Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/41

Rh fishery was a source of such large revenue to the Pandyan kingdom, that the heir-apparent usually resided here. The site of this town, which stood on the sea coast, is now about five miles inland. After the sea had retired from Korkhai, a new emporium arose on the coast. This was Kâyal, which was a flourishing sea-port when Marco Polo visited it in the thirteenth century. Kayal in turn became in time too far from the sea, and Kayal also was abandoned. The seaport Sosikourai, I am unable to identify. The river Solen is evidently Tâmraparni, which was called Sembil in Tamil. Of the inland towns mentioned by Ptolemy, Selour may be identified with Seyaloor, which is frequently alluded to in Tamil poems. The sea between Lanka and the Pandyan coast was known as the Arkali, which Ptolemy calls the Orgalic Gulf. The chief town on this coast was “the far-famed port of Sâliyur, over crowded with ships, which have crossed the perilous dark ocean, and from which costly articles of merchandise are landed, while flags wave on their mast-tops, and drums resound on the shore“ announcing the arrival of the goods to the merchants. Ptolemy calls it Salour. Of the inland cities whose names appear in Ptolemy’s lists, the following may be identified with certainty:


 * Tainoor—Thenoor (in the Tirushuli Taluq, Madura District) spoken of in Tamil poems as the capital of a chieftain called Thêr-van-komân.


 * Tangala or Taga—Thiruth-thankâl (in the Satur Taluq, Tinnevelly District). The author of the Chilappathikaram states that the revenue of the towns of Thankâl and Viyalur were once assigned by a Pandyan king to the temple of the goddess at Madura.


 * Modoura—The royal city Of the Pandyan is old Madura which is six miles south-east of the modern town of Madura.