appeared to the philosophical Tamils—Rakshasas of the Ramayana—to be sacreligious.'
Leaving these theories severely alone, it is our duty in the interest of scientific truth to set forth what we have gleaned from the two great epics and the writings of the ancient Tamils.
Of the two grand epics, the Mahabharata alone seems to have been widely known and regarded, in the Tamil country, as a sacred work. Some of the Mahabharata stories and the divine personages mentioned therein like Sri Krishna and Bala Rama occur very often in the early Tamil works of the academic period prior to the hith or sixth century A. D. On the other hand, the Ramayana was almost unknown to them, except probably to certain Tamil poets of that period as a quasi-historical composition. The author of Silappadikaram (A.D. 220) while describing Kaveripatam, after it was left by Kovalan and Kannaki, compares it to Ayodhya after its desertion by Rama and Sita as in the following lines :—
அரசேதஞ்சமென் றருங்கா னடைந்த
வருந்திறல் பிரிந்த வயோத்தி போல்.
And Ravana is mentioned by the author of Madurai Kanji (A. D. 150). He says that owing to the diplomatic skill of Agastya, the royal priest of the Pandya, their Tamil country was saved from being conquered by Ravana.
தென்னவற் பெயரிய துன்னருந் துப்பிற்
றொன் முது கடவுட் பின்னர் மேய
வரைத்தா ழருவிப்பொருப்பிற் பொருந.
