Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/48

Rh the interior below the ghats, Venkadam or the modern Tirupaty was the northern limit of the Tamil land. It is most remarkable that after the lapse of eighteen centuries, during which many, a kingdom rose and fell, and the Tamils, Telugus, Mahrattas, Musalmans, French and English successively rose to political power, the language boundary has remained unaltered on the eastern coast. The same cannot be said of the boundary of the Tamil land on the western coast, for, it has advanced there from Badagara to Kasaragod, a distance of about sixty miles.

North-west of Punal-Nadu and west of Aruva-Nadu was Maladu or Malayaman Nadu. This was the territory of a chief known as Malayaman or the mountain chief. He was a feudatory of the Chola king. The capital of this province was Koval on the banks of the river Pennai. This town is now called Thirukoilur and is situated in the Tirukoilur Taluk of the modern South Arcot District. Another large town in Maladu was Mullur or the thor town.

West of Maladu was Seetha-Nadu or the cold region which evidently included the northern half of the modern Coimbatore District and the Southern portion of the Nilgiri District, where the climate is much cooler than in other parts of Tamilakam. Between Seetha-Nadu and Kuda-Nadu, which, as I have already described, extended along the, Western, coast was KalkâNadu or the “rocky province.” This part of the country is remarkable for the rocks and hills with which it abounds. It included the North-western portion of the Travancore State, which is to this day known to the natives as Kakkanadu.

Of the sub-divisions of the several Nadus no complete, record is available except for a portion of Mavilankai, which I have given above. Tamil poets, allude, however, to Kundur Kûrram in the Chera kingdom, and Milalai Kûrram in that of the Chola, from which it will be seen that the Chera, Chola and Pandya dominions were also divided into kûrrams or districts.