Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/199

1837.] dionis, of which Madura was then and ever afterwards the capital, appears to have comprehended the greater part of the southern portion of the Coromandel coast, and to have extended across the peninsula to Canara and Malabar, and southward to the sea. It was subsequently confined to narrower limits by the independence of Malabar and the rise of the slate of Chéra to the west, by the growth of the principality of Ramnad to the south, and the aggrandisement of the Chola sovereignty to the east, till it sank, in modern times, into the petty government of the Nayaks of Madura. At various periods of its history it may be presumed, the following definitions of its limits have been laid down by native authorities. One account places Raméswara on the east, Kanya Kumári on the south, Satyamangalam on the west, and the river Palar on the north. Another, which seems the more accurate, makes the Valar river the northern boundary, and Paruvali the western; but agrees with the preceding in carrying the Pandya territory to the sea, both to the south and east, including, consequently, the present Ramnad, and part of Tinivelly.

The Coromandel provinces on the eastern peninsula, from the Godaveri to Cape Comorin, are described in all the traditionary accounts of this part of India, as one vast tract of forest to which the name Dandaka, or Dandakàranya was applied. It was in these thickets that Ráma and Sitá resided during their exile, that he commenced his warfare against the Rákshasas, or savages and fiends, who divided with hermits and sages the possession of the wilderness, and that Sitá was carried off in resentment of Ráma's successful attacks upon the wild tenants of these shades. After the subjugation of the savage inhabitants of Dandakáranya and the conquest of Lanká, various individuals from the north, it is said, attracted southwards by the performance of pilgrimage to the scenes of RamaRáma [sic]'s triumphs, were tempted, by the unoccupied state of the country, to settle themselves and their families upon the undisputed territory. They accordingly cleared and cultivated different tracts, and thus laid the foundation of future principalities. To such circumstances the Pandya kingdom owed its rise. An adventurer, named Pandya, of the Velálar, or agricultural tribe, first established himself in that portion of the south to which his