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8 of the Peninsula. Other princes, although their conquests were less extensive, yet succeeded in establishing, and for a time maintaining, empires which might fairly claim to rank as paramount powers. With the history of such princes the following narrative is chiefly concerned, and the affairs of the minor states are either slightly noticed or altogether ignored.

The paramount power in early times, when it existed, invariably had its seat in Northern India—the region of the Ganges plain lying to the north of the great barrier of jungle-clad hills which shut off the Deccan from Hindustan. That barrier may be defined conveniently as consisting of the Vindhya ranges, or may be identified, still more compendiously, with the river Narmada, or Nerbudda, which falls into the Gulf of Cambay.

The ancient kingdoms of the south, although rich and populous, inhabited by Dravidian nations not inferior in culture to their Aryan rivals in the north, were ordinarily so secluded from the rest of the civilized world, including Northern India, that their affairs remained hidden from the eyes of other nations, and, native annalists being lacking, their history, previous to the year 1000 of the Christian era, has almost wholly perished. Except on the rare occasions when an unusually enterprising sovereign of the north either penetrated or turned the forest barrier, and for a moment lifted the veil of secrecy in which the southern potentates lived enwrapped, very little is known concerning political events in the south during the long period