vinces for local administration, as we find in historical times that each shire or nāḍu was divided into village communities and its representatives met in a shire-mote of several hundred men representing the families of the nāḍu, which possessed considerable power in the control of local affairs. Before the first century of the Christian era there are very few allusions in the literature and historical records of other nations that testify to the vigorous life of these southern kingdoms. Of the evidence of their commerce with the west we have already spoken. Megasthenes, who visited the court of Chandragupta the Mauirya towards the end of the fourth century B.C., has left on record some rumours concerning them, including a legend that Heracles (i.e. the god Civa) put the south under the rule of his daughter Panḍaia'.' The Sanskrit epics mention them vaguely, as foreign lands, outside their purview, though the legendary connexion of the Pāṇḍyan kiings of Madura with the Pāṇḍava heroes of the Mahābhārata seems to have been acknowledged in the north as early as the second century B.C., if any reliance is to be placed on the scholion to Pāṇini IV, 1,168. Acoka in his inscriptions speaks of them among the foreign nations who have accepted the teachings of Buddhism.4 Lastly, (Strabo xv, 4, 73) makes mention of an embassy sent to Augustus Caesar about the year 22 B.C by a king 'Pandion,' possibly a Pṇḍya of the Tamil country. Even in the next century the history of the Tamils, is sadly obscure. Ancient Tamil poems and the commentaries upon them, supplemented by meagre notices in Pliny and other western writers, are almost the only sources of information, and their data are very uncertain. II. Territorial Divisions S. KRISHNASWAMI AIYANGAR is a historian of South India who has left behind numerous studies on the' early Tamil kingdoms. The following reading is taken from his Some Contributions if South India to Indian Culture, University of Calcutta, 1942, 'pages 62 & to 67. THE COUNTRY SOUTH of the Krishna was divided among and secret agents (e.g. by Adiyārkku-nallār on Cilapp'-adhikāram., v157; but see ibid. on III, 126). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4 The references in the edition of Senart are as follows: Cheras, G. II, XIII, K. II, Kh. II; Choḷas, G. II, J. II, K. XIII, Kh. II, XIII; Pāṇḍyas, G. J.11. K. XIII, Kh.II, XIII. The Choḷas also appear in the scholion on Pāṇini IV,1.X 175
(possibly dating from the second century B.C.).
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