THE WORLD ATLAS

Realm · approximate borders · 300 BCE – 150 CE

Kongu Nadu (Kosar and local chiefs)

Kongu is the upper Kaveri, Bhavani, Noyyal and Amaravati country, roughly the Salem and Coimbatore districts. It lies between the Nilgiris, the Palghat gap and the Kolli hills.

No early dynasty is attested here. The Kosar, once thought to be Ashoka's Satiyaputras, are linked to Kongu in the poems.

See Kongu Nadu (Kosar and local chiefs) on the map in 300 BCE

On the map
300 BCE – 150 CE
Capital
Kodumanal (industrial centre, not a known capital)
Attested in
Sangam poems on the Kosar of Kongu (Sastri); Kodumanal excavations (bead-making and iron working, c. 5th–1st century BCE); Roman coin finds around Karur and Coimbatore

Rulers named in the sources

Tamilakam in the Sangam age

Sangam poetry (the Purananuru, Akananuru, Ten Idylls and Patirruppattu) describes a Tamil country running from the Venkatam hills to Cape Kumari. It was shared by three 'crowned kings' and a ring of Velir chiefs in the hills between them. The Cholas held the Kaveri delta, the Pandyas the Vaigai and Tamirabarani basins, and the Cheras the Malabar coast and later Kongu. Ashoka's edicts, the Hathigumpha inscription, the Periplus, Pliny, Ptolemy, Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and digs at Keezhadi, Kodumanal, Arikamedu and Pattanam confirm the kingdoms, capitals and ports. No source draws a frontier, though. The changes over time follow Nilakanta Sastri's dating, which puts most named kings in c. 100–250 CE. Other scholars place them a century or more earlier.

Sources