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was no mere extravagance, but reflected the early faith in the existence of departed spirits in serpent form. The funeral of Sabina Poppasa, with its fabulous store of spices burned, was not mere show, but was intended to provide Nero’s consort with a countless array of protect- ing spirits in the under-world.
This formless faith was the. common property of those trading between east and west. Incorporated by Brahmanism, it persisted almost unmodified among the caste of those trading by sea, defiled beyond hope in Brahman eyes; it permeates the Book of the Dead and the Gilgamesh epic; it is the background of the Old Testament and the Koran, and it is still addressed to their jinni by those whom the Bents visited in Dhofar and Socotra, whose ancestors were among its earliest devotees and carried it to the ends of the earth.
59. Colchi. — This is the modern Kolkai (8° 40’ N. , 78° 5’ E. ). By tradition this was the earliest seat of Dravidian power in Southern India, where Chera, Chola and Pandya, the legendary pro- genitors of the great dynasties, ruled in common before their domin- ions were separated. At the time of the Periplus it was one of the chief ports of the Pandyan kingdom, being more accessible to the capital than Nelcynda. Owing to the deposit of silt by the Tamra- parni River the sea retired from Kolkai, and in mediaeval times another nearby place, Kayal (the Coil of Marco Polo), became the port. At present the trade of this district passes through Tuticorin. {Imp. Gaz., XV, 387; a good map is given in Yule’s Marco Polo , Cordier’s edition, II, 373-4 . )
This is the country from which Hanuman, the monkey-god, made his leap across the sea from the Mahendragiri mountain to Cey- lon, and so helped Rama to the rescue of his consort Slta from Ravana, the demon king of Ceylon, as told in the Ramayana ; and here was consequently a center of the worship of Hanuman, which was carried afar by the Dravidian sea-folk. In the rich Wadi Tyin in Oman, the trade of which passed through the port of Kalhat — that Acila of Pliny (VI, 32), “from which persons embarked for India,” General Miles found a town Sibal, which, he observes, means “mon- key, ” and was the name of a “famous pre-Islamic idol. No monkeys exist in Oman, but a temple stood here dedicated to that image. ’ ’ ( Geographical Journal , VII, 522-537).
T wo shrines of Hanuman are still venerated at Surat on the Cambay coast, which was also in constant communication with Arabia.
According to local tradition, this was the original capital of Dra- vida-desam , and the birthplace of the dynasties ruling in Southern India at the time of the Periplus. This “dominion of the Pandyas”
