________________
72
-
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[VOL. XVIII.
the remaining portion." This statement appears to me to be doubtful, for the inscription, as in the case of many others, begins with the name and regnal year of the king, and at the most, a few words such as svasti sri and yandu and the numeral expressing the regnal year and the first portion of the name of the benefactor, the capitalist who dug the tank, all amounting to about five or six words could be supposed to have been lost. Dr. Haltzsch interprets Sēnāmukha according to Winslow's Tamil Dictionary by (1) 'the front of an army', and (2) 'a division of ad army'. Its meaning may be settled, however, from the following quotations, to be the name of a military cantonment. The Mayamata says:
सर्वजनेमकीर्ण नपमवनयुतं तदेव तथा ।
बहुरक्षोपेतं यत् सेनामुखमुच्यते तन्नेः । And the Kāmikāgama defines it thus :
राजवेश्मसमायुक्तं सर्वजातिसमन्वितम् ।
गुधप्रदेशसंयुक्त सेनामुखमिहोचते " Consequently, the place where the tank was dag was perhaps a military cantonment, consisting of a large Hindu population, and this latter was exhorted to protect the charitable institution, vis, the tank Sri-Nāraṇam. Dr. Baltzsch says that "Nāranam is a neuter formed of Naranap, a tadbhava of the Sanskrit Narayani, and means a temple of Vishạn!", but þriNáraņam is distinctly stated to be a tank and not a Vishnu temple.
The translation of the record must be "(The year) ..... of (the reign of the king) ..... yavarman ....... ...... man.... dug a tank in our ......... Its name is Sri-Naranam. This is placed under the protection of the Manigrāmattár, the Sēņamugattár and (his own) descendents".
We thus see that there is no ground for taking the Manigrāmattār to be exclusively the merchants of the West Coast of Southern India; they were found wherever trade flourished. Nor were they Christian, since Hindu institutions were placed under their protection.
From the foregoing discussion, we arrive at the conclusion that Manigrämam never meant or implied a community of immigrated Christian merchants who were received and settled by a Malabar king in his country and that they were peculiar only to the Malabar Coast.
Regarding the Manigrūmattar Mr. Vincent A. Smith, collecting facts from the articles of a number of writers on the subject, adds an appendix (M) to chapter IX of his Early History of India. In it he summarises his opinion on the word thus :
"Historical traditions of India and Ceylon, when read together, seem to carry the evidence for the existence of the Church in Malabar back to the third century. We learn from the Ceylonese chronicle the Mahavamsa (ch. xxxvi), composed about the beginning of the sixth century, that in the reign of king Gothakābhaya or Meghavarnabhaya whom Geiger places in A. D. 302-15, & learned Tamil heretic overcame an orthodox Buddhist theologian in controversy and gained the favour of the king, who placed his son under his tuition. The Mahāvanía represents the victor in the disputation as being a monk named Sanghamitra, versed in the teachings concerning the exorcism of spirits and so forth'. Mr. K. G. Sesha Ayyar interprets this statement as meaning really that the successful controversialist was a Hindu, and identifies him with the famous Saiva saint Māņikka (or Maşi-) Vasagar. The Tamil account of that personage affirms that the saint actually converted the king of Ceylon towards the end of his career. That king may be identified with Gothakābhaya, and it is possible that the author of the Mahavam sa may have misrepresented the Saiva Hindu Māņikkavāsagar as Sanghamitra, a Buddhist beretic.
1 Tamilian Antiquary, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 64. The writer does not cite the statement in the Xaharamia correctly. The Tamil legend is given ibid, p. 66, and in Pope, Tirwedlagam, p. xxxi.
