“Then will you see Kaveris’ stream
Whose pleasant waters glance and gleam
And to the lovely banks entice
The sportive maids of paradise.
***
Thence hasting on your way behold
The Pandyas gates of pearl and gold,
Then with your task maturely planned
On ocean’s shore your feet will stand.
Where, by Agastya’s high decree
Mahendra, planted in the sea
With tinted peaks against the tide
Rises in solitary pride,
And glorious in his golden glow
Spurns back the waves that beat below,
Fair mountain, bright with creeper’s bloom
And every tint that trees assume
Where yaksha, god and hewenly maid
Meet wandering in the lovely shade.”[1]
In the fifth century B. C., when Vijaya the leader ot the first colony of Aryas, from Bengal, landed in Ceylon, he found the island in the possession of the Yakshas, and he first married Kuveni, a Yaksha Princess.
Most of these Magolian tribes emigrated to Southern india from Tamalitti, [2] the great emporium of trade at the mouth of the Ganges, and this accounts for the name."Tamils” by which they were collectively known among the more ancient inhabitants of the Dekkan. The name Tamil appears to be therefore only an abbreviation of the word Tamalittis. The Tamraliptas are alluded to, along with the Kosalas and Odras, as inhabitants of Benga and the adjoining Sea-coast in the Vayu and Vishnu Puranas[3]
The oldest of the Mongolian tribes who invaded Southern India and conquered the Nagas appears to have been the Mârar, and the chief of this tribe was ever afterwards known as Palayan or “the ancient,’ being the most ancient, of the Tamil settlers in
- ↑ Valmiki's Ramayana, translated by Griffins. Book IV. Chap. XLI.
- ↑ The Pali form of the Sanskrit Tamralipti. It is now known as Tamlok, and lies on a bay of the Rupnarayan River 12 miles above its junction with the Hughli; mouth of the Ganges. McCrindie’s Ptolemy: 170.
- ↑ Vishnu Purana. Book IV. Chap XXIV.
