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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
[ Vol. XXVI
We are told in our inscription that the general, after his return from the Ganges, had his initiation from the cave of Nirañjana-guru, who was the head of affairs at Tiruvorriyūr. From an inscription at Tiruvorriyūr' dated in the 19th year of Vijayakampavarman, we learn that a Niranjana-guru built the Siva shrine at Tiruvorriyūr naming the shrine after himself as Niranjanēsvarati, Nirañjana-guru is here stated as playing a prominent part in the Tiruvorriyūr temple. The date of this record is, however, not known, for neither the exact identity nor the date of the Pallava Vijayakanipavarman is settled. That this Pallava king was connected with the Tiruvorriyur temple is further evident from the name of another deity at Tiruvorriyūr, Kampisvaramudaiyar, mentioned in inscriptions.? Vijayakampa's period extended over twenty-six years, and he is taken by some scholars as a contemporary of both Nộipatunga and Aparajita ;" this may, roughly speaking, place Kampa somewhere round about 875 A.D. Niranjana-guru,who built the shrine at Tiruvorriyūr in his 19th year, cannot be brought to a date later than 900 A.D. Anyway, he could not have been living at the time of the Chõļa general's entry into the holy order. The Takkõlam battle was fought in A.D. 949 and the first inscription mentioning this general as head of a matha at Tiruvorriyūr is dated A.D. 957. Even allowing the shortest time for his journey to the Cines and return to the south, say two years, we cannot suppose that he could have been at Tiruvorriyūr earlier than A.D. 951. Probably he took a longer time to return to Tiruvorriyūr; for one who had renounced life and had chosen the path of the passionless, there was no particular hurry and his hitting upon Tiruvorriyūr for stay and sādhanā could not have been according to any pre-meditated plan. I reconstruct the conditions under which he became a siddha differently from what they have appeared to be for others. The important word in the inscription, gahva, meaning guha, should be properly understood. It may be by subsequent semantic shift, the word guhai in the Tamil Dictionary has come to acquire the general meaning' abode of a recluse ;' such an abode may be a monastery, a cave or any secluded place; a cave may be natural, excavated or artificially constructed; but a guhā especially when it is used in Sanskrit does not necessarily mean a matha. Now, in the times of Vijayakampavaraman, there was a great Saiva at Tiruvorriyūr named Niranjana-guru who was an important figure in the temple. His habitation, or more probably the place where he had his sādhani originally, was a cave or cave-like dwelling which during his time and after b un, fitnes 13 the Vira ijuna-guhi. When our general came to Tiruvorriyūr, he was an obscure aspirant; he saw a guhi there associated with a great siddha and which he therefore took to be highly efficacious for his own sūdhani also ; he entered it, performed sädhani inside for a considerable time and then emurged one day as a siddha. The guha then became doubly sacred with the association of two siddhas, and devotees began to esteem it all the more. The new siddha, who had now assumed the name of Chaturānana Pandita, continued to inhabit the same guhā, which by the attention paid by the public gradually grew in importance and was built over into a regular matha by the time of the visit of the Manyakheta merchant in A.D. 957. If we interpret
No. 372 of 1911 of the Madras Epigraphical Collection. * A. R. on S. 1. Epigraphy, 1913, p. 88. * Above, Vol. XXIII, p. 146.
. See Colas, Vol. II, pt. 1, p. 498, f.n. 72. Chaturanana Pandita as the name points is a Saivite recluse; according to the cunonical works of the Pasupata sects, one of the prescribed habitats of a Saivite recluse is a yuha which is expiained as u cuvo; the mention of a cave is said in some texts to include man-forsaken buildings too, sūnyuyara; but nowhere is a sudhaka referred to as resorting to an established matha for his adhana. See Pasupala Sitrus, Tri. Skt. Series, CXLIII, p. 116, and Canakarika, Gaek. Or. Series, XV, pp. 16-17.
. d. l. on J. I. Epiyraphy, 1913, para, 17, page 94.
