Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/46

Rh country was inhabited by the Aruvalar, a nomadic tribe, who were also called Kurumbar. It was the Chola king Karikal the Great, of whom I shall speak fully later on, who first settled these wandering tribes and divided their country into twenty-four Koddams or districts and parcelled it out to families of the Vellâla tribe. The list of the twenty-four Koddams and seventy-nine Nadus is as follows :—