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PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The matter which forms the subject in the subsequent pages is a lecture delivered by me in May 1905, at the annual meeting of the Madura Tamil Sangam. Many points which were slightly touched and many a quotation which was omitted during the course of its delivery owing to want of time, are here enlarged and inserted for the benefit of the readers.
The subject is quite a new one to the main portion of the Tamil- speaking population. Even to the historians of the west it is a new theme. It is only of late that Pandit D. Saviriroyan and Prof. Rhys Davids have given a new turn to the historic studies of the Indian races and their literature. Pandit Saviriroyan's 'Admixture of Aryan with Tamilian:' and Prof. Davids' 'Buddhist India' have set up new lines of researches to be carried on in the study of Indian history and stimulated the interest of all impartial students whether Brahmin or Non-Brahmin to seek for their guide the old Tamil literature and the ancient Buddhist works in Pali.
The indigenous races of India belonged to Tamil and even in the dim pre-historic times they were far advanced in mental culture. When the Aryans had come into contact the with Tamils, the civilization of the latter was the primary element at work in effecting a thorough change in the social, moral and intellectual constitution of the former.
