INTRODUCTION
PROF. T. P. MEENAKSHISUNDARANAR, M. A., B. L., M. O, L., Dip. EC., M. R. A. S.
1944-46: Those were the years when this book was taking its final shape. I can never forget those happy years of my stay at the Annamalai University as the Professor of Tamil though it was a parenthesis in my life. The Tamil Department in that Tamil University in the present context has to be the meeting point of the past and the present, as well as of the East and the West. It has to look backward to the classical Tamil of the Sangham and the Medieval periods, with all its literary, historical and philosophical implications and forward to the Tamil of the future as the proper and powerful vehicle of all modern knowledge with all its scientific implications. This living contact with all the other Departments of the University has become all the more neccessary, thanks to the regional language trying to become the medium of instruction. The History Department was the first to develop this contact; South Indian History occupies even now an important place in the Tamil Honours Course. Therefore there is no wonder in the Tamil Department giving to the world a work on History.
A picture of the Tamil Land and its varied and variegated aspects of life through the ages, has yet to be painted. Tamil Literature is a valuable mine of knowledge for any research student of History, Philosophy or Literature. The Tamil Department has to undertake amongst others inclusive of philosophical research this Historical research. An authoritative history of the Tamil country is what every Tamilian longs for, especially after the dawn of Freedom in our land. Tamil Literature and Tamil Inscriptions so carefully studied in this Department still remain the source of such a history.
The age of the Imperial Colas which gave life to the conception of a Greater Tamil Land of valour and culture, even now inspires the Tamilians with its skyscrapers of Gopurams and its
