No. 61.— 1908.] 



TAMIL VELALAS. 



26 



Irung Ko Vel, who was sung by the bard Kapilar of the last 

 Sangam. As Irung Ko Vel flourished about 1,800 years ago, 

 it follows that the date of the settlement of the primitive Vels 

 in the south cannot be earlier than the eleventh century B.C. 

 This date is not much later than the period of the Maha 

 Bharata war, which is held, on the strength of many weighty 

 reasons, to have occurred in the 12th 1 or the 13th 2 century B.C., 

 by such sound scholars as the Hon. Mr. Romesh Chunder 

 Dutt and Mr. Velandai Gopala Aiyar, B.A., besides others of 

 no less research and culture. This remarkable propinquity of 

 what is apparently the probable age of the colonization of 

 parts of the south by the Vels to the epoch of the great 

 Bharata war is noteworthy, as it fully corroborates the 

 tradition that it was after the decease of Sri Krishna that 

 the Velpula princes and people removed to the south. 3 To 

 determine the date of this event within narrower limits than 

 those above indicated is hardly possible without ampler 

 data than those, at present, available to us. 



I shall now briefly rehearse the story of how the sons of 

 Velpulam and their chiefs emigrated to Dravida and founded 

 powerful and prosperous colonies in that country in ancient 

 times. Numerous bands of Yadavas quitting Velpulam, 

 where they had been dwelling since they left their old home in 

 the valley of the Ganges, moved down to the forest tracts in 

 the south, cleared the forests, and created there a new home 

 for themselves. Being a civilized race, they knew well the arts 

 of peace as well as of war, including those of husbandry, 

 weaving, making pottery, and the crafts of the five artificers, 

 a knowledge of which was indispensable for a colonizing race 

 like them. Long before these Yadava immigrants entered 



1 *' Chronology of Ancient India." — Vide chapter on ' ; The date of 

 the Maha Bharata war. " — V. J. T. 



2 Dutt's " Ancient India," p. 10. 



3 The ' ' Maha Bharata " refers to a Pandya named Saranga Dwaja who 

 fought on the side of the Panda vas in the great war, and according to 

 Tamil books, the Chera and the Chola kings were also allied with the 

 Panda vas in that war. As the;Pandyas have always been allowed to 

 be the oldest dynasty of Southern India or the Tamil country, it 

 appears to be unlikely that the original founder of that royal house 

 flourished at such a late date as that here advocated. — V. J. T. 



