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xii ﻿mention their mighty and majestic God-aspiring temples - constitute even today the enduring monuments of beauty and glorious divine enthusiasm. To construct and to explain the history of such a people, characterised by such a noteworthy progress in civilisation and possessed of such an enduringly valuable and edifying culture, must indeed be always fascinating; and innumerable avenues of enquiry and research are certain to open out before the watchful eyes of the trained and sincerely earnest student trying to help on this work of historic up-building and exposition. Here in this field of research, criticism and construction, there is ample scope for ethnological, anthropological, and sociological investigations of more than one kind; there is abundant room for the work of antiquarian discovery and illumination in which all the various types of archæologists may take part to their heart's content; and written records of various kinds are also available in quantities large enough to satisfy the hunger of many voracious enquirers after historic truth, or literary beauty or linguistic development, The field for cultivation is both wide and well endowed; but earnest and capable labourers are unhappily as yet too few.

I have no doubt that these essays will act as an eyeopener to many inhabitants of the Tamil land who take a true and cultured pride in the history of their own country. I am far from saying that all the various opinions, which Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar has expressed on so many topics in this volume, will be