CHAPTER II.
Geography of Tamilakam.
The whole of the country lying south of the central plateau of Asia was known as Jambudvipa or “The Land of the Rose Apple trees” which are said to abound in it. In Jambudvipa, the region south of the Vyndhyas was called Dakshinapatha or The Southern side[1]; and the extreme south of the peninsula, which was occupied by the Tamil people, was Tamilakam, or the abode of the Tamils.[2] The limits of Tamilakam were from Venkata Hill[3] in the North, to Cape Comorin in the South, and from the Bay of Bengal in the East, to the Arabian Sea in the West. Malayalam had not formed into a separate dialect at this period, and only one language, Tamil, was spoken from the Eastern to the Western Sea.
The people who lived north of Venkatam were called Vadukar.[4] Immediately north of Tamilakam, above the Ghats, was Erumainad[5] or the “Buffalo land” the equivalent of which name in Sanscrit was Mahisha Mandalam. West of Erumainad were Tulu Nad, Kudakamn (Coorg) and Konkanam. Other races in India were the Kalingar, Pangalar, Kankar, Kattiyar and Northern Aryas.[6] The following Kingdoms and towns, outside Tamilakam are alluded to by Tamil poets :—The Kingdom of Magadha and the town of Kapilai which was the birthplace of Buddha[7]: the Kingdom of
- ↑ McCrindle's Periplus, page 124.
Dr. Bhandarkar's Early History of the Dekkan, page1 - ↑ Chilappathikaram iii. 37. Manimekalai xvii 62. Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus call it Limirike, but as pointed out by Dr. Caldwell (Dravidian Grammar, Introduction, page 14), it is evidently Damirike. In the Indian segment of the Roman maps called from their discoverer, the Pentinger Tables, the portion of India to which this name is applied is called Damirike—McCrindle’s Periplus, page 126.
- ↑ Chilappatikaram vii, 1 and 2, Venkata Hill is the modern Tirupati about 100 miles North-west of Madras.
- ↑ Akam, 294.
- ↑ Ibid, 252.
- ↑ Chilappathikaram xxv. 156 to 158. The Pangalar appear to have been the people who inhabited Lower Bengal. The Kankar were those who occupied the banks of the Ganges higher up evidently the Gangaridae mentioned by Ptolemy. The Kattiyar were doubtless the people who gave the name Kattiwar to Guzerat.
- ↑ Manimekalai xxvi. 12 to 44,
