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[VOL. XXIII
considered that this Kalakkudi might be Kalakkād' in the Nanguneri taluk of the Tinnevelly District. But from the present inscriptions this identification has to be given up and Karavandapurm alias Kalakkuļi to be identified with Ukkiraņkoţtai in the Tinnevelly taluk.
Karavandapuram must have been a place of sufficient strategic importance in early Pāņdya days as to necessitate the building of a fort here by the Pandya king Neduñjadaiyan, who in the Madras Museum Plates dated in the 17th year of his reign, claims to have built, along with a broad stone ditch, a lofty wall whose top never loses the moisture caused by the sky coming in contact (with it), and the clouds resting (on ut), so that the town of) Karavandapuram might get resplendent, which has beautiful halls and long streets, (where even) warriors are afraid of the arrow (-like) pointed and long eyes of women with lotus faces. This Nequžjadaiyan has been identified with the king figuring in the Anaimalai inscriptions (c. A.D. 770) and the Vēļvikudi copperplates. Though in the latter record several birudas are applied to him, he is not known to have had the surname of Ukkiran' or 'Ugra'; and it is therefore not clear why and when Karavandapuram came to acquire its present name of Ukkiranköţtai, or Ukkiran's fort'. Its origin cannot be connected with the name of the early king Ugrapperuvaludi, for he is believed to have flourished long anterior to Neduñjadaiyan's time. In the Sanskrit portion of the larger Sinnamaņār plates, it is stated that Parāataka Viranarayana. Sadaiyan (c. A.D. 900) fought a battle at Kharagiri and captured a certain Ugra, who, it has been surmised, was probably a scion of the Pandya family. In that case, it may perhaps be hazarded that Karavandapuram which was fortified by Neduñjadaiyan (Jaţila Parāntaka) before about A.D. 785, was temporarily in the possession of this Ugra-Pāņdya a century later, and thus got the name which has survived to the present day, though it has also to be pointed out that the place was known only as Karavandapuram in the time of Solanralaikonda Vira-Pandya (c. A.D. 970), as evidenced by & record copied from the Chokkanāyaki shrine in the same village.
Vestiges of a fort and a moat are even now pointed out at some spots in the village as evidence of its former greatness, but the villagers have no information of value to offer regarding its ancient history. That the fortification may have been of fairly extensive dimensions can, however, be Burmised from the fact that the temple of Aditya-Bhatāra which is described in record A as being situated in the kilaivāyil or eastern gate, apparently of the fortified village, is nearly half a mile distant from the Chokkanāyaki shrine which, as implied by the name of the goddess "Vadavāyilnangai' must have been located at the northern gateway. It is interesting to note in this connection that the shrines of Aditya and Chokkanāyaki were located in the appropriate directions of the east and the north, in conformity with the rule mentioned in Kautilya? and the Āgamas that the shrines of guardian deities should be erected in the appropriate cardinal points inside a fort. From other inscriptions copied at the place, it is learnt that there were two Śiva temples called Arikegarībvaram and Rājasingisvaram in the vicinity of the village, though possibly not inside the fort itself and named as such after the Pandya kinge Arikësari and Rājasimha.
1 Above, Vol. VIII, p. 319 and Vol. XVII, p. 298. * Ind. Ant., Vol. XXII, p. 74. . Above, Vol. XVII, p. 295. Nilakantha Sastri : The Pandyan Kingdom, p. 30.
8. I. I., Vol. III, p. 457. • No. 197 of 1935-38 of the Madras Epigraphical collection. This fragmentary record reads as follows: Solanralai-konda #ri. Virapandyadëvarku yandu padin-ahju ivvändu Karttiyai-tingal mudal-pakkam ardm-pakkam wudulaga Pandimättända-valanaffu-kKaravandapurattu Vadavayil-nangai......
* Shamasastri's Translation, p. 62.
• Thements of Hindu Iconography, Vol. I, lntroduction, p. 22. Chokkaniyaki was probably one of the Suptumatri group, veral archaic statues of which are found strewn about in the temple compound.
