Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/75

Rh cess. The Manimekalai also alludes to her as Mathurâpathi. Taking together the tradition as reported by Megasthenes and Pliny and the allusions in ancient Tamil works, it appears that a princess who belonged to the race of the Pandus, then reigning at Mathura on the banks of the Jumna, led a colony and founded Dakshina-Mathura on the banks of the Vaigai. Like Dido, who fled from Phœnicia and founded Carthage, it is most probable that the princess was driven by some domestic affliction to settle in a distant land. The later traditionary accounts speak of this princess as a woman born with three breasts. It is quite possible that owing to this personal deformity she as obliged to seek a husband in a foreign country. She appears to have married a king of the Marar tribe, which was already settled in the Tamil country, and hence her descendants assumed the titles of Pandyan and Maran.

The few Aryas who accompanied the Pandyan princess appear to have merged in the Tamil people by inter-marriages with them. The Pandyan Kings of the first and second century A. D. considered themselves as Tamils, and not Aryas, although they claimed descent from the Pandus. Not only the Pandyas, but also the Cholas and Cheras of this period considered themselves as rivals to the Aryas. Reference is made to frequent collisions between the Tamil Kings and the Aryas, in which the latter were defeated. One of the Pandyan Kings had the title Ariyappadai-Kadanta- Nedunj Cheliyan, which meant that he had defeated an Aryan army. A Chola King is said to have routed the Aryas in a battle at Vallam (near the modern Tanjore.) The Chera king Chenkudduvan defeated the Aryas on the northern bank of the Ganges, with the assistance of the Karnas, princes of Magadha. Although the Aryas did not settle in the Tamil country by force of arms, many Brahmin families appear to have come in, as peaceful settlers. There was a large colony of them around the Pothya hill, where they believed, the Vedic sage Agastya had resided. They did not mix freely with the natives of the soil