Tamil was the language of three fjanciciit dynasties of whom we have record,—the Chola of Tanjore and Combaconum, who were settled on or near the Cauvery and Colerun rivers, and who, as some suppose, gave their nanaes to the Coromandel or Cholamandel coast ; the Pandya, whose capital is now occupied by the inhabitants of 3Iadura ; and the Chem, who ruled at Kerala on the Malabar coast.
Tamil is now spoken throughout the vast plain of the Karnatic, or country below the Ghats. From Cape Cotnorin to Pulicat, 30 miles north of Madras, and inland from the Bay of I3engal to the Eastern Ghats, it skirts Mysore on all its eastern frontier, is also spoken in the 13ara Mahal, Salem, and Combaconum, meeting with the Malealam at the great gap of Palghat. It is spoken also on the western side of the Ghats from Cape Comorin to the neighbourhood of Trivan drnm ; also in the northern and north-western parts of Ceylon, where 'landlar formed settlements prior to the Christian era, and from whence they have gradually thrust out the Singhalese. Mr. 'I'aylor is of opinion that Tamil was cultivated in its purity in the ancient Pandiya kingdom.
'feting is the Andhra of Sanskrit writers, a natne mentioned by the Greek geographers as that of a nation dwelling on or near the Ganges. Until lately, Europeans termed the people and their language Gentoo, from a Portuguese word signifying heathens or gentiles. In respect to antiquity of culture and glossarial copiousness, it ranks next to the Tamil in the list of Dravidian idioms, but it surpasses all of them in euphonic sweetness. Telugu extends from Chanda, where it meets the Mahratta, and from Ganjam and Chicacole, where it intermixes with Urya, along the coast to Puheat on the marine lagoon 30 miles north of 3fadras, where it meets the Tamil. At Vizagapatam, which is 120 iniles south of Ganjam, Telugu is the sole language spoken. On this line of coast two monarchies formerly existed, the Andhra and Kalinga ; both, apparently, were enterprising races with a seafaring people, and it is doubtless from the name of the latter dynasty that the Burmese and 3h*lays derive the appella tion of Kling, by which they distinguish all people from India ; and the Talien of the Delta of the Irawadi are supposed to have been Teling.
The Kalinga dynasty appear to have gained great possessions to the westward, as, at the time of the Mahomedan conquest, 1Varangal, seventy miles N.E. from Hyderabad, was con sidered by them the capital of Teliugana, including then the eastern part of the nawab of Hyderabad's dominions, all the modern districts of Ganjam, Nellore, and Cuddapah, and much of the lands north. The most westerly spot at which Telugu is spoken is the small town of 3furkundali, about 30 miles west of Beder, and it reaches this by a wavy line running westerly from north of 3Iadras, as far as the eastern boundary of Mysore, which it follows up to that of the Canarese country, thus including in its extent the Ceded Districts, Kur nool, the greater part of the Hyderabad Dominions, and portions of the Nagpur country and Gond WILD a. In ancient times it seems to have been spoken aa far north as the mouths of the Ganges. This appears both from the geographical limits which the Greeks have assigned to the territory of the Andhra or northern Telugu dynasty, and from ma.ny of the names and places mentioned by Ptolemy up to that delta being found to be Telugu. The Telugu people are undoubtedly the most numerous branch of the Dravidian rnee, although the Tamil surpass them in enterprise and in that self-relianco which supports them in their etnigra tions. Including the Naik or Naidoo (Nayaka), Reddi, and other Telugu tribes settled in the Tamil country, who are chiefly the descendants of those soldiers of fortune by whom the Pandiya and Chola kingdoms were subverted, and who number not legs than a million of souls, and including also the Telugu settlers in 3Iysore, and the Telugu inhabitants of the Nizam's territory and other Native States, the people who speak the Telugu language may be estimated to amount to at least fourteen millions. Tamil and Telugu roots are in the great majority the same ; but peculiarities in inflection and dialectic changes have so modified the modern tongues, that they differ from each other as nauch as Portuguese from Spanish, Irish from Welsh, Hebrew from Aramaic, and Hindi from Bengali.