260 



MANUAL OF THE NILAGIRI DISTRICT. 



CHAP. XI. 



Early 

 History. 



Divisions of 

 South India. 



the ab.sence of snake-worship may indicate that they were con- 

 nected with a race which did not adopt the religion of the 

 Ndgas. Moreover when we consider that there are the strongest 

 grounds for believing that they were inhabiting the Hills when 

 Buddhism and Jainism ceased to be the State beliefs of the 

 powerful neighbouring Kdrndta kingdoms, the absence of 

 marked traces of these religions may indicate that the Todas 

 left the plains before they became organized cults, for had they 

 migrated thither during their ascendancy, surely some more 

 distinctive traces of these creeds would survive amongst them. 



Of the great race divisions of South India, those which espe- 

 cially concern the Nilagiris are the Dravidian or Tamulian, the 

 MalayAlam, and the Kanarese. The Tamulian race, which seems 

 to have ultimately divided itself into three great sections — Pandya. 

 Chola and Chera — occupied the whole champagne country of 

 the peninsula south of the Eastern Ghdt line and west of the 

 Western Ghats ; the Malayalam, the country west of the latter 

 range and south of Mangalore ; the Kanarese, the tract north of 

 this town along the west coast as far as the Konkan, and the 

 southern angle of the Dekhan table-land, more especially Mysore- 

 These distributions are stated roughly, but a glance at the map 

 will show that the Nilagiri range is the point of trijunction of 

 the Tamulian divisions. We are only concerned with two, viz., 

 Chola and Chera. The Cholas had their principal seats in the 

 lower Kaveri, in the Trichinopoly and Tanjore Divisions ; but as 

 mentioned later, their dominions embraced the whole Carnatic 

 plain north of this river. The Cheras occupied the country known 

 as Kerala.^ Dr. Caldwell remarks : — 



" The Kerala of the ancients seems to have divided itself into two 

 portions, one of which, the district lying along the sea coast, has 

 always retained the Sanskritic name of Kerala, whilst it also called 

 itself by the Tamil name of Chei'a ; the other, an inland district includ- 

 ing Coimbatore, Salem, and a portion of Mysore, seems to have dropped 

 the name of Kerala altogether and called itself exclusively either 

 Ckera or Kongu. It is to the latter district that the papers of 

 Professor Dawson * and Dr. Eggeling on the Chera dynasty refer. 

 Though, however, the districts and dynasties differed, I have no doubt 

 that the navies Kerala and Chera were originally one and the same, 

 and it is certain that they are always regarded as synonymous in 

 native Tamil and Malayalam lists of synonyms- In the various lists 

 of the boundaries of Chera given by Tamil writers, the Malabar coast 

 from Calicut southward — that is, the whole of Southern Kerala — is 

 invariably included- Probably Kera was the earliest form of the word 

 Kerala, a Sanskritic derivative- The word Kongu, one of the names of 



' Introduction, Gramynar Dravidian Languages, p. 22. 

 2 Vol. VIII, R.A.S. Journal. 



