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86 JAINS AND TAMIL LITERATURE.
epigraphy has advanced considerably, students of ancient history of South India, who think that the period of Sangam activity is to be sought in the century prior to the time of the Tamil Vatteluttu inscriptions which begin in the Pandya and the Chera countries in the last quarter of the 8th century A.D. Apart from the question whether or not many Sangam authors flourished in the early centuries of the Christian era, evidences are growing to show that what is known as Sangam literature was perhaps reduced to writing in the 6th and 7th centuries A.D. This consideration need not, however, prevent us from rejecting the classification of Dr. Caldwell as unsound. Other classifications of Tamil literature are those by Sir William Hunter and Julien Vin- Mr. Julien Vinson of Paris, both of which are however vitiated by the conclusion of Dr. Caldwell which, in some respects, the two savants had accepted. Of these Julien Vinson's deserves mention, as it approaches accuracy in the sequence of events mentioned. In one respect he has, like Caldwell, grossly erred in attributing the rise of Vaishnavites to the 15th and 16th centuries. According to the French scholar there were
son's classification.
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(1) a period of essays,. pamphlets and short poems (6th and 7th centuries);
(2) a period of Jain predominance (8th century);
