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fishes (sharks) to prevent them from injuring the divers whilst en- gaged in seeking pearls under water, one-twentieth part of all that they take. These fish-charmers are termed Abraiaman (Brahmans); and their charm holds good for that day only, for at night they dissolve the charm so that the fishes can work mischief at their will.”
There can be little doubt that this kind of protection was sought by the divers at the time of the Periplus, and Yule observed it still in force, one of the “Brahmans” exercising this ancestral office being a Christian !
In the case of frankincense, pepper and diamonds, the guardian spirits took the form of serpents and were appeased or repelled by other spirits or by sacred birds. But sharks called for the visible aid of the priests. We may suppose the shark to have been a soulless and unimpressionable demon, or else that the industry dates from a time after the Aryan invasion of Southern India, so that the priestly caste could properly decline to stand aside for the benefit of the ser- pent-cults that had preceded them.
59. Coast, country. — This country, different from, and be- yond, the Pandyan kingdom, is the third of the Dravidian states, the Chola kingdom; at the time of the Periplus, as it states, the largest, richest, and most prosperous of the three. “Coast Country'’ is from the native name, “Chola coast, ” Ghbla-mandalam , from which the Portuguese derived our modern word Coromandel. By the Sara- cens it was given another name, Maabar, not to he confused with Malabar; the meaning being “ferrying-place,” and referring to the shipping-trade for Malacca and the Far East. By the Ceylonese it was called Soli, which name they applied to both Chdla and Pandya, even though their relations with Madura were more important. The boundaries were, roughly, from the Penner River on the north (emp- tying into the Bay of Bengal at 14° 40’ N. ), and on the south the Valiyar River (10° 3’ N. ), or even the Vaigai (9° 20 / N. ). During the mediaeval period the Chola kingdom conquered and absorbed its progenitor, the Pandyan, and they are still classified together in the modern “Carnatic.”
The pearl-fisheries belonging to this kingdom, the product of which was sold only at the capital, Uraiyur, were those of the Palk Strait, north of Adam’s Bridge, as distinguished from those of the Gulf of Manar, which belonged to the Pandyan kingdom, and were administered from Madura.
59. Argaru. — This is nearly a correct transliteration of Urai- yur (“city of habitation”), the ancient capital of the Chola kingdom, now part of Trichinopoly (10° 49’ N., 78° 42’ E. ).
