Page:Origin and spread of the Tamils.djvu/99



88 ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF THE TANILS A.D. if not earlier. Roman merchants came by sea to Kattigara (Cochin China) about the beginning of the second century A.D. In A.D. 166, one of them landed at Kiao-chu which is - the present Tong-king. Southern China seems to have been very early influenced by the Buddhist monks who either sailed from Indonesian Hindu colonies or direct from the motherland; and the Buddhist culturc of the South China bears a distinct stamp of South India. (See P. K. Mukerji, Indian Literature in China and the Far East, pp. 25-26). Indian Culture-relations with China : Maritime connection between Southern China and India and Indonesia began even before the second century A.D. During the period of the T'ang dynasty the sea-route from China to India was greatly used by traders and pilgrims. The peninsula of Further India and the Islands of the Archipelgo had been hinduized and some of the places had an international reputation as centres of Hindu culture, such as the kingdom of Srivijaya, the Kalinga province of Java, and Fuoan or ancient Annam. Everywhere Sanskrit was studied and Chinese pilgrims found scholars to help them and shelter to rest under. l'tsing himself came by this route. By 618-719 A.D. more than sixty monks had gone to India and her colonies, about 400 works translated into Chinese from Sanskrit, of which 380 have survived. The last translation work into Chinese from Sanskrit was under the Yuen or Mongol dynasty (1280-1368 A.D.) 12, 13. Kings Sena I and II of Ceylon and Wars with South India : Sena I is also supposed to have begun his reign from A.D. 819-820 (by reckoning backwards from Parākrama-bāhu the Great, according to the Pajávaliya). In his time there