Tribes in Ancient India c47.2

c47.2

In the earliest time of which we have any record, the Tamiḻagam or Tamil realm, as Dr. Barnett thinks, extended over the greater part of the modern Madras Presidency, its boundaries being on the north a line running approximately from Pulicat on the coast to Venkatagiri (Tirupati), on the east the Bay of Bengal, on the south Cape Comorin, and on the west the Arabian Sea as far north as the ‘White Rock’ near Badagara, to the south of Mahi. Malabar was included in it.¹ It consisted of three kingdoms, those of the Pāṇḍyas, Cōḷas and Chēras or Keralas. The Cōḷa kingdom stretched along the eastern coast, from the river Penner to the Veḷḷāṟ, and on the west reaching to about the borders of Coorg. According to tradition, the Cōḷa country comprised the land between two streams having the same name, Veḷḷāṟu, in the north and the south, the sea on the east and Kōṭṭaikkarai in the west. The area included the modern districts of Trichinopoly and Tanjore and part of the Pudukottah State.² Its capital was Uraiyūr (old Trichinopoly). Kāvirī-paṭṭinam or Pugar on the northern bank of the river Kāverī was its great port while Kāñchī (modern Conjeeveram) was one of its chief towns. Uraiyūr corresponds to Sanskrit Uragapūra.