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NOVEMBER, 1895.)
EARLY SOVEREIGNS OF TRAVANCORE.
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there are but very few names of any class whose etymology cannot be traced to well-known roots. But Syînandúra, though used familiarly by Sanskrit scholars both in inscriptions and in standard Malayalam works,80 is analysable according to no known rules of grammar. It looks in the highest degree incredible that the Aryans of Upper India could ever have been under the necessity of inventing such an arbitrary and unanalysable name for so petty a village in the Dravidian country. In all probability then, it must be a Sanskțitized corruption of a Dravidian name now altogether lost to us. The last syllable in Syânaudûra sounds like ur, the Tamil term for village or towu, but what the preceding two syllables stand for, it is difficult to conjecture. If the word were Sryanandûra, we could have taken the body of it as made up of sri or tiru in Tamil, and nanda, as preserved to us in the inscription before us as well as in the name Mitrånandapuram. But in that case there would have been no necessity for any corruption at all. My impression, therefore, is that the original native denomination of the town must have been a Dravidian word ending in ir. The form Syánanıltirapura occasionally met with tends to shew that úra was a part of the original name and no corruption of pura, since pura is itself added to it. At any rate, the name could not have been either Anandapuram, us in our inscription, or Anantapuram, as in current uso, since both of them are yood Sanskțit words, needing no corruption to suit the genius of that language.
XI.
We have seen alrcady that in Idavam or Mithuna 384, i. c., 1209 A. D., the government of the country was in the hands of Sri-Vira-Iraman Keralavarman. This same sovereign was in power on Thursday, the 18th Minam 389 M. E. If any one wishes to assure himself of the fact, it would cost him nothing more than a pleasant trip to Kadinankulam, just 12 miles north of Trivandram, on the backwater route to Quilon. On the north-western wall of the temple of Mahadeva in this village, le would find a Vatteluttu inscription in four lines to the oilowing effect :
11 Vatteluttu NO. 20. Tamil.
- Kadinankulam Inscription of Vira-Rama-Koraļavarman. "Hail! Prosperity! In the year opposite the Kollam year 389, with Jupiter in Aquarius, and the sun 18 days old in Pisces, Thursday, Pushya star, 81 the 10th lunar day, Aries (being the rising sign), and Sri-Vira-Traman Keralavarma Tiruvadi of Kilppérdr being the gracious ruler of Venad, Sri-Vira-Iraman Umaiyammai Villavar (?) Tiruvadi graciously caused the consecration (of the idol inside)."
This neat inscription, giving full details of its date even to the hour, would have been altogether unexceptionable, but for a difficult word which I am not quite sure of, between Umaiyammai and Tiruvadi. We need not be particularly sorry for this, if we could be but sure that it was a part of the proper name of the founder of the temple. Bat as it stands, the proper name would appear to be completed with Umaiyammai, and the intractable word after it would seem to describe her status or position, in which case, indeed, it must be of supreme historical importance for us to know exactly what it was. The title Tiruvadi is found through. out our records reserved to royalty. It occurs even here just a line above in connection with Srî-Vira-Iriman Keralavarman. Who then could this additional Tiruvadi be? The name given, Sri-Vira-Iraman Umaiyammai, is a curious compound, Sri-Vira-Irâman being a masculine name, the first part in fact of the name of the then ruling king, and Umaiyammai, an appellation as distinctly feminine. In a compound name like this, usage as well as grammar vonld determine the sex of the person so named by the ultimate particle of the name, and we hare, therefore, practically no doubt that the founder of the temple was a female, entitled, however, to royal rank. The interesting question then is, did she belong to the same royal house is
80 Vide, for example, the Vairlgiy-Chandridaiyam. 81 Payam or Pushyam is a star about the head of Hydra.
