Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/24

 CHAPTER II.

The whole of the country lying south of the central plateau of Asia was known as Jambudvipa or “The Land of the Rose Apple trees” which are said to abound in it. In Jambudvipa, the region south of the Vyndhyas was called Dakshinapatha or The Southern side ; and the extreme south of the peninsula, which was occupied by the Tamil people, was Tamilakam, or the abode of the Tamils. The limits of Tamilakam were from Venkata Hill in the North, to Cape Comorin in the South, and from the Bay of Bengal in the East, to the Arabian Sea in the West. Malayalam had not formed into a separate dialect at this period, and only one language, Tamil, was spoken from the Eastern to the Western Sea.

The people who lived north of Venkatam were called Vadukar. Immediately north of Tamilakam, above the Ghats, was Erumainad or the “Buffalo land” the equivalent of which name in Sanscrit was Mahisha Mandalam. West of Erumainad were Tulu Nad, Kudakamn (Coorg) and Konkanam. Other races in India were the Kalingar, Pangalar, Kankar, Kattiyar and Northern Aryas. The following Kingdoms and towns, outside Tamilakam are alluded to by Tamil poets :—The Kingdom of Magadha and the town of Kapilai which was the birthplace of Buddha : the Kingdom of