MADURA. 
29 
CHAPTER III. 
MADURA. CASTE. HINDOO LITERATURE. 
After taking leave of our hospitable friend at 
Tanjore, we proceeded to Madura, where we arrived 
upon the evening of the fourth day. This now mise- 
rable and dilapidated city is the capital of the ancient 
kingdom described by Ptolemy as the Regio Pandionis. 
So early as the third century of the Christian era it 
was the most celebrated seat of learning in Hindostan. 
Here was a college which gave birth to some of the 
greatest lights of Hindoo science. It was visited by 
learned men from all parts of India ; and its pro- 
fessors, up to so late a date as the thirteenth century, 
were pre-eminent for wisdom among the Hindoos at 
the most flourishing era of their literature. No 
persons were admitted as members until they had 
passed an examination of extraordinary severity ; 
and such was their spirit of emulation, that the wise 
men of Madura were known and respected through- 
out all the kingdoms of the East. At that period, 
knowledge was so universally cultivated among the 
Hindoos, that it was as rare to find a poor villager 
who could not read as it is now to find one who can. 
In fact, their whole social system seems to have under- 
gone a complete revolution. During those ages, when 
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