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one of the fifty Brahmana sub-donees marks him out as an important personage. From the Anaimalai inscriptions, we know that Eyinan was an epithet or surname held by Maran Eyinan, the younger brother of Marangäri himself. Perhaps Maran Eyinan and Marti Eyinan were both younger brothers of Mag-ngari. The ajñapti of the Madras Museum plates was Dhirataran Marti Eyinan, who was one of the maha-samantas of the king. There is little doubt that Mürti Eyinap of our plates and Dhirataran Mirti Eyinan of the Madras Museum plates are identical and that thus also the king Neḍuñjadaiyan mentioned in both these sets of plates is one and the same. If this identification is accepted the two allied plates together supply the full list of the military exploits of Neḍuñjadaiyan. By the third year of his reign (the date of the present grant) Neḍuñjadaiyan must have subdued the Ayavel and the Kurumbar and defeated the Pallavas south of the Kaviri; but before his 17th year (the date of the Madras Museum plates) he had carried his conquests right into the heart of the Kongu country and taken possession of it by defeating its king Adiyan and his allies the Pallavas and the Keralas. The conquest of the Kongu country and the desire to possess it seem to have been very strong with the Pandya kings. For, Saḍaiyan, the grandfather of Neḍuñjaḍaiyan, held the title Lord of the Kongas and his father Ter-Maran actually crossed the Kaviri, subjugated Mala-Kongam and had invaded that country even as far as Pandi-kKodumuḍi. Neḍuñjadaiyan seems only to have followed in the footsteps of his ancestors in subduing the Kongabhumi, as far as the land of the Gangas. The information that a Ganga princess was married into the Pandya family is not mentioned in any of the Ganga records of this period which, falls into the reign of Śivamara I (755 to 765 A.D). The Vallabha or the Western Chalukya king who was defeated on this marriage occasion was probably Kirtivarman II who succeeded to the Chalukya throne in A.D. 746 or 747 and whose army is stated in his records to have defeated the army of the Keralas, the Cholas and the Pandyas.
From what is stated of the countries of Kongu and Kerala in these inscriptions of Neḍunjadaiyan, it is not difficult to see that the former was bounded on the east and perhaps also on the north by the land of the Gangas-the Gangavaḍi 96,000 of the Western Gangas of Talakaḍ and that on the south it extended far beyond Kodumudi, as even to cover the northern portion of the later Rajasarya-Valanaḍu of the Cholas which included in it the present Musiri and the Trichinopoly talukas. Coimbatore was in the western division of the Kongu-mandalam. The king of the Northern (vada) Kongu, was Adiyan-the Adigaiman or Adiyaman of later inscriptions whose capital was at Dharmapuri, the ancient Tagadar, in the Salem district. The Kerala country was situated on the west coast beyond the Sahyadri mountains and may have included also the southernmost portions of the present Coimbatore district. In the 8th century, therefore, it looks as if the Konga king allied himself with the Pallavas in the north and the Kerelas in the south and tried to oppose the invasion of the Pandya Neḍuñjaḍaiyan. The Vallabha was defeated by the Pandya general and a Ganga princess was married into the Pandya family perhaps as a political measure. It is stated that Pärvarajar put to flight Vallabha. Marangāri also fought on the same occasion. Perhaps the Pirvarajar were the chiefs of Gangavadi subordinate to the Western Ganga king who contracted marriage relations with the Pandyas.
Mr. Venkayya observes again in his Epigraphical Report that the title Arikesari occurring in text-line 62, was borne by a certain Neḍu-Maran who is mentioned in the commentary of Nakkirar on Iraiyanar-Agapporul. This latter work, as tradition says, was made available for the public by Nilakandanar of Musiri eight generations, i.e., about two hundred years, after the actual date of Nakkirar: Mr. Venkayya seems to have gone wrong in identifying Nedu-Maran of literature with Ter-Maran of the Velvikudi plates where, however, the characteristic title Arikesari is not given to him. The other titles, too, are not applied to him and the
See remarks on his Namakkal inscription in the Madras Epigraphical Report for 1905, p. 75 f.
