Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.188

c7.188

to be.” This argument derives its plausibility from exaggerating the pettiness of the monarchs mentioned by Ptolemy and the greatness of Karikāla. In spite of the victories that Karikāla won at Veṇṇi and Vāhai, there is no ground to believe that he had in his permanent occupation many districts outside the Kāvēri basin including Uraiyūr and Puhār, or that the whole of Tamil India had been ‘brought under his sole discus’—an expression intelligible enough in early Tamil poetry, but not necessarily, on that account, literally true. Lastly, it is held that “the disputations of logicians who flew their flags of challenge in front of their tents, referred to in the Paṭṭiṉappālai certainly belong to an age when dialectics had developed, and this certainly did not take place even in Northern India before the III century A. D.” We have no definite knowledge of the early history of Indian philosophy. “We must content ourselves with the belief,” says Mr. Keith in his History of Sanskrit Literature, “that between the dates of the chief upaniṣads and the third or fourth century A. D., there proceeded an active stream of investigation which we have only in its final form.” According to this estimate, the 3rd or 4th century A. D. marks, in Northern India, not the beginning, but the close of an active period of philosophical investigation, and in the face of this considered statement of the age of Indian philosophy, it is hard to see any force whatever in the objection raised to a date in the second century A. D. for Karikāla. We may conclude by saying, once more, that our object has not been to stand up for a second century date for Karikāla; we have been concerned only to show that the objections raised to that or any other early date for Karikāla do not stand scrutiny.