Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/62

 32 HISTORY OF INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. the Mahabharata. He, it is said, when on his travels, married a princess of the land, and she gave birth to the eponymous hero of their race, and hence their name. But in later times all the dynastic families got genealogies framed to trace their descent from gods and early heroes. It is true, indeed, that they pro- duce long lists of kings, which they pretend stretch back till the times of the Pandavas. These were examined by the late Professor Wilson in 1836, and he conjectured that they might extend back to the 5th or 6th century before our era. 1 But all that has since come to light has tended to show that even this may be an over-estimate of their antiquity. If, however, " the Choda, Pada, and Keralaputra " of the second edict of Ajoka represent the Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, of more modern times, this triarchy existed in the 3rd century B.C. In fact, all we really do know is that, in classical times, there was a " Regio Pandionis " in the country afterwards known as the Pandyan, kingdom of Madhura, and it has been conjectured that the king who sent an embassy to Augustus in B.C. 27 z was not a Porus, which would indicate a northern race, but this very king of the south. Be this, however, as it may, we do know, by the frequent mention of this country by classical authors, that it was at least sufficiently civilised in the early centuries of our era to carry on a consider- able amount of commerce with the western nations, and there is consequently no improbability that one or more powerful dynasties may then have been established in the south. If one, that dynasty was certainly the Pandyan. The Chola and the Chera became important states only at a later date preceded by the Pallavas. The discovery in 1892, by Mr. L. Rice, of a copy of the Ajoka inscriptions so far south as Mysore, indicates that even in the 3rd century B.C., the Kanarese country was in communication with, and subject to, the Maurya empire ; 3 and the civilisation of the north must even then have penetrated into the south. When we turn to their literature we find little to en- courage any hope that we may penetrate further back into their history than we have hitherto been able to do. Dr Caldwell ascribes the oldest work in the Tamil, or any southern language, to the 8th or pth century of our era, 4 and it undoubtedly belongs to the Jains, who are originally a 1 'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' vol. iii. p. 202. 2 For an exhaustive description of this subject see Priaulx, ' The Indian Travels of Apollonius of Tyana, and the Indian Embassies to Rome' (London, 1873), pp. 65-87. We are now in a position to prove a connection between the north of India and Rome at that time. With the south it seems to have been only trade, but of this hereafter. 3 ' Epigraphia Carnatica,' vol. xi. pp. if. ' Dravidian Grammar,' 2nd ed. London, 1875, pp. 129 et seqq.