Indian Antiquary Vol 46

SR No.: 032538
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 508
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 20 MB

Page 64

58
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
(MARCH, 1917
& shadow and his extensive dominion to the single city of Trichinopoly. And when to this foreign conquest, he had to meet the contumacy of the greatest of his vassals, the Setupati, who raised an independent standard at a time when his master was most in need of his obedience and help, the cup of Chokkanatha's grief became too full, and he passed away, leaving his kingdom in possession of contending foreigners, and his subjects the victims of war and military occupation.
The Tanjore war affords & fine example, so common in Indian History, of history merging into romance. The cause of the war was, as in many other cases in India, a woman. The king of Tanjore, the pious Achyuta Vijaya Raghava, had a daughter, whose beauty of person and of mind, had gained wide renown and a crowd of suitors. Chokkanatha was an aspirant for her hand, and in 1674 despatched an embussy with presents and proposals of marriage. But no sooner did the Madura messengers state the object of their visit than the monarch of Tanjore flew into a passion and declared that the proposal was an insult. With undisguised contempt and denunciatory abuse, heso pronounced his brother chief to be unfit81 to be his son-in-law, and dismissed the messengers with insult, When Chokkanât ha heard of the indignity he resolved on immediate war, and ordered the Dalavâi Veikata Krishịa Naik, 82 and the treasurer Chinna Thambi Mudali, to set the Madura army in motion. Venkata Krishna was an able general. His skill had gained, from his master and his contemporaries, the flattering titles of Sugrîva's crown and Savyasachin. He promptly obeyed his master's mandate, and was in a few days in the confines of the Tanjore kingdom, where the first engagement between the two powers took place. The contest was sanguinary, and "blood ran like water in the channels for irrigation." The Trichinopolitans gained the victory, and were able to push their way into Tanjore. When within a few miles of the capital, they came into collision, for a second time, with an army despached by Vijaya Raghava. Many interesting and singular facts are narrated in connection with this battle, which give us an excellent idea of the warfare of those days. The Telugu chronicle, Record of the Affairs of the Carnatic Gover
- Vijaya Raghava would have, according to one version, consented for the marriage ; but he was deterred from doing so by an evil counsellor, the Dalavai Rangappa Naik, who had his own motive for thus acting. Ho wished to marry the princess to his son, Ranganatha, and to divort the crown through her, to his own family. With this view, we are told, he had already secured the imprisonment of the right heit, Mannâru Naidu by acousing him before the king of an abandoned life. In dissuading his master from listening to Chokkanatha's proposal, he proceeded in a cautious and effective manner by provoking by enormous personal vanity of his master. He pointed out how Tirumal Naik had stabbed his betrothed
Tanjoro princess, for her playful remark that his buildings were like the drainage works of her father, and how such a brutal family was hardly worthy of a marriage alliance. He is also said to have bribed Govinda Dikshita, Vijaya Ragava's minister, to tell the king that he, & Vaishnava, could not properly form an alliance with the Saivite line of Madurs. There are many improbabilities in this version, how. ever: First, there is no evidence whatever to prove that Tirumal stabbed Tanjore princess, though there is evidence of such a marriage. (See Wheeler's Hist. Vol. IV, pt. II, p. 677) where Wheelor describes the wedding ceremonies). Secondly, Govinda Dikshita was evidently not Vijaya Raghava's minister. Thirdly, even if Govinda had lived he would not have belittled his own deity Siva,
B1 Manucci, Storia do Magor III, p. 103-5. As usual Menuoci is very inaccurate and unreliable, His version of the Tanjore prince" (he gives neither the name of Chokkanatha nor of Vijaya Raghava) is most disparaging, and differs entirely from other sooounte. See Noto p. 16.
* According to Manucci he proceeded in person,