394 



THE SINGHALESE CHRONICLES. 



[PART III. 



CHAP. X. 



A.D. 



515. 



THE DOMINATION OF THE MALABARS. 



IT has been already explained that the invaders who 

 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 

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

 states organised in Southern India, the kingdom of Pandya 1 , 

 whose sovereigns, from their intelligence, and their en- 

 couragement of native literature, have been appropriately 

 styled " the Ptolemies of India." Their dominions, which 

 covered the extremity of the peninsula, comprehended 

 the greater portion of the Coromandel coast, extending 

 to Canara on the western coast, and southwards to the 

 sea. 2 Their kingdom was subsequently contracted in 

 dimensions, first by the assertion of their independence by 

 the people of Malabar, and eventually by 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 modern times into the 

 petty government of the Naicks of Madura, 3 



The relation between the monarchs of this portion of the 

 Dekkan and the early colonisers of Ceylon was rendered 

 intimate by many concurring incidents. Wijayo himself 

 was connected by maternal descent with the king of 



1 Pandya, as a kingdom, was not 

 unkno\vn in classical times, and its 

 ruler was the EaaiXevQ navfttwv men- 

 tioned in the Penplus of the JEry- 

 thra>an Sea, and the king Pandion, 

 who sent an embassy to Augustus. 



PLIXT, vi. 20; PTOLEMT, rii. 1. 

 Vide Mup of India, Vol. I. p. 330. 



2 See an' Historical Sketch of the 

 Kingdom of Pandya, by Prof. II. II. 

 AVuxix, A.<inf. J<>rn., vol. Hi. 



3 See ante, p. 353, n. 



