How did the Tamil merchant become India's first link to the outside world? The tale of the Tamil merchant is a fascinating story of the adventure of commerce in the ancient and early medieval periods in India. The early medieval periods in India. The early medieval period saw an economic structure dominated by the rise of powerful Tamil empires under the Pallava and Chola dynasties. This book marks the many significant wways in which the Tamil merchants impacted the political and economic development of south India.