Tamil Nadu

“ Government servants of every class, except those whose duty is to supervise or audit cooperative societies, may become members of and make deposits in non-agricultural co-operative Societies including the Tamil Nadu State Co-operative Bank Limited, other Central Co-operative Banks and Urban Co-operative Banks. ”

“ No Government servant shall, except with the previous sanction of the Government permit any member of his family to accept employment with any private firm with which he has official dealings or with any other firm having official dealings with the Government; (2-A) No Government servant belonging to the State service in Tamil Nadu Co-operative Department shall, except with the previous sanction of the Registrar of Co-operative Societies, Permit his son, daughter or dependent to accept employment in any co-operative institution with which he has official dealings. ”

“ In the interior below the ghats, Venkadam or the modern Tirupaty was the northern limit of the Tamil land. It is most remarkable that after the lapse of eighteen centuries, during which many, a kingdom rose and fell, and the Tamils, Telugus, Mahrattas, Musalmans, French and English successively rose to political power, the language boundary has remained unaltered on the eastern coast. The same cannot be said of the boundary of the Tamil land on the western coast, for, it has advanced there from Badagara to Kasaragod, a distance of about sixty miles. ”

“ When the Portuguese rounded Cape Comorin, they found the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Manaar in the hands of the Paravas, whom tradition shows to have had control of this industry from time immemorial. Of the origin of these people we know extremely little. We know, however, that in the old days, from 600 B.C. and for 1,500 years or more thereafter, the country now comprehended in the districts of Madura and Tinnevelly formed the great Tamil kingdom of Pāndya. ”

“ The Prince of Wales and his suite landed in Tuticorin on [Pg 147] the coast of India, again, on December 9th, and proceeded inland by train without any particular or formal reception. The Tamils were found to be a handsome, mild-natured, respectful people and the land cultivated and apparently prosperous. At Mainachy, a deputation of six thousand native Christians and one thousand boys and girls, headed by the Rev. Dr. Caldwell and the Rev. Dr. Sargent, presented an address and a handsomely-bound Bible and Prayer-book in the Tamil language, to His Royal Highness. ”

“ It was not long however before the Tamils followed, also from India; and since then, and through a long series of conflicts, the latter have maintained their position, and now form the larger part of the population in the north of the island, while the Cinghalese are most numerous in the south. Great numbers of Tamil peasants—men, women, and children—still come over from the mainland every year, and go up-country to work in the tea-gardens, where there is a great demand for coolie labour. ”

“ The Canarese, the Moguls, the Telugu Naiaks, the Mahrattas, and the Mahomedan adventurers of the Dekhan successively invaded the Tamil country within the last six centuries, and threatened to destroy every vestige of the Tamils; but at last a sterner and superior race of pale-faced men dropped, as it were, from the clouds, and saved the Tamils and all other races of India from anarchy and misrule. ”

“ No ships of foreign nations call at their seaports for fine spun cloths, and other articles manufactured by Tamil workmen. Not only are the Tamils dead as a nation, but their industries and arts and even their old gods are dead For, Indra and Balarâma are no longer invoked by them ”

“ On the northern bank the Karnas themselves welcomed the king. Taking leave of them the king proceeded further north to the country known as Uttarai where at a place called Kuyilaluvam he encountered the army led by the Aryan princes Kanaka and Vijaya and their allied kings, Uttara, Vichitra, Rudra, Bhairava, Chitra Singha, Dhannttara and Sveta. The Chera king rejoiced at the sight of the noble army of the Aryan kings and boldly led his Tamil soldiers who marched forward to the beat of thundering drums, the booming of conch-shells and the stirring blasts of trumpets. ”

“ In the passage describing the despatch of monkey soldiers in search of Sita, they are directed to go to the countries of the Andhras, the Pandyas, the Cholas and the Keralas in the South, and are told that they will there see the gate of the city of the Pandyas adorned with gold and jewels [55] These descriptions in the Ramayana go to show that during Valmiki’s time, the Aryas had some knowledge of the Tamil people and considered them as a civilized nation, and that they knew the Pandyan capital to be a very wealthy city. ”

