Central Carnatic extended from the Coleroon river to the river Pennar;
its chief towns were Madras, Pondicherry, Arcot, Vellore, Cuddalore,
Pulicat, Nellore, &c. The Northern Carnatic extended from the river
Pennar to the northern limit of the country; and the chief town was
Ongole.[1] The Carnatic, as above defined, comprehended within its
limits the maritime provinces of Nellore, Chingleput, South Arcot,
Tanjore, Madura and Tinnevelly, besides the inland districts of North
Arcot and Trichinopoly. The population of this region consists chiefly
of Brahmanical Hindus, the Mahommedans being but thinly scattered over
the country. The Brahmans rent a great proportion of the land, and also
fill different offices in the collection of the revenue and the
administration of justice. Throughout the country they appropriate to
themselves a particular quarter in every town, generally the strongest
part of it. Large temples and other public monuments of civilization
abound. The temples are commonly built in the middle of a square area,
and enclosed by a wall 15 or 20 ft. high, which conceals them completely
from the public view, as they are never raised above it.

At the earliest period of which any records exist, the country known as
the Carnatic was divided between the Pandya and Chola kingdoms, which
with that of Chera or Kerala formed the three Tamil kingdoms of southern
India. The Pandya kingdom practically coincided in extent with the
districts of Madura and Tinnevelly; that of the Cholas extended along
the Coromandel coast from Nellore to Pudukottai, being bounded on the
north by the Pennar river and on the south by the Southern Vellaru. The
government of the country was shared for centuries with these dynasties
by numerous independent or semi-independent chiefs, evidence of whose
perennial internecine conflicts is preserved in the multitudes of forts
and fortresses the deserted ruins of which crown almost all the elevated
points. In spite, however, of this passion of the military classes for
war the Tamil civilization developed in the country was of a high type.
This was largely due to the wealth of the country, famous in the
earliest times as now for its pearl fisheries. Of this fishery Korkai
(the Greek [Greek: Kdlcha]), now a village on the Tambraparni river in
Tinnevelly, but once the Pandya capital, was the centre long before the
Christian era. In Pliny's day, owing to the silting up of the harbour,
its glory had alrea