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60 of Kaveripatam before its destruction which occurred in the early part of the second century A. D. மகதவினை ஞரு மராட்டக் கம்மரு மவந்திக் கொல்லரும் யவனத் தச்சரும்.-Mani. We do not include in this all later immigrants of comparatively recent times such as the Telugu castes and Sourashtra weavers who followed the Vijayanagar Governors, the stray Kshatriyas and Vaisyas who hailed from the North during the Mogul rule, and the Mahratta Sudras who came in the train of the Mahratta leaders. We are concerned here only with the Tamil speaking castes and tribes of an earlier period. It is therefore certain that even those Tamil castes who trace their ancestry straight to the Vedic and Pauranic gods, calling themselves 'Viswa-Brahmans,' ‘Dravida Kshatriyas' and 'Arya Vaisyas,' must have grown out of the Tamil tribes and castes which are described in ancient Tamil literature and inscriptions.

Broadly speaking, the Brahmans and the Sudras of the Tamil country belong each to a distinct race. In a way each had its own system of thought, religion, and ethical and social rules, so that an attempt to engraft the one on the other must look strange and preposterous. This fact has rightly been grasped by the English educated portion of the non-Brahman castes, who, as already pointed out, have been endeavouring to assert an indigenous Dravidian civilisation. This is only natural; and they merit the