NO. 61. — 1908.] TAMIL VELALAS. 



9 



ancient times from Dwaraka, some notices of this fact must 

 occur, in all probability, in old Tamil writings. But as no 

 Tamil books of such ancient date as the times of Sri Krishna 

 now exist, we are not likely to succeed in discovering any 

 contemporary record of the event in the mass of Tamil 

 literature now available. In the absence of any record of a 

 contemporary date, it is a matter for which we ought to be 

 very thankful that there are, at least, a few lines in some of 

 the extant compositions of the poets of the last Sangam 1 at 

 Madura which throw a good deal of light on the origin of the 

 Vels. The following is an extract from an ode composed by 

 a poet named " Kapilar " in praise of one of the Vel princes 

 of his time named " Irung Ko 2 Vel," viz. : — 



" Thou, thou art the Vel of the Vels who, originating in 

 the sacred thadavu of a Muni in the north, boast of 

 a pedigree of forty-nine generations of Vels, since 

 ruling over Dwaraka, glittering like gold, and sur- 

 mounted by its copper fortress." 3 

 According to the above passage the Vels were, originally, 

 the ruling race of Dwaraka, who moved down to the south 



and it may, therefore, be concluded that the Lunar race was, in reality, 

 only an offshoot of the older Solar dynasty. This accounts, perhaps, 

 for the fact that, while the Cholas claimed to be of the Solar line, the 

 Pandiyas of Mathurai traced their descent from the Moon. It has also 

 to be noted that there was a dynasty of Solar Pandiyas who held sway 

 in various parts of South India in ancient times. — V. J. T. 



1 " The language and literature were under the Pandiyan kings the 

 special charge of an academy of poets and savants analogous to the 

 Academie Francaise, and the three epochs of the Academy called the 

 First, Second, and Third Sangams are the great landmarks in ancient 

 Tamil history. The literature of the first two epochs has perished 

 save one work, a grammatical work called * Tolkappiam,' and which is to 

 Tamil what ' Paniniyam ' (Ashtadhyayi) is to Sanscrit. The loss of the 

 literature is attributed to the destruction by the sea at successive 

 periods of the two earliest Pandiyan capitals, old Madura and Kapada- 

 puram. Of the works of the third period which have survived the 

 best known is the ' Rural ' of Tiruvalluvar, a poem of singular literary 

 and ethical value which has been translated into most of the European 

 languages." — Vide " Report on Ceylon Census, 1901," vol. I., p. 80, 

 para. 28.— V. J. T. 



2 " Ko " means " a king."— V. J. T. 



3 Vide " Purrananooru," ode No. 201.— V. J. T. 



