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 for, where a small holding of a rice-field may well be cultivated by its owner and arable land may continue to be sub-divide into little plots for generations, pasture-land cannot thus be subdivided, for grassfields below a minimum size are unfit for pasturing a herd. Hence the joint-family system became a necessity. The patriarch of a tribe thus acquired great influence and became its king. Hence the word Kō, cowherd, came to be applied to a king when kingship evolved.

The house where the king resided was the Kōṭṭai. As the royal power increased, as the science of warfare developed, the royal residence, Kōṭṭai, became a fort. The fort was surrounded by strong walls, aran; hence the fort was called araṇmanai; araṇ originally meant both beauty and defence, and hence came to be applied to the walls of a fortress, also called madil. These walls were made of mud, mixed with boiled ragi flour and were so strong and elastic that they could resist battering very much better than inelastic brick or stone walls. In the Tinnevelly district there exists even to-day many a madil made after the ancient recipe, which are very difficult to pull down. The fort was surrounded by an agaḷ, agappā, or agaḷi, a moat, (from ag, to dig, whence the following Tamil words are derived, Agam home, inside, mind, the inner life, love, etc., Agakkāḻ, heart-wood, agaḍu, inside, agaṇi, interior, heart-wood, also a rice-field dug out of the soil, agappu, depth, agalam, breadth, agal, a bowl, agavai, internal quality, agaḷ, to dig), agappai, a ladle scooped out. The agaḻ was also called uḍu, ōḍai, kayam, kēṇi, parigam, parigai, puriśai and pāmburi, (that which surrounds a fort as closely as the skin round a snake). The wealth of names for the moat shows that it was a very familiar object to the ancient Tamils. The entrance to the fort was called Koṭṭi and the batter, i.e., receding slope from the ground upwards behind a wall, topped by a flat platform, Kottaḷam. Ñayil is the name of another part of a fortification: what it means is not known clearly. Within the royal residence there were many rooms, each called aṛai, (from aṛu, to cut off), a portion of the house walled off from other portions for special purposes. One of these rooms was the store-room, Koṭṭaṛai, or Koṭṭaḍi, (whence perhaps was derived the Sanskrit word Koshṭa). The state-room was the Koluvaṛai or Koluchchāvaḍi, where the king sat in state on occasions of ceremonial. This was called koluviruttal, or Vīṛṛiruttal. The Koluchchāvaḍi was no doubt decorated with flags (koḍi, tugil, togai, śatti, kattigai, kadali on these occasions, as well as with flowers and bunting, flowers and leaves playing a large part in South Indian life as will be shown later. On such formal occasions, the king wore a crown. As the crown was called muḍi, band, we may be sure that it was a band