At the Christian æra the kings of Madura were very powerful, and had extended their dominions over the whole of the peninsula. They sent two embassies to Rome--the first in the eighteenth year after the death of Julius Cæsar, which found the Emperor Augustus at Tarragona; and the second six years later, when he was at Samos.[445] Subsequently the kingdom was reduced in size by the independence of Malabar, the rise of Chira in the west, of the state of Chola in the east, and of Ramnad in the south.[446] A long list of kings is mentioned in the native annals, with numerous wars, first against the Buddhists, and afterwards with the Rajahs of Chola and Ramnad. The most flourishing period of Madura history appears to have been during the reigns of Vamsa Sekhara and his son Vamsa Churamani, in about 200 A.D. They erected grand temples and palaces, and the more ancient and massive parts of edifices still in existence probably date from their reigns. A college, called _Sangattar_, was founded at Madura, at this time, for the cultivation of the Tamil language and literature.[447] The first stimulus was given to this movement by the famous _Rishi_ or sage, Aghastya, the leader of a colony of Brahmins, whose migration to the south is mentioned in the Ramayana. He was a chief agent in diffusing the worship of Siva in the Deccan; and it is supposed that there was a second man of learning of the same name in the eighth or ninth century. Aghastya is said to have been the offspring of two gods, Mithra and Varuna, and he received the Brahminical string from seven holy prophets. He became a most wonderful and enlightened personage, and composed works on medicine, moral and natural philosophy, and botany, in high Tamil verse, called _Yellacanum_, greatly improving and refining his adopted language. Aghastya's memory is deeply venerated by the Tamil people, and his healing spirit is still believed to hover amongst the mountains of Courtallum, in Tinnevelly;[448] where he is worshipped as _Agast-isvara_, or the star Canopus. From the ninth to the tenth centuries the Jain religion predominated in Madura. The Jains were animated by a national and anti-Brahminical feeling, and it is chiefly to them that Tamil is indebted for its high culture and independence of Sanscrit. They were expelled in the reign of Sundara Pandya, at about the time when Marco Polo visited India. The Mohammedans first made an inroad into the Deccan in the reign of Alla-ud-deen of Delhi in 1293, they crossed the Kistna in 1310, and advanced as far as Rameswara in 1374.