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Rh name as well as of Manalur (which Sanskrit scholars think to be later interpolations) in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, some Tamil pandits are endeavouring to make much capital about the great antiquity of Tamil culture and civilization. As for the other particulars, we may dismiss them at present as more fictions than facts.

To arrive at the date of the second academy the commentator of Silappadikaram gives us an indirect hint in his preface to that work. While speaking of the story of Udayana he says that it was composed in imitation of the classical works of the second academy, and refers to it elsewhere as Perum-Kathai (Skt. Brihat-Katha). Evidently it is a Tamil rendering of Gunadhya's Brihat-Katha. It is therefore obvious that the poets of the second Sangam must have flourished sometime before, or contemporarily with, Gunadhya. In the opinion of Dr. Buhler the age of Gunadhya goes back to the first or second century A. D. He served as minister under king Satavahana (A. D. 113) of the Andhrabhritya dynasty at Paithan on the banks of the Godavari. 'He received,' it is said, 'seven stories in the language of the Paisachas (probably ancient Telugu) from Kanabhuti and wrote them down in 100,000 slokas each with his own blood.'

One of the poets of this academy, Mosiyar, has contributed about fourteen lyrics to Purananuru. Neither the kings alluded to by him, nor the incidents described therein afford any clue to work out his