No. 61.— 1908.] 



TAMIL VELALAS. 



33 



it fully clear, it must be admitted that the great Tamil 

 monarchs of old not only held many of the Velalas in very 

 great esteem and regard and employed them in high offices 

 of State under them, but honoured them to such extent as to 

 accept in marriage the daughters of the more powerful among 

 them — not a few of whom held the position of petty kings 

 over large districts. Many instances of such marriages (of 

 the supreme kings of Tamilakam with the daughters of their 

 Vel feudatories) are mentioned in ' ' Pathittupaththu " and 

 other ancient Tamil works. We conclude, therefore, that it 

 was because these Velir, who were a section of the primitive 

 Aryas, had attained an extreme degree of maturity in the 

 civilization and refinement of the time, that the great Tamil 

 potentates, who were of high descent, treated them as their 

 equals in social rank, and considered it not beneath them to 

 intermarry with their families. It is to this fact that Tol- 

 kappian also refers in his sutra 79 of the section on " Purath- 

 thinai Iyal." 



Moreover, we gather from the Tamil records that, when the 

 Vels first set out on the enterprise of founding small kingdoms 

 for themselves, they came into frequent collisions with the 

 three Tamil kings, and that Konkanam, Muththoor 1 Koot- 

 tam, Pothigai Nadu, Milalaik Kootam 2 Kunrur, &c., were 

 amongst their oldest settlements in the south. In subse- 

 quent times, however, the paramount rulers 3 of Tamilakam 



1 Muththoor Koottam is also called Muththoortukkoottam. This 

 was one of the districts of the Chola country which was, at one time, 

 conquered by the Pandiyan king and annexed to his kingdom. It is 

 supposed to be now represented by the districts lying round the modern 

 * ' Muththu Peddai. ' ' 



2 This is situated in the Pandiyan country, and it may be remarked 

 that one of its divisions is even now called " Dwarapati Nadu." 



3 That the Pandiyas were Velalas by race receives strong support 

 from the traditional account of their origin elsewhere quoted as pre- 

 served by Nachchar, namely, that they were of the family of Sri 

 Krishna of Dwarakai of the Yadava race. Says the learned author of 

 the last Ceylon Census Report : ' 4 When the Tamils are spoken of in 

 South India, the Velalas are meant, as being the Tamils par excellence, 

 both the Brahmans at the top of the modern social system and the 

 aborigines at the bottom being excluded. This seems to indicate that 

 these two are regarded as heterogeneous elements not reduced to the 



D 20-08 



