Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/136

Rh of Government, free from violence and bloodshed, for several centuries. Their civilization was certainly older than that of the Ariyas, for amongst the latter the fighting men were next in rank to the priests, whereas amongst the Tamils, the farmers were next to the religious men, and the military class was below even that of the herdsmen and artizans.

The Brahmins who had begun to settle in Tamilakam, at least five or six centuries earlier than the period which I describe, tried to foist their caste system on the Tamils. In the earliest Tamil Grammar extant, which was composed by a Brahmin named Tholkâppiyan, in the first or second century B.C., frequent allusions are made to the Arivar or “Sages.” But in the chapter in which he describes the classes of society, the author omits all mention of the Arivar, and places the Brahmins who wear the sacred thread as the first caste. The kings, he says very guardedly, and not warriors, form the second caste, as if the three kings Chera, Chola and Pandya could form a caste; all who live by trade belong to the third caste. He does not say that either the kings or the merchants wear the sacred thread. Then he singles out the Vellâlas and states that they have no other calling than the cultivation of the soil. Here he does not say that the Vellâlas are Sudras, but indirectly implies that the ordinary Vellâlas should be reckoned as Sudras, nd that those Vellalas who were kings should be honored as Kshatriyas. This is the first attempt made by the Brahmins to bring the Tamils under their caste system. But in the absence of the Kshatriya, Vaisya, and Sudra castes in Tamilakam, they could not possibly succeed; and to this day the Vellâla does not take meals or drink water at the house of a Padaiyadchi, who calls himself a Kshatriya or a merchant who passes for a Vaisya. Tholkâppiyan alludes also, in his grammar, to the Ayar and Vedduvar, or the shepherds and huntsmen, but in the chapter on castes, he makes no mention either of them or of the Maravar, Valaiyar, Pulaiyar and other classes, as he could not do it without being inconsistent to the Brahmimcal division of castes

The dress worn by the Taniil people varied according to