From a Geocities page about Project Madurai though: “Based on recent calls in tamil.net, this initiative officially took off on the Pongal day of Jan. 14, 1998! After some collective discussions, “Project Madurai” (PM) was taken up as the name to describe this Internet-based Voluntary Initiative. Madurai has been a citadel of Tamil culture. It was Pandyan Kings during their long reigning period, who set up Sangams (academies) for the encouragement and criticism of Tamil Studies. Hence it is appropriate that an Initiative devoted to preserving and distributing Tamil literary works in electronic form is named after this historic city.”