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JUNE, 1893.)
TAMIL HISTORICAL TEXTS.
143
him; the tiger banner flutters in the breeze; and before and on both sides of him come, mounted on horses, his vassal kings and nobles, an interesting and detailed list of whom is given :
1. Foremost in the brilliant assemblage of princes is the Tondaiman. This is evidently the Pallava king, who was at this time a feudatory of the Cholas. He is said to have defeated the Cheras, the Pandyas, and the kings of Malava, Sinhala and Konkana.
2. Munaiyar-kon, or the king of Muņai, a place now known as Tirumunaippaời. The word Munaippadi signifies a war-camp, and the place appears to have been so named because it marked the boundary between the Chola and Pallava kingdoms, before the latter had merged into the Chola dominions.
3. Chola-kon, or the viceroy of the Chola kingdom proper,
4. The Brâhman Kannan. This name is a Prakrit form of the Sanskrit Kộishņa. He is said to have been a native of the town of Kanjam, which is I believe now called Kanjaņûr and is in the Tanjore district. He was a minister in charge of the palace and the treasury.
5. Vanan, or the Bana king.
6. Kalingar-kon, or the king of Kalinga. His capital was Kalinganagara, the modern Kalingapatam in the Vizagapatam district.
7. Kadavan, the king of the hill-fort of Senji. As Kidavan, 'the forester,' is a Tamil synonym of the Sanskrit Pallava, he appears to have belonged to the Pallava royal family. His fortress 'Señji, which is spelled Gingee in English, belongs to the modern South Arcot district.
8. The king of Vånadu. This is the ancient name of the southern part of the Travancore territory.
9. Anantapalan, who is said to have been famous for his charities.
10. Vattavan. This seems to be a Tamil form of the Sanskrit namo Vatsa. He stormed the three-walled town of Mannai, which was defended by Aryas. In the inscriptions of Rajendra-Chô la, this town is referred to as conquered by the king, and the name is coupled with Katakam, indicating most probably that Mannai and Katakam were identical or adjacent to each other. Katakam is the modern Cuttack in the province of Orissa.
11. The king of Chodinadu. This may be Chêdi or Bundelkhand, but is more probably another Chêdi, & petty principality in the Tamil country, the capital of which was Tirukkovalar in the South Arcot district.
12. The chief of Åņaikkaval, i. e., Tiruvanaikkâval in the Trichinopoly district.
13. Adigan. This is the title of the chiefs of Dharmapuri in the Salem district, the ancient Tagadar or Takata.
14. Vallabhan, the Nuļamban, i.e. the king of Nuļambavadi, a division of the Mysore territory.
15. Tirigattan [i. e. the king of Trigarta).
This description of the king's appearance in pablic agrecs so well with what Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, saw about two centuries later when he visited Southern India, that I am tempted to quote his words. "It is a fact," says hc, "that the king goes as bare as the rest, only round his loins he has a piece of fine cloth, and round his neck he has a necklace entirely of precious stones, rabies, sapphires, emeralds and the like, in so much that his collar is of great value .......... The king aforesaid also wears on his arms three golden bracelets thickly set with pearls of great value, and anklets also of like kind he wears on his legs, and rings on his toes likewise. So let me tell you, what this king wears between gold and gems and pearls, is worth more than a city's ransom. And there are about the king a number of Barons
. An inscription of an Adigaimag appears at page 106 of Dr. Hultzsch's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I.
