Chap. I.

SOUTHERN IilNDU STYLE.

85

taking the amount and the cireumstances of the population into
account. At no period of their history did the Tamul races rise to
anything like importance politically, nor liave we any reason for
believing that these countries were ever more populous than they are
at present. In literature they have done nothing original, all that
they possess being borrowed directly from the Sanscrit of the Arian
races of the north. In science, it need scarcely be added, they have
made no advance whatever. Yet this country is covered with temples
which, for extent and amount of labour bestowed on them, may rival
Karnac and the most extensive temples of Bgypt, and surpass even tlie
cathedrals of the micldle ages in complexity of design and variety of
detail. Their relative merit as works of art is another question, which
must I fear be decided against them; but, as specimens of patient
devotional labour, they, so far as I know, stand as yet unrivalled in
the architectural history of the world.

Historical Notice.

If a line be drawn east and west from Madras to Mangalore, it will
cut off a portion of India forming nearly an equilateral triangle of 400
miles a side, within which are situated almost all the great temples
of Southem India.

To the north of this line the country seems never to have been
sufficiently thickly peopled, at least in ancient times, for any rich or
powerful states to have been established within its boundaries.' Con-
sequently, we do not find many temples there, and those that are known
to exist have been so imperfectly drawn or described that they cannot
at present be rendered available for elucidating the history of the
style.

The country to the south of this line has from the earliest times
been inhabited (above the Ghats at least) by people of the pure Tarnul
race, who, so far as we know, are aboriginal in the country. As far
as their traditions reach they have been divided into three kingdoms
or states, the Pandyas, the Cholas, ancl the Cheras, forming a little
triarchy of powers, neither interfere’d with by the other nations of tlie
earth, nor interfering witli those beyond their limits. During the
greater part of their existence all their relations of war and peace
have been among themselves, and they have grown up a separate
people, as unlike the rest of the worlcl as can well be conceived.

Of the three, the most southern was callecl the Panclyan kingdom,
ancl was the earliest civilized, ancl seems to have attainecl sufficient
importance about the time of the Christian era to have attractecl the
special attention of the Greek and Eoman geographers. TIow much
earlier it became a state, or had a regular succession of rulers, we
know not,1 but it seems certainly to liave attainecl to some consistency
as early as five or six centuries before the Christian era, and maintained

1 The best account of this state is that are found in Taylor’s Anaiysis of the Mack-
given by Professor Wilson in vo). iii. of the enzic MSS. and elsewhere.

Journal E. A. S., hut many scattered notices