“ This,” says Mr. Hamilton, “ may he owing to the elevation
of their residence, the shade of their forests, and the torrents
of rain which through a great part of the year pour from
their cloudy atmosphere.”
T u l a v a .—The country to the northward of the river
Chandragiri, where Malabar ends, is Tulava, termed by the
English*South Canara. The Tulava language has a great
affinity with the -Malabar or Malayâlma, and both are dialects
of the Tamil. Tulava is a part of the ancient Kerala,
and the Brahmans pretend, like the Namburi Brahmans
of Malabar, that the country emerged in the time of
Parasu-Rama. North Canara is beyond the limits of the
Tulava language, and partly within the territory of Haiga,
to which Batteeolla properly belongs.
H a ig a is occupied by a tribe of Brahmans termed Hài-
ga after the country, and by a low caste of Hindoos termed
Ilalepecas, who are agriculturists. The Comarepècas comprehended
in this division are pure Sudras from Conean.
C o ncan or Kankana is an extensive maritime district of
the Western Dekhan, reaching, in the Indian native geographical
division, which agrees with the ethnological one,
from Gangawala, the northern limit of Haiga, to the'small
river SaWutry which separates Concan from Calliane©.-
In Kankana the Dravira-desa no longer prevails. The
Brahmans are of the Pansh-Gauda or northern class,- and
the language of the country approaches to the Bengali
and Hindustani.* It seems from this probable^ that the
country was really peopled by Hindoos, properly so termed,
and that the aborigines were expelled.
According to the Abbé Dubois, between Tellicherri and
Onore or Nagara, within a space of fifty leagues, there
are five different nations, who, though mixed together
from time immemorial, still preserve their distinct languages,
character, and national spirit. They are the Nayrs,
the Kûrgs or Kudagu, the Tulavas, the Kaungani or Kan-
kanas, and the Kanaras.f;
* Out of thirty-two words in the Lord’s Prayer as translated by the Missionaries
into the Concan language, twenty-fire were the same as in the Bengali
and Hindûstani translation, besides several Sanskrit words.
t J . A. Dubois, Description of the People of India, preface, p. 17.
It appears that at the southern boundary of Kankana
we must fix for the western, side of the. Dekhan, the furthest
limits to the extension of the Indo-European race» who
peopled proper Hindustan and had the Sanskrit or its
dialects for their original speech.. The countries further
northward on tha%.*sjde of the Peninsula come within the
limits assigned to the Maharashtra or Mahratta language.
Note 1 tO'SecMdn IV.-—History of the^States in. the Dekhan,
elucidatediby ancient Inscriptions,
From various collections of inscriptions discovered, in
the Dekhan, and from other historical decuments,.some
light has been.thrown on,the origin and decline of several
states or kingdoms in the, South',of „India. These memorials
refer/in many instances ,to dynasties which arose
after .the fall of the Biiddhistical power in the .Peninsula
and the restoration of the Brahmans...1 Th^i^tory of others
goes back obscurely to a more remote epoch, and almost to
the period when the, worship pf the Hindu ^g^Sf was first
spread,beyond >the southern ;b.oundarieSi,of .Central India*.
From a. collection-pf; five" hundred- and ninety-fiye in-
scriptionsjHrfouind in the southern.- part. o,f. t h ^ Mahrat£f|.
country and in the northern district of the, (Mysope,;j.engraved
on, slabs of, black basalt, on clay^slate^ or on the
pillars or walls of temple^ the, caves of J |lo ra , and a few
on. sheets1 of.copper, their discoverer,,Mr. Elliot, has been
enabled to trace the history of four dynasties of princes
who held extensive sway in that part.pf India now called
the Dakshana or Dekhan, but in the period of these,records
named Kantala-desa.* The. .capital of Kantala-desa was
first Kaly&n, in the province of Kalbprga,.and subsequently
D6vagiri, now Dowlatabad. The limits^pf^thif kingdom
appear to have been the Nerm&da. or: Nerbudda to the
north, the ocean on the west, the line marking the extent
of. the Kannhdi language,on the south-east and on the
"* Hindti Inscription«; by Walter Elliot, Esq.—Journal o f f e e 1 Royal Asiatic
- Society of Great Britain, vql. 4, sect. 1.