In the earliest time of which we have any record the Tamilagam or Tamil realm extended over the greater part of the modern Madras Presidency, its boundaries being on the north a line running approximately! from Pulicat on the coast to Venkatagiri (Tirupati), on the east the Bay of Bengal, on the south Cape Comorin, and on the west the Arabian Sea as far north as the 'White Rock' near Badagara, to the south of Mahé. Malabar was included in it; the Malayalam language had not yet branched off as a separate tongue from the parent Tamil. It consisted of three kingdoms,, those of the Pāṇḍyas, Coḷas and Cheras or Keralas. The Pāṇḍya kingdom comprised the greater part of the modern Madura and Tinnevelly Districts, and in the first century also southern Travancore, and had its capital originally at Kolkai (on the Tāmbraparni river in Tinnevelly), and later at Madura. The Choḷa region extended along the eastern coast, from the river Pennār to the Vellār, and on the west reaching to about the borders of Coorg. Its capital was Uraiyūr (Old Trichinopoly), and it had a great port at Kāviri-pattinam or Pugār, on the northern bank of the river Cauvery (Kāveri). Another of its chief towns was Kāñchi, now Conjeeveram. The Chera or Kerala territory comprised Travancore, Cochin, and the Malabar District; the Kongu-deca (corresponding to the Coimbatore District and the southern part of Salem District), which at one time wasseparate from it, was afterwards annexed to it. Its capital was originally Vañji (now Tiru-karūr, on the Periyār river, near Cochin), and later Tiru-vanjikkalam (near the, mouth of the Periyār).,It had important trading centres on the western coast at Toṇḍi (on the, Agalappulai, about five miles north of Quilāndi), Muchiri (near the mouth of fhe 'Periyār), Palaiyūr (near Chowghāt), and Vaikkarai (close to Kottayam).

The races within these bounds were various. To the oldest stratum of pre-Dravidian blood probably belonged; the savages termed by the ancient poets Villavar ('bowmen') and Mīnavar ('fishers'), of whom the former may possibly be identical with the modern Bhīls, while the latter may be descendants in the Mīnās. Another group is that termed by the poets Nāgas, a word which in Hindu literature com; monly denotes a class of semi-divine beings, half men and half snakes, but is often applied by Tamil writers to a warlike race armed with bows and nooses and famous as free-booters. Several tribes mentioned in early literature are known with more or less certainty to have belonged to the Nāgas, among them being the Aruvāḷar (in the Aruvā -nāḍu and (Aruvā-vaḍatalai around ' Conjeeveram), Eyinar, Maravar, Oḷiyar and Paradavar (a fisher tribe). Arace of uncertain affinity was that of the Āyar, who in many respects resembled tne Abh…ras of northern India, and seem to have brought