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206 Dr. Grierson, Dr. Rost and Professor Frazer, have wittingly or unwittingly followed the learned Bishop's statements and propagated the obvious errors he had committed, and did not take the least trouble to correct them, on account of his high authority and of their total ignorance of the extent and importance of Tamil language and literature. To these may be added their instinctive slight for a non-Aryan race and culture.

Notwithstanding the able and trenchant criti. cism of some of Dr. Caldwell's theories by the late Mr. Sundaram Pillai in his 'Some Mile-stones in the History of Tamil Literature', some European scholars, still draw their statements largely from the works of Drs. Burnell and Caldwell. No doubt, European scholars have done excellent service in the cause of Comparative Philology and the Indians are deeply indebted to them for the study of their languages on critical and historical methods. But so far as a thorough and intimate knowledge of the Vernaculars and their idioms are concerned, we cannot expect them all to be Beschis or Popes. In the days of Drs. Caldwell and Burnell the science of epigraphy was in its infancy and they were not justified in being dog natic in their assertions relating to historical questions.