Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.33

c7.33

Before leaving the evidence drawn from early Tamil literature and proceeding to set down that of later literature and epigraphy, it may be desirable to indicate our general position regarding the chronology and the relative value of the sources so far reproduced. The general question of the age of the earliest extant Tamil literature has been so often discussed that it is unnecessary again to pursue the subject here. My view is that this literature belongs to the early centuries of the christian era, and it rests not so much on the Gajabāhu synchronism, which in itself is quite a sound one, † as on general considerations arising out of a comparison of the political and economic conditions in Southern India as reflected in this body of literature with what we learn on the same subject from European classical sources like the *Periplus* and Ptolemy, and from the early Buddhist literature.