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No. 12.)
JAMBUKESVARAM GRANT OF SAKA 1630.
93
The places mentioned in the grant are Gajaranya-kshetram, Ponväsikondån street, Mahendramangalam in Tottiyam sina, Krishnapuram, Kirakkādu, Kondayampēta, Mangamambaparam, Ariyur and Ariyamangalam in the South Ko-nädu fima. Of these places the following may be identified :
Gajäranya-kshetram is the same as Jambakēśvaram. The tradition of the place runs to the effect that an elephant attained bliss by worshipping the god of the place.
Ponvasikondan street cannot be identified with any of the present day. It is connected with some of the Saiva saints, Appar and Sambandha for instance. It was apparently a locality famous as the seat of Saivism in Jambukėávaram.
Tottiyam sima is the district round the village of Tottiyam in Musiri Taluk, Trichinopoly district. The place appears to take its name from the Tottiyans, one of the sub-sects of the Kanarese-speaking Sädra castes of the Coimbatore district.
Mahendramangalam is a village near Lalappottai, a railway station on the South Indian Railway betweon Erode and Trichinopoly. The matha of Kumbhaköņam has still some lands there. Near this village is a temple dedicated to Venugopala-svămin, which with the surrounding lends is now owned by the Kumbhakonam matha.
Gopala-svåmin's garden probably refers to the garden of the above temple. Krishnapuram is a small village dear Mahendramangalam. Kárakkadu is a hamlet some 5 or 6 miles from Mahendramangalam. Kondayampēta is the village Kondayampettai near Jambukovaram. Tiruchchendoru is the village Tiruchchendurai 5 miles from Trichinopoly.
Ariyamangalam is also a village near Trichinopoly. It is said to have been situated in the South Ko-nadu district which is probably identical with the Pudukkottai State.
In lines 15-19 of the plate it is said that the Sankaracharya of Conjeeveram bad his 010 matha in Ponvåsikondan street from olden times. The insertion of own' (**) and 'from olden
times' (udgan) looks purposeful and curious, and it leads one to the suspicion whether the matha may have been originally owned by the Sankaracharya of the Kamakoti pitha, or not.
It has been already noted that Ponyåsikondan was a Saiva place of resort in Jambukē varam. Tamil records actually engraved on the walls of the matha at Tiruvanaikaval, which according to the Epigraphist may be assigned to the 13th century, state that the matha was originally built by a certain Solakop and was called the Narpattenndyiravan-madam, its priests being the descendants of Namassivāya-děvar of the lineage of Tiruchohattimurrattu-Mudaliyar. These records lead us to two inferences: first, that the Sankaracharya of Kumbhaköņam may have come into possession of the matha at the earliest only after the 13th century ; secondly, that the matha was originally built by a Saiva devotee for his sect and must have been in the possession of the Saiva saints at least as late as the 13th century. It is possible that a descendant of the family of Tiruchchattimurrattu-Mudaliyår made a gift of the matha to the Sankaracharya of Conjeeveram, or it may be that the latter occupied the matha when Saivism had declined in the locality and the matha was left in a rained state. In any case the records on the walls of the matha show that it was not the Samkarächärya's ca but was originally in the occupation of the Saiva community and the could refer at the earliest to the 13th century A.C. It cannot be known when the matha actually came into the possession of the present holder. It must have been occupied by the latter somewhere between the 13th centory and the year 1710 A.C., the date of the present record.
We are enabled in a way to determine the relative antiquity of the two machas at Kombbakoņam and Tiruvanaikaval. Of the two the former has been the more favoured, being the
1 See Madras Epigraphist's reports for 1909, p. 104, and 1916, p. 113.
* The earliest copper-plate grant of the Conjeeveram matha is that of Vijayngandagopile, dated 1291 AC. (Edited in the Bp. Ind. by Mr. S. Y. Yenkateswara, Vol. XIII, p. 196,)
