Page:Tamil studies.djvu/241

214 political, social, and religious condition of the early Tamil people. Till about the second or third century A. D. there were only three principal Tamil kingdoms, namely, Chera, Chola and Pandya each of which had, of course, three or four protectorates under it governed by feudal chieftains. They were constantly at war with one another losing or annexing villages and districts. on every occasion, till at last there came on the scene a foreign race, called the Pallavas, from the north-west, and usurped the northern Tamil districts then belonging to an illegitimate branch of the Cholas. Being intruders and people of foreign extraction, the Pallavas were never recognized as Dravidians by the Tamil nation, and consequently they are not even mentioned in the Tamil literature of those times. Nay, the word 'Pallava' had even acquired a bad sense,

பல்லவர் கயவர் பதகர் நீசர்.—Ping.

Caste system was unknown to them. The Tamils were, however, divided into tribes according to the nature of the soil in which they happened to live. A shepherd of the pasture land might become a tiller of the rice field or a fisherman of the beach. Of the eight kinds of marriages mentioned by Manu, marriage by capture (Gandharvan), Asuram and Rakshasam, seem to have been adopted by them ; and yet their women-kind had much freedom. They ate beef and all sorts of animal food and drank fermented liquor. They used to bury or burn the dead ; and