“ The Northern portion of the island of Ceylon, where the Tamils are settled for the last eight centuries, may also be now regarded as a part of the Tamil-land. Even within these narrow limits, the Tamils were many a time in danger of being overwhelmed by other races, but a merciful Providence appears to have arrested every invading force before it could completely overrun the country. ”

“ There were kings, priests, merchants, doctors, farmers, and artizans among their number. Amidst the gloom and uncertainty in which the ancient history of the country is shrouded, the works of so many authors of one age throw a flood of welcome light.
The information afforded by these poems, regarding the religious and social customs of the Tamil people, would alone guide us to fix the probable date of this literature in the earliest centuries of the Christian Era. For, we find from them that there were Buddhists in the Tamil country, but they had set up no images of Buddha and had no priests ”

“ The difficult nature of the hill passes and the warlike character of the highland tribes forbade the growth of great empires, such as succeeded one another on the plains of Hindustan. The Tamil country in the extreme south is traditionally divided between the three kingdoms of Pandya, Chola and Chera. The west coast supplied the nucleus of a monarchy which afterwards extended over the highlands of Mysore, and took its name from the Carnatic. On the north-east the kings of Kalinga at one time ruled over the entire line of seaboard from the Kistna to the Ganges. ”

“ It seems in the highest degree improbable that a large, and at one time powerful, community should owe its name to an occasional occupation, which one of its divisions shares with other castes. The word Paraiyan is not found in Divākaram, a Tamil dictionary of the eleventh century A.D., and the word Pulayan was then used to denote this section of the population, as it is still in Malayālam to this day.” In the legend of the Saivite saint, Nandan is, in the prose version of the Periya Purānam, called a Pulayan, though a native of Shōlamandalam, which was a distinctly Tamil kingdom. ”

“ The percentage of beggars in the Tamil districts to the total population is '97, or more than twice what it is in the Telugu country,while in Malabar it is as low as .09. The Telugus are certainly not richer as a class than the Tamils, and the explanation of these differences is perhaps to be found in the fact that the south is more religiously inclined than the north, and has more temples and their connected charities (religion and charity go hand in hand in India) , and so offers more temptation to follow begging as a profession. Āndis are Tamil beggars. ”

“ Long mayst thou live for many hundred thousand year!" Châthan the master of sweet Tamil, who was in the king’s company, charmed by the royal presence, related the story of the hapless maid to the king and queen. She was, he said, the wife of a merchant of Kavirippaddinam, who having lost all his wealth to a beautiful actress of that town, came to Madura accompanied only by his faithful wife; a pair of valuable anklets was all the property left in the hands of his wife. ”

“ One of the greatest facts of ancient Tamil society was religious toleration, the spirit of free enquiry, or the liberty of the human understanding. The monarchs themselves openly encouraged religious discussion, for, they invited teachers of every sect to the public halls, and allowed them to preach their doctrines during festivals and other occasions of public gathering. They protected impartially the temples and monasteries of all sects ”

“ The chief town on this coast was “the far-famed port of Sâliyur, over crowded with ships, which have crossed the perilous dark ocean, and from which costly articles of merchandise are landed, while flags wave on their mast-tops, and drums resound on the shore“ [62] announcing the arrival of the goods to the merchants. Ptolemy calls it Salour. Of the inland cities whose names appear in Ptolemy’s lists, the following may be identified with certainty: Tainoor—Thenoor (in the Tirushuli Taluq, Madura District) spoken of in Tamil poems as the capital of a chieftain called Thêr-van-komân. ”

“ Madura was doubtless the most famous and important town in Tamilakam at this period, being the capital city of the Pandyas, who were renowned as the most powerful of the Tamil kings, and munificent patrons of poets. What distinguished it however from other towns in the Tamil country were the high towers over the four gates of the fort. ”

