394 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[Part III. 



CHAP. X. 



THE DO.MIXATIOX OF THE MALABARS. 



A.T1. It has been aL-eady explained that tlie invaders wlio 

 515. engaged in forays into Ceylon, though known by the 

 general epithet of Malabars (or as they are designated 

 in Pali, damilos, " Tamils "), were also natives of places 

 in India remote from that now known as Malabar. They 

 were, in reality, the inhabitants of one of the earliest 

 states organised in Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya\ 

 whose sovereigns, from their intelhgence, and their en- 

 coiu'agement of native literature, have been appropriately 

 styled " the Ptolemies of Ineha." Their dominions, Avhich 

 covered the extremity of the peninsula, compreliended 

 the greater portion of the Coromandel coast, extending 

 to Canara on the western coast, and southwards to the 

 sea.^ Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in 

 dimensions, by the successive independence of Malabar, 

 the rise of the state of Chera to the west, of Eamnad 

 to the south, and of Chola in the east, till it sank in mo- 

 dern times into the petty government of the Naicks of 

 Madura.^ 



The relation between this portion of the Dekkan 

 and the early colonisers of Ceylon was rendered inti- 

 mate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo himself 

 was connected by maternal descent with the Idng of 



^ Pandya, as a kingdom, was not 

 vmkno-WTi in classical times, and its 

 ruler was the Bn(TiAfi»c Uai'iHtov men- 

 tioned in the Pen'plns of the Ery- 

 thrfcan Sea, and the king- Pandion, 



who sent an embassy to Augustus. — 

 Plint, vi. 26 ; Ptolemy, vii. 1. 



- See an Ilidorical Sketch of the 

 Kinf/dom of Pandi/u, by Prof. II. II. 

 WiLSOX, Asiat. Jonni., vol. iii. 



3 See coife, p. 353^ n. 



