had 365 villages, each of which was expected to meet the needs of the royal household for one day in the year. He described the Pandya queen at the time, Pandaia as the daughter of Herakles. Pliny the Elder refers to the Pandya ruler of Madurai in general terms (first century CE). The author of the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (first century CE) describes the riches of a "Pandian kingdom" {{cquote|...Nelcynda is distant from Muziris by river and sea about five hundred stadia, and is of another kingdom, the Pandian. This place [Nelcynda] also is situated on a river, about one hundred and twenty stadia from the [Arabian] sea.... }} The country of the Pandyas was described as Pandya Mediterranea and Modura Regia Pandionis by Ptolemy (). Strabo states that an Indian king called Pandion sent Augustus Caesar "presents and gifts of honour". The 1st-century Greek historian Nicolaus of Damascus met, at Antioch, the ambassador sent by a king from India "named Pandion or, according to others, Porus" to Caesar Augustus (Strabo XV.4 and 73).Keay, p121 The Roman emperor Julian received an embassy from a Pandya about 361 CE. Chinese historian Yu Huan in his 3rd-century CE text, the Weilüe, mentions the Panyue kingdom: Scholar John E. Hill identified Panyue as Pandya kingdom. However, others have identified it with an ancient state located in modern Burma or Assam. The Chinese traveler Xuanzang mentions a kingdom further south from Kanchipuram, a kingdom named Malakutta, identified with Madurai described by his Buddhist friends at Kanchipuram. In the later part of the 13th century (in 1288 and 1293 CE) Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited the Pandya kingdom and left a vivid description of the land and its people.Muslim identity, print culture, and the Dravidian factor in Tamil Nadu, J. B. Prashant More Early historic Pandyas Maurya emperor Asoka (3rd century BCE) seems to have been on friendly terms with the people of south India and Sri Lanka (the Cholas, the Pandyas, the Satiya Putras, the Kerala Putras and the Tamraparnis). There are no indications that Asoka tried to conquer the extreme south India (the Tamilakam – the Abode of the Tamils). The three chiefly lines of the early historic south India – the Cheras, Pandyas and Cholas – were known as the mu-vendar ("the three vendars"). They traditionally based at their original headquarters in the interior Tamil Nadu (Karur, Madurai and Uraiyur