before the Mahābhārata under Aryan influence though not completely settled by the Aryans and they are included in the list of northern kingdoms or peoples in the Mahābhārata, while Konkana was not yet in the days of the Mahābhārata under Aryan influence and hence is given in the southern list, only a part viz. Aparānta or modern Northern Konkan being mentioned in the north.