I am working my way through "History Of The Tamils: From the Earliest Times to 600 AD", by P. T. Srinivasa Iyengar [0]. It's mostly informative and interesting, yet, considering that it was written in 1929 in about a year, I can't really claim it's a seminal authoritative work of many years, and unfortunately it is probably one of the few "authoritative" books on the subject that I have come across.
Progress and faith are hampered by the author's habit of making unsupported claims. Yet, as I am discovering in the absence of data, one tall claim is as good as any other. Are there any well researched books on the subject of ancient South India? How much of a problem is my almost total lack of knowledge of Sanskrit? Cheeni [0] http://books.google.com/books?id=ERq-OCn2cloC&dq=pt+srinivasa+iyengar&printsec=frontcover&source=web
