Page:The Chronology Of The Early Tamils.djvu/29



1. If the literatures of the other races in India should stand condemned for want of history, the Literature of the Tamils also should allow itself to be to be arraigned on that common count. Many of these races, it is true, have built up characteristic civilizations of their own in their respective areas, and then made history in a real sense; but few of them had the taste or inclination to systematically record what they had accomplished in set works devoted to history. The Tamils, who have occupied the Southern corner of Peninsular India from a time beyond the reach of traditions when their migration into the land is said to have taken place, have also evolved therein a social polity and civilization which still possess features entirely distinct from those of the Aryan system of the North. It is further clear that in the long stretch of centuries over which this culture spreads, the Tamils have borrowed freely from others and given them largely of their store in return. When a race meets another and comes to live by its side for centuries, cultural drifts are bound to occur either way, unless a particular race takes deliberately the unwise step of severe isolation from its neighbours. Every historian knows that such an isolation, if persisted in, leads in the long run to decline and decay