218 Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya, [July 



been traced to its source, was found to have no warrant or existence 

 in the ma?iuscript on ivhich its authority was made to rest ; and 

 there must, consequently, have been a mistake in the information on 

 which Mr. Wilson necessarily depended, from his admitted want of 

 acquaintance with the Tamil language." On this statement, I have, 

 by the way, to remark, that the assumption of my depending upon 

 "information," implying, it is to be inferred, verbal information, is 

 gratuitous and mistaken. I trusted to translations — written transla- 

 tions alone ; never to verbal information or interpretation. The trans, 

 lations were the work as frequently of European as of native scholars, 

 as specified in the list attached to the Sketch; and in the instance of 

 the authority on which my statement depends, was the performance of 

 B. Clarke, Esq. 



But, which is matter of more moment, Mr. Taylor's assertion, 

 that the position is without warrant or existence in the manuscript 

 on zvhich it rests, is not only unsupported, but is even contradicted by 

 the proof which he has himself adduced in a subsequent part of his 

 work. The position to which he alludes is the statement, that accord- 

 ing to some accounts, " the founder of the Pandya kingdom was one 

 Pandya, a native of Oude ;" and for this he says there is no warrant 

 in the authority from which he supposes it to have been derived. 

 All that he discovers in the text is, that in the manuscript " Madura is 

 merely said to have been founded by an agricultural Pandion from the 

 north."* Such is his interpretation of the original and it is very pos- 

 sible that he may be correct; but, with such a passage actually in 

 the original text, he is surely not justified in asserting, that there was 

 no warrant nor existence whatever for the statement I had advanced, 

 when, upon his own shewing, expressions so very similar in their 

 bearing do exist, and warrant, if not the precise words, yet a very simi- 

 lar sense. Madura and the Pandya kingdom are essentially the same ; 

 and whether it was founded by a native of Oude, named Pandya, as 

 I have it, or by an agricultural Pandion from the north, as Mr. Tay- 

 lor states, does not appear to me to be so exceedingly different, that, 

 where the latter occurs, it can be said that there is no warrant for the 

 former. The difference, as far as it extends, appears to be that of 

 translation ; and the question of accuracy depends upon the relative 

 competency of the translators. Admitting, however, that Mr. Taylor's 

 version is correct, it does not follow that there were no traces whatever 

 of such an interpretation as I have followed, and which, though not 

 perhaps literally, is substantially the same with his own. Authorities 

 may differ as to the period of this event, and its share in the establish- 



* Historical Manuscripts, Appendix II. p. 39. Note. 



