PREFACE
Since the work now presented to the reader rests solely on the strength of the Synchronistic Tables accompanying it I consider it necessary to prefix a few remarks hearing on the undertaking and execution of such a work, remarks for which I have not been able to find a place in the body of the book itself.
The History of the Tamils, their language, and their literature cannol he said to have cren started its cristence, for the sufficient person that a correct chronological framework to hold torether and in right order the many facts orghrined in their ancient Sungam Literature has not yet been got at. Various hore beert the attempts made till now to utilize the facto gathered from that Literature for Edifying narratives, descriptions and exhortations: Lut a pennine history, none of theec, it must be ektetfully Acknowledged, has been able to evolpc. Locking the indis. pensable initial timeframe, tlo eo-called histories of Tamil Literature and the long-wireled introductions to the various editions at the Tamil Clasical poems remain to this day ipano and Yapid of real instruction, in pite of their todinys parrot-like repetitions of fictions and frete colled from tradition and the poems themselves. The learned authore of thesr dissertations have beon only trying to make bricks without straw, or rather to raise elroclure with only bricks without the connecting mortar of Chronology. This lack of a scientific chrúgology is, however, due not to Aty paueity of relevant materiale in which the Sangam Litera. tore is apparently rich but to a failure to apply to them the correct mode of munipulation their valuation and nurun gemited. T.king this view of the matter Inerved myself to the task of leating wither the exrly poems of the
