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village in Magadai-mandalam. Three other records from the same village show that the district of Magadai should have been close to the village, if it was not actually included in it. It would not be an altogether wild conjecture to suppose that Mahara, Makara and Magara of the Hoysala inscriptions, is identical with the Magadai-maṇḍalam ruled over by the Vanakōvaraiyar Ponparappinan mentioned in the foregoing paragraph. If this identification be true, it would indicate the movement of the Bapas further south as far as the Pudukkottai State. The chief of this province who was evidently a feudatory of the rebel Peruñjinga had to be overcome before the latter could be attacked by the Hoysala generals commissioued to liberate the Chōla king Rajaraja III. from captivity.4
We have traced the movement of the Bapas as far south as the Pudukkoṭṭai State. In still later times they figure as feudatories and officers of the Pandyas in the 13th century A.D. Mr. Sewell mentions two chiefs, one namel Sundara Tōl Mahāvilivāṇādirayar and the other Muttarasa Tirumalai Mahāvilivāṇādirāyar as rulers of Madura in the period A.D. 1451 -1499. We have a few inscriptions of the 16th century which show that the Bapas continued to wield some power and influence. These have been found at Kalaiyarkoyil, Tiruppallani and Devipaṭṭanam in the Madura district. The earliest of the chiefs mentioned in them is MahabaliVäṇadharaya-Nayaka.7 Then came Sundarattōl-Uḍaiyar Mavali-Vaṇādarayar or Sundarattoluḍaiya Mahabali-Vaṇādarayar. He was apparently also known as MavaliVaṇādarayar without any additional designation.10 In two of them he bears the epithet irandakalam eḍutta 'who revived the past,' (i.e. re-established the Pandya kingdom). This may be taken to show that he took some part in the attempt made by the contemporaneous Pandya princes Śrivallabha and Kulasekhara to set up a show of Pandya sovereignty.11
Thus the history of the Banas furnishes another instance of the movement of a tribe from one part of Southern India to another. This aspect of Indian history has already been explained in my article on the Pallavas published in the Director-General's Annual for 1906-7.
1 No. 10 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1903. The donee in the Madras Museum plates of the Pandya king Jatilavarman was a native of Sabdali in the province of Magadha. In editing the plates, I assumed (Ind. Ant. Vol. XXII. p. 74, footnote 91) that this was the well-known province of that name in Northern India. It is, however, not impossible that the former is identical with Magadai-mandalam.
2 Nos. 12, 14 and 15 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1903.
It is worthy of note that there is a village named Popparappi in the Kallak urchi taluka of the South Arcot District which may be supposed to have been included in the dominions of the Bana chief Magadesan. It is just possible that the name Ponparappi has to be traced to the Bana chief of whom we are now speaking.
Above, Vol. VII. p. 168.
In the Sir Walter Elliot collection is an impression of Tribhuvanachakravartin Kōnērimaikondan, whose feudatory was Alagändür alias Mahabali-Vanarayar. The king's surname was apparently Avanivendarama which may be that of a Pandya king; Arch. Surv. of Southern India, Vol. IV. p. 185. In the reign of Maravarınan Sundara-Pandya I. (A.D. 1216-35) the throne of the Pandya king at Madura was called Vanadharayan, while Vikrama-Pandya-Vanädarayan was one of the officers of Jatavarman Sundara-Pandya I. (A.D. 1251-61). Prince Kulasekhara-Mahabali-Vanarayar figures in a record of Jatavarman Vira-Pandyadeva from Sinnamanur in the
Madura District.
Tists of Antiquities, Vol. II. p. 223.
7 No. 113 of the Madras Epigraphical collection for 1903.
No. 585 of the same collection for 1902 and No. 109 of 1903.
No. 121 of the same collection for 1903.
10 No. 587 of the same collection for 1902.
11 See the Madras Epigraphical Report for 1908-9, Part II. paragraph 32, and the same report for 1909-10, Part II. paragraph 38.
