Kalon (a wooden house). These are not Tamil words,[1] and they might have been borrowed from the Ionians or Greeks who had, as already stated, commercial relationship with the ancient Tamils. We know that foreign nations carried on trade with the Tamils and settled in the Tamil countries ; but we do not find it said anywhere that the Tamils ever visited any foreign countries for the purpose of commerce, though in later times they had ships and were experts in navigation. Their voyages, however, seem to have been confined mostly to the East as the following extract will show :—
வடமலை ப்பிறந்த மணியும் பொன்னுங்
குடமலை ப்பிறந்த வாரமு மகிலுந்
தென்கடல் முத்துங் குணகடற் றுகிருங்
கங்கை வாரியுங் காவிரிப் பயனு
மீழத்துணவுங் காழகத் தாக்கமும்.—Pat.
(The gold and gems of the Himalayas, the sandal and agil of the Western ghats, the pearls of the Southern ocean, the coral of the Eastern sea, the productions of the Ganges and the Cauvery, the eatables from Ceylon and the spices from Burmah).
As Mr. Vincent Smith has rightly observed, 'Ancient Tamil literature and the Greek and Roman authors prove that in the first two centuries of the Christian era the ports on the Coromandal or Chola
- ↑ The Tamils had words to signify a boat, but not a ship: Patai, padaku (Gael. bata), punai, a catamaran, tollai (that which is made hollow), &c. The Tamil lexicographers made no distinction between a raft, a boat and a merchantman.
