No. 61.— 1908.] 



TAMIL VELALAS. 



37 



thereto in ancient Indian literature, but also by a tradition 

 existing in the north of India much to the same effect. Fur- 

 thermore, that the Velir were Yadavas by race is made 

 evident from the agreement, in many respects, between them 

 and the Hoysalas, who came down from Dwaraka and ruled 

 in the south in later times. The terms Velir and Velalas, by 

 which they were known, appertained to them in consequence 

 of their having come from Velpulam, which was the name of 

 their mother-country. The appellation Vel, moreover, is 

 found used for a line of kings of ancient Deccan, namely, 

 the Chalukkyas, and as these Chalukkyas themselves belonged 

 to the same Yaclava race, the identity of race of these two 

 communities, the Velir of the Tamil country and the Chaluk- 

 kya rulers, seems to be well established. Moreover, the 

 legend of the birth of a first ancestor from the sacred pot of 

 an ascetic which is common to both of them would seem to 

 carry this identification almost to perfection. Again, the 

 identification of the Chalukkyas, the Yadava Narapatis of 

 Vijayanagara, and the Vels of Tamilakam with the ancient 

 race of Andhras who ruled over Magadha, is remarkably 

 confirmatory of the same conclusion. The country of Ven, 

 which was one of the twelve of Kodun Tamil Nadus, was 

 identical with the primitive country of the Yadavas, and it 

 agrees with other facts that the time of the emigration of the 

 primitive Vels to the Tamil country was about the eleventh 

 century B.C. The above is most probably the correct story of 

 the colonization of large districts of the south by the Yadava 

 race. 



To conclude, then : the Velir families who, as stated in the 

 preceding pages, emigrated from Velpulam and settled as 

 rulers in several parts of the south, and the great community 

 of the Velalas who were their followers and kinsmen have, by 

 their lavish munificence, by the titles and privileges which 

 they were deemed worthy to receive at the hands of the kings, 

 by their benevolence to the poor and the helpless, and last, 

 but not least, by their invincible valour and strength that 

 never stooped to oppress, earned, from ages past, the highest 

 degree of fame and reputation for themselves throughout the 

 Tamil country. Not one of the great Tamil poets of earlier or 



