114 Analysis of the Mackenzie Manuscripts. [Feb. 



words, and letters. The general sense is however, preserved . It is in 

 poetical Tamil, of the plainer sort, and merely the legend of a Jaina fane. 

 The Rayers name is not mentioned, nor any date. Accordingly the 

 only use of the document is to illustrate native manners, and the mode 

 of the introduction of the Jaina system at a remote period. The tribe 

 of Vedars (a pure Tamil word having no connexion with the Sanskrit 

 word Veda) were not Hindus ; but, according to indications in these 

 papers, they were the earliest inhabitants of the peninsula, giving way 

 before the Curumbars, even as these also were superseded by the pure 

 Hindus. In Hindu writings the term Vedar is synonimous with every 

 thing low, vile and contemptible under a human form. 



Section 10. — An account of a hillock of white pebbles (fossil remains) 

 at Callipiliydrin the district of Chettupat. 

 To the east of the above village there is a hillock entirely of white- 

 stones. The hierophant of the fane in that village, gave the following 

 account of them. Two rdcshasas named Vathen and Vil-vathen 

 lived here, and were accustomed to feast foot-travellers in the following 

 manner : Vil-vathen first slew his younger brother Va'then and then 

 cooked him in pots out of which he fed the traveller. The meal being 

 finished Vil-vathen called on his brother by name, who came forth 

 alive, rending the bowels of the guest, who dying in consequence both 

 of the savages feasted on his body. On the occasion of the marriage of 

 Sivuand Parvati, at Caildsa, they dismissed Agastya, sending him 

 to the mountain Pothaiya in the south ; who, on the road, came by the 

 residence of these rdcshasas, and was treated with great civility by 

 Vil-vathen, and the usual meal. On its being finished Vil-vathen 

 called his brother ; and Agastya, penetrating the state of the case, 

 took up the words and added a word or two of Sanskrit, in consequence 

 of which mantra the body of Vathen dissolved, and passed away, with- 

 out doing Agastya any mischief. He denounced a woe on Vil-va'then 

 who died. The bones of these two rdcshasas having fallen to pieces, 

 and becoming petrified, are now termed white pebbles. 



Remark. Setting aside the ridiculous fable, a tradition like this implies 

 that the Hindus designate savages by the term rdcshasas ; and that 

 possibly (as Dr. Leyden has intimated) cannibalism was common in 

 India, among the tribes supplanted by Brahmanism or Bauddhism. The 

 hillock itself if really a fossil petrifaction should be an object of attention 

 to the naturalist. 



