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MARCH, 1893.7
MADRAS MUSEUM PLATES OF JATILAVARMAN.
59
and n are not quite dissimilar, and those for i, e, ai, , t and n do not exhibit any points of close resemblance. In the subjoined inscription more than two hundred and fifty of the virámas are distinctly marked, in most cases by means of a dot attached to the top of the letter. In some cases the dot is attached to the right or to the left of the letter. There is no attempt at marking the viramas either in the Jews' grant or in the Syrian Christians' grants, ---- if the copies published in the Madras Journal of Literature and Science, Vol. XIII. are faithful, -as well as in the Tirunelli grant. As regards Tamil inscriptions, we find that the viramas are some
imes marked only in the oldest ones. If the marking of the viráma had the same history in the Vatteluttu script as it seems to have had in Tamil inscriptions, we should conclude that the present grant belongs to a time earlier than any of the inscriptions from the Western coast hitherto discovered.
Of the Pandya kingdom nothing like a connected history is known, and it is doubtful if it will ever be possible to get a really trustworthy account of it from the earliest times. That it was a very ancient one, is established ky various facts. According to some versions of the Mahabharata, Arjuna is believed to have gone to the Pandya kingdom during his rambles in the South. The Buddhist king Asoka refers to the Påndyas in one of his edicts. The late Dr. Caldwell considered it nearly certain that it was a Påndya king who had sent an ambassador to the emperor Augustus of Rome. From the Greek geographers who wrote after the Christian era, we learn that the Pandya kingdom not only existed in their time, but rose to special importance among the Indian states, though no names of Pandya kings are known. Tuttukkudi (Tuticorin), Korkai, Kayal, Kallimeda (Point Calimere), Kumari (Cape Comorin) and Pamban (Paumben) were known to the ancient Greeks.7 Kalidasa, the great dramatist, refers to the Påndya kingdom as one of the provinces overrun by Raghu in his tour of conquest. The astronomer Varahamihira refers to this kingdom in his Brihatsahhita. The frequent mention of the Pandyas in ancient inscriptions shows that the kingdom continued to exist and that some of its rulers were very powerful. The Western Chalukya king Pulikesin II. (A. D. 610 to 634) boasts of having conquered the Pandyas among others.10 The Pallavas are constantly reported to have conquered the Pandyas. The inscription of Nandivarman Pallavamalla published by the Rev. T. Foulkes, refers to a victory gained by the Pallava general Udayachandra against the Pandya army in the battle of Mannaikudi 11 The Chalukyas, - Western as well as Eastern, -- and the Rashtrakata kings sometimes boast in their inscriptions of having conquered the Påndyas.12 It was, however, with the Cheras and the Cholas that the Pandya history was more intimately connected. They formed the three kingdoms' of the South,13 and were constantly at feud with one another. Each of the kings
Compare Dr. Hultzsch's South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. pp. 113 and 147; Madras Christian College Magazine, Vol. VIII. pp. 99 and 273.
• It is in connection with a marriage of Arjuna that the Påndya kingdom is supposed to be mentioned in the Mahabharata. Dr. Caldwell (History of Tinnevelly, p. 18) says that only the Tamil prose translation and the southern Saaskrit versions of the epic state that Arjuna's bride belonged to the Pandya family, while most of tho northern Sanskrit versions state that her father was the king of Manipura.
ante, Vol. V. p. 272. History of Tinnevelly, p. 17. Captain Tufnell in his Hints to Coin-collectors in Southern India, Part II. p. 8, says that the small insignificant Roman copper coins found in and around Madura in such large numbers and belonging to types different from those discovered in Europe, point to the probability of the existence at one time of a Roman settlement at or near that place. Mr. Sewell in his Lists of Antiquities, Vol. I. p. 291, seems to have first started this theory to explain the discovery of the small Roman coine.
1 See ante, Vol. XIII. p. 330 ff. and Caldwell's History of Tinnevelly, pp. 17-22. • Raghuvansa, iv. 49. Dr. Kern's edition, iv. 10.
10 See ante, Vol. VIII. p. 245. 11 ante, Vol. VIII. p. 276; the reading of the first line of Blate iv. first side, is not Mannaiku[eangrame as the published text bas it, but Mannaikuti-gråme.
19 For the Western Chalukya conquest of the Pandyas see Dr. Fleet's Kanarese Dynasties of the Bombay Presia dency. pp. 27, 28 and 39. Only one of the Rashtrakata kings is explicitly stated to have conquered the PApdyne. For the Eastern Chalakya conquest see South-Indian Inscriptions Vol. I. p. 51.
18 In Tamil, the phrase mw-aralar, 'the three kings,' is used to denote the Chêra, the Chola and the Pandya kinga. In Tamil inscriptions maua- dyar, and in Kanarese ones miru-rayaru aro used to mean the same three king; see South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I. p. 111, note 8.
