The Pandyan emperors allowed the Paravars to manage and operate the pearl fisheries because of their already ancient skills in that activity, which required specialist seamanship abilities, knowledge of how to tend the oysterbeds and also knowledge of their location. The emperors exempted the Paravars from taxation and allowed them to govern themselves in return for being paid tribute from the produce extracted. Cave engravings from the third century BC, found in 2003, reinforce this view as they suggest that the Paravars were the chieftains (Velirs) of the coastal region during this period, ruling as subordinates of the Pandyas. Previously, in the 1920s, Iyengar had noted that the caste name was used in ancient scripts to mean both boatmen and chiefs of the Madurai country. A report written in 1669 made it clear that in so far as they were kings, they were only kings of their own people and not of any wider constituency; furthermore, that these "kings" were referred to as such only by the Paravars. However, in the Sangam work "Mathuraikkanci", the author Mankudi Maruthanar, refers to his patron, the Pandya sovereign Talaiyanganam Nedunjeliyan, as the Lord of Korkai and the Warlord of the southern Parathavar ("Then Parathavar por yere").