Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/42

Rh North of the Pandyan kingdom lay the country of the Vedduvar or Vedar (the Batoi of Ptolemy), which was also known as Panri-Nadu or “the land of pigs“ — the capital of this province was Nâgai or Nâga-paddinam. Very little is known of this town from Tamil poems of this period. It appears therefore that there was not much of communication between the Vedar and the rest of the Tamil people.

Beyond Panri-Nadu was Punal-Nadu or the Chola kingdom. The name Punal-Nadu signifies the land of floods. This province, which comprised the region around the mouth of the river Kaviri, was so called as it was subject to floods caused by the periodical freshes in the Kaviri. No dam had been built across the river at this period and there is no mention of the branch Coleroon which appears to have been formed by the river, many centuries, later, after the construction of a dam near Trichinopoly. The Chola capital was Uraiyoor on the southern bank of the Kaviri. The site of this capital is still known as Uraiyoor and is a suburb of the modern town of Trichinopoly. It was strongly fortified with a wall and ditch, and a jungle of thorny trees surrounding the ditch. Here was an ancient shrine of the Nigranthas which contained an image of Argha, with a triple umbrella under the shade of an Asoka tree. A town of even greater importance than Uraiyoor was Kaviripaddinam, which stood at the mouth of the river Kaviri and was a great emporium of trade. We have a full description of this town in the poems Chilappathikaramn and Paddinappalai. It was also known as Pukâr or Kâkanthi. The latter name is said to have been given to Kavirippaddinam, because it was once ruled by a prince called Kakanthan. The name Kakandi occurs in the Bharaut Inscriptions, which were engraved in the first or second century B. C. One of the inscriptions records the gift of the nun Sorna from Kakandi.

Kaviripaddinam (the Kamara of the Periplus and Khaboris of Ptolemy) or Pukâr was built on the northern bank of the