History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v1.c16.s5.5

v1.c16.s5.5

recently published “The southern frontier of Aśoka’s empire may be described as a line drawn from the Pennar river near Nellore on the east coast to the river Kalyānapuri on the west coast (about N. Lat. 14) which forms the northern boundary of the Tuluva country probably representing the old country of the Satiyaputra. This boundary is substantially correct on the information furnished by epigraphy.” This correctness is confirmed, adds Mr. Krishnasvami, “by what we are able to glean from Tamil literary sources, except on the eastern point. The Tamils marked out the limit of the Tamil land at Pulikat” which is further south than Nellore. Thus from about 250 B. C. to the first century A. D. the age of Tamil poets, South India upto Pulikat a little above Madras on the east and to about Bhatkal on the west was under Aryan domination. A fresh attempt was made to push the Aryan settlement further south in the days of the Tamil poets themselves. It was defeated in the eastern portion near the Podyar Hill by the Pāṇḍyas but it was successful in the west where in Konkānam the territory of the chief Nannan, “in the first century of the Christian era was broken into by a new people called Kośar and Nannan was obviously defeated.” (S. Krishnasvami’s beginnings of South India p. 85). Thus Konkanam above and below the ghats came also under Aryan influence in the first century A. D.