The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c5.32

c5.32

But if one prepares to depart from the old fashion, one meets with an insurmountable obstacle at the very threshold. It is possible that the Tāmils began their institutional career earlier than any people of the north but their early forms and working are lost to us. The oldest available southern records are considerably later in date than the earliest extant northern documents. A few Tāmil scholars have tried to prove that Tāmil literature embodies tradition as old as 12000 B. C. or even earlier. But their arguments have been contested by other Tāmil scholars. They proceed on the basis of the very tradition of which the soundness has to be proved. If critical standards be rigidly applied, one can rarely go beyond the Christian era on the basis of Tâmil data. Social institutions and practices which leave their mark on customs and ceremonies may be traced to earlier beginnings, though, even here, the process is beset with difficulties at every step. But in relation to political institutions, the southern material does not carry us, in point of time, beyond the period which is fairly illuminated by northern evidence. If it did, it would be necessary to preface any political survey of the North with a chapter on the South. As it is, even the score of inscriptions discovered in the South a few months ago do not touch the other side of the Christian era. A discussion of Hindu political institutions must still start from the North.