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282
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1895.
is expected further to renew the visit every year of his reign. It is difficult to believe that such attentions and honours are allowed to the spot, simply because of an accident of a palace having been constructed there, to accommodate two adopted Rânis, as stated by Mr. Shungoonny Menon. "During the 5th century M. E., and in the reign of king Aditya Varma, the Travancore royal family was under the necessity of adopting two females from the Kolathnad royal family, and a royal residence was constructed at Attingal, for the residence of the two Rants, and they were installed as Attingal Mootha Thampuran and Elia Thampuran, i. e., Senior and Junior Rants of Attingal. The country around Attingal was assigned to them, and the revenue derived therefrom was placed at their disposal."66 Until we know for certain the nature of the authority on which this statement is based, we may scruple to accept the account, as a sufficient explanation of the anomalous relation of Arringat to the royal household. Even assuming that a particular king of Vênâd in the 5th century M.E. went so far out of his way as to look to Kolatnad for heirs to his own dominions, it is still, I am afraid, not very likely that the fair members so introduced into his own family would be located, in those troubled days, altogether away from South Travancore, the acknowledged seat of his own power. Antecedent probability is in favour of Arringal having been at one time an independent principality, the first of those merged later on into Vênâḍ. The early aggressive vigour of the kingdom of Vênâd, meeting with insuperable difficulties in the more exposed and troublesome eastern border, over which it had once extended itself, as proved by the inscrip. tions said to exist in Shermadevi and other villages of South Tinnevelly, must have next turned itself to the north, where evidently it found freer scope for exercise. The first state then to be absorbed would naturally be Arringal, supposing it was then independent. And to account for the facts, we have next only to assume that, to conciliate the newly added province, an alliance through marriage or adoption was effected with the house of Arringal, the name "Rants of Arringal" being continued, with the same object, and in the same manner as in the familiar case of the "Prince of Wales." A strong presumption is raised in favour of such an hypothesis by the fact of Kilppêrür being found annexed as the house-name or the Vênâd princes in later inscriptions. Kilppêrûr is an old and ruined village, unapproachable by cart or boat, about 8 miles to the north-east of Arringal. The country about Arringal seems to have been known in early times as Kupadesam,sa province altogether distinct from Vênâd. An inscription of Rajaraja Chola, dated in the 50th year of his reign claims for him a decisive victory over the king of the Kapakas. The Tamil poem, Kalingattu Parani, of the days of Kulôttunga-Chôla, enumerates the Kûpakas among the subject races that paid tribute to that emperor. The identification of Arringal with Kûpadêsam is rendered almost certain by an inscription in the Apanesvara temple, about 2 miles from Arribgal, dated as late as 751 of the Malabar Era, which speaks of the princess who repaired that shrine, as the queen of the Kapakas. If Kupa-rajya and Vênâd were thus at one time two co-ordinate provinces of Malabar, and if, in later times, we find the princes of the latter appropriating to themselves, as their "house-name;" the name of a locality situated in the former, it cannot be a violent assumption to suppose that the two were originally independent principalities, and that their amalgamation took place under such circumstances as led to a compromise, the weaker party submitting to the stronger on the condition of the stronger appropriating, not only the kingdom, but also the family name of the weaker. In short, it looks not in the least unlikely that, when the power of Vênâd prevailed over Arringal, some matrimonial or other alliance was concluded, which naturally led the blood of Arringal to prevail, in its turn, in the veins of the Venad princes.
Shungoonny Menon's History of Travancore, page 98.
7 Plenty of valuable inscriptions are found in several old villages of this district, which, as far as I know, have not yet seen the light of day, both literally and metaphorically!
Dr. Gundert thinks that Kapa-rajya was probably indentical with Kumbalam, but notes at the same time that other manuscripts exchange it for Maahikam, the most southern quarter.' Kumbalam, as far as I am aware, is between Cochin and Alleppy. Arriagal would be the most southern quarter, excepting Venâḍ.
Kalihgattu-Parani, Canto xi. verse 8.
