Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/430

 372 THE KINGDOMS OF THE SOUTH state of Cochin, which is less complete, does not com- mence until more than two centuries later. HI THE CHOLA KINGDOM According to tradition, the Chola country (Chola- mandalam) was bounded on the north by the Pennar, and on the south by the southern Vellaru River, or, in other words, it extended along the eastern coast from Nellore to Pudukottai, where it abutted on the Pandya territory. On the west it extended to the bor- ders of Coorg. The limits thus defined include Madras, and several other British districts on the east, as well as the whole of the Mysore state. The most ancient capital was Uraiyur, or old Trichinopoli, so far as is known with certainty. But the existence of well-known traditional boun- daries must not be taken to justify the inference that they always agreed with the frontiers of the Chola kingdom, which, as a matter of fact, varied enormously. The limits of the Chola country, as determined by tra- dition, seem to mark ethnic rather than political fron- tiers, at least on the north and west, where they do not differ widely from the lines of demarcation between the Tamil and the other Dravidian languages. Tamil, however, is as much the vernacular of the Pandya as of the Chola region, and no clear ethnical distinction can be drawn between the peoples residing north and south of the Vellaru. The kingdom of the Cholas, which, like that of the Pandyas, was unknown to Panini, was familiar by name