“ The land has extended, rivers have changed their courses, the ancient cities have disappeared and new languages have been formed by sections of the Tamil people. The alluvial deposits which accumulated every year, during the monsoons, at the mouths of the large rivers gradually extended the land as may be seen from the map of India in which the coast line projects into the sea at the mouths of the rivers Godaveri, Kistna, Kaviri, Vaigai, and Tamraparni. ”

“ The men's langútis, on the other hand, are not the inadequate rags in use in the Tamil country, but broad and flowing affairs which often reach to their knees both before and behind, and the ends of which flap about so much that they are often tucked into the waist-string. The men are less particular about wearing a turban than in the south and the women follow the Tamil fashion of dispensing with the tight-fitting bodice. ”

“ Accordingly we find that the Sanscrit literature of the first century of the Christian era is now a perfect blank. Curiously enough, a considerable portion of the Tamil literature of that very period has come down to us, almost intact, and reveals to us the condition of not only the Tamils, but also of other races who inhabited the rest of India in that remote age.
The vast field of ancient Tamil literature is like an unknown land into which no traveller hath yet set foot. Many of the ancient classical works in Tamil have but recently seen the light. ”

“ According to the census of 1901, the total number of Tamil-speaking people in all India was 16,525,500. To these should be added about 160,000 in the French possessions. But as of all the Dravidian languages the Tamil shows the greatest tendency to spread, its area becomes ever larger, encroaching on that of the contiguous languages. Tamil is a sister of Malayâḷam, Telugu, Kanarese, Tulu; and, as it is the oldest, richest, and most highly organized of the Dravidian languages, it may be looked upon as typical of the family to which it belongs. ”

“ The more kindly-hearted among them however do a good deal for their workers in the way of physicking and nursing them when ill or disabled, advising them when in difficulties, etc.; and in these cases the natives, with their instinct of dependence, soon learn to lean like children on their employer, and the latter finds himself, after a few years, the father (so to speak) of a large family. There are 200 Tamil coolies permanently employed on this plantation, and a hundred or two besides, mostly girls and women, who come in to work when wanted from neighboring Cinghalese villages. ”

“ In fact, in the ancient Tamil classical works, the terms relating to Music, Grammar, Astronomy and even abstract Philosophy are of pure Tamil origin; and they indicate most clearly that those sciences were cultivated by the Tamils long before the arrival of the Brahmins or other Aryan immigrants. The Tamils obtained a knowledge of these sciences most probably from China, through Bengal or Burma, with both of which countries they had direct and constant intercourse. ”

“ Others again are not wanting who would restrict the original home of Man to a particular corner of the Tamil country. Thus we find a large number of Southern writers who are harping on this theme, which, if not by the soundness of argument, at least by a process of repetition, may come to be accepted by the general historian who has not the leisure or the inclination to examine the validity of this contention. ”

“ Dr Pope, however, believed Tamil to be a corruption of tenmoli, southern speech, in contradistinction to vaḍugu, the northern, i.e., Telugu language. As in the case of the Kafir, Turkish, Tagala and other typical languages, the term Tamulic or Tamulian has occasionally been employed as the designation of the whole class of Dravidian peoples and languages, of which it is only the most prominent member. The present article deals with Tamil in its restricted sense only. The Tamils proper are smaller and of weaker build than Europeans, though graceful in shape. ”

“ But Cheethalai-Chaththanar, the author of the poem Mani-mekalai, who was a contemporary of Killi-Valavan has, with poet’s license, given a romantic account of the marriage, probably because he considered it degrading to a Tamil king to marry a Naga princess. There were several tribes of the Nagas, such as the Maravar, Eyinar, Oliyar, Oviyar, Aruvâlur and Parathavar. Of these, the Maravar appear to have been the most powerful and warlike tribe, and most hostile to the Tamils. ”