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cal, romantic, libidinous and indecent accounts about Gods and sages which constitute an essential feature of Sanscrit works, indicates the highly developed sense which the Tamilians had of the naked moral truth. But from this sense of truth came a fall, the moment the Arya brahmins came from the north bringing with them and popularizing here legendary tales about Gods and rishis, as an easy means of catching the fancy of the people and bringing them com- pletely under their control. Since these brahmins had been very selfish, greedy and cunning, they did their best to keep the people in ignorance and illiteracy, so that they might always be sought after by the people for any enlightement they were in need of. Sanscrit they called the language of God, and the brahmins the gods on earth. The people were forbidden to learn anything in gen- eral and Sanscrit in particular and in their minds a perpetual fear was implanted lest any breaking away from the injunctions of the priests should bring about the ruin not only of themselves but of their whole family and relations as well. These brahmins did not scruple to show from the Sanscrit books that the injunctions found in them were laid down by the Gods themselves, while in fact, they were their own, fabricated in the name of Gods simply to intimi- date the credulous people. As time went on, the influence of the northern brahmins penetrated to the very core of the Tamilian So- ciety, that many, stationed high among them discharging priestly and educative functions, began to feel the secret power of the north- ern cult and with a view to raise themselves still higher in the esti- mation of their own people, gradually isolated themselves from their society and identified themselves with the northerners and their own interests with theirs, to so great an extent that they gave up completely the study of Tamil, thinking that it would sink them to make themselves mysterious and good-like in the eyes of the masses, and grew more enthusiastic in speaking loud of the sa- credness of Sanscrit and the divinity of brahmins than even the northerners. Even a casual looker-on may not fail to note this state of things still continuing in Southern India. Here all the brahmins, with a few exceptions, are pure Tamilians and there is not a par- ticle of evidence to prove that they had even been related to the northerners in any way; yet their aversion to Tamil and the Tamils
