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works and from the other historical sources has rendered a public service. Mr. Pethachi Chettinr's love of Tamil, and his readiness to help Tamil writers, and institutions, are wellknown to the public. And his encouragement of the author in bearing the cost of this publication is highly praiseworthy.
This short work is certain to give a correct insight into the social and governmental polity of those times, and in particular those of Cheran Senguttuvan. His prowess, his knightly virtues, his generons appreciation of his rival kings, his sense of the responsibilities of a king for the welfare, prosperity and progress of his subjects, and his solicitude for the same, his piety, his councils of ministers, generals and learned men, and his deference to their advice, the equipment of his army, and his victorious march right up to the Himalayas and his generous recognition of the heroism of his victorious troops by personally conferring on them decorations and honours on the banks of the Ganges are described by Mr. M. Raghava Ayengar in the present work in easy and interesting prose with apt quotations at intervals. The major portion of his work is based on some of the chapters of the third book of Silappathikaram. The illuminating commentary of Adiyarkunallar not being available for the Vanchikkandam of Silappathikaram, the students that seek to study that portion of the epic are sure to find instruction and guidance in the pages of this book. And it goes without saying that Silappathikaram is itself a unique work in the literature of the world; for we have no
