Excerpt from Tamil Studies, or Essays on the History of the Tamil People, Language, Religion and Literature A popular hand-book to the history, from original sources, of the Tamil people has been a want. In these essays an attempt has been made for the first time to put together the results of past researches, so as to present before the reader a complete bird's-eye view of the early history of Tamil culture and civilisation. The several topics have been treated from the standpoint of modern criticism, traditions and legends being discarded or utilized with great caution. They are based chiefly upon materials, which have been gathered in the course of my study of Tamil literature, ethnology and epigraphy begun while working under Sir Harold Stuart and Mr. W. Francis, both of the Indian Civil Service, in connection with the Madras Censuses of 1891 and 1901 and the revision of District Gazetteers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.