NO. 43.— 1892.] ETHNOLOGY OP CEYLON. 



251 



resemblance to those of the half-a-dozen languages or dialects 

 I have referred to just now, and this suggests a large field of 

 inquiry, without the investigation of which we cannot state 

 with certainty what was the exact character of the nationality 

 which was non-Dravidian. 



Note A. 



The King Pandava, or Pandu, was so called from most ancient 

 times as preserved in the oldest Tamil traditions. Dr. Caldwell says 

 the name "Pandya" is written in Tamil "Pandiya," but the complete 

 Tamilised form is " Pandi." He also says that there are geographical 

 stanzas current in Tamil, giving the boundaries of the Pandiya 

 kingdom, as the river Vettaru to the north, Kumari (Cape Comorin) 

 to the south, the sea (that is the Gulf of Mannar and Palk's Straits at 

 the Bay of Tondi) to the east, and " the great highway " to the west. 

 In touching on the Pandiya kings Dr. Caldwell, in his " History of 

 Tinnevelly," says that when the Dravidas are mentioned as distinct 

 from the Ch61as, as they sometimes are in the Mahahharata and the 

 Purdnas, the Pandiya must be meant. Dr. Caldwell refers to 

 inscriptions and lists of kings going back to a remote antiquity. In a 

 note to Dr. Vincent's translation of the Voyage of Nearchus (that is, 

 in the time of Alexander the Great), he says : " The Court of 

 Pandion was at Madura, called Modusa by Pliny, and Modoora by 

 Ptolemy, and by both placed far inland from the coast of Malabar, 

 agreeing with its actual site." In the Voyage of Nearchus (of which 

 Dr. "Vincent gives the full text and translation) the Indian coast is 

 described down to, and round, Cape Comorin, and the description of 

 India ends in these words : " And this whole southern continent (or as 

 Dr. Vincent puts it, 1 southern point ' of the continent,) is part of 

 Pandian's dominions." In fact, the Tamil race, called in Sanskrit the 

 Dravidas, were divided, as proved by Dr. Caldwell, into three great 

 divisions, the Cheras, the Ch61as, and the Pandiyans, the names being 

 derived from three brothers who ruled together at Korkair, or Kolkei, 

 near the mouth of the Tamraparni, 



Note B. 



See Mr. Parker's clear identification of the Devas, Nagas, and 

 Yakkas in this Society's Journal (vol. VIII., No. 27, 1884, p. 84). In 

 Naga-di'pa, Northern Ceylon, only Nagas, who lived by land and water. 



H 2 



