dewy seasoŒ, and Pi‹pa‹i (Later dewy seasoŒ, beginning from mid-April and each comprising two months, are still as natural as in the days of the ancient Tamil literature in which they are vividly described.

     “The oldest Tamil classics always welcome coolness everywhere, and avoid everything that smacks of heat. There is nothing in Tamil to answer to the cold regions of the Asiatic table-land, to the ice-bound polar plains or to the vine growing fig-shadowed Chaldean regions. Animals like the elephant or the tiger, birds like the peacock or the parrot, grains like thi‹ai (Italicum panicum) and varahu (Paspalum frumentaceum), and trees like v„ngai (kino-tree) are characteristic of the Tamil hills and plains, and not indigenous to any country outside India. Greece, Syria and Babylon were ringing with the fame of Tamilagam in ancient times, and came to her for teaks and sandals, her pearls and muslins and her peacocks and pepper. The earliest Tamil works describe the physical features of the semi-pastoral Tamil people and their life in Tamil India so accurately and lovingly that their love for and intimate acquaintance with Tamilagam is apparent in every verse. The Tamil land is invariably divided by all the early poets into its five most natural divisions (aindi–ai). The special features and peculiar genius of Tamil literature, which accurately photographed the characteristics of the Tamils, arrested the attention of the Aryans with the result that the latter seriously commenced studying all about the Tamils and their culture even in the early centuries of the Christian era. That Kapilar, a member of the Third Academy at Madura, composed a whole poem entitled KuŠi½jipƒ——u to impart to the Aryan Prince Brahathathan all about the life of the Tamils and the fauna and flora of the Tamil country is well known. The Tamils always believed that from the outset they were the aboriginal inhabitants of the great territories bounded by the two seas on the east and west, and by the V„Œkata hills on the north, and the submerged rivers, PahŠu˜i and Kumari on the South”.¹