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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
DECEMBER, 1895.
XIV. Hitherto we have been discussing the records of a series of sovereigns, from 301 to 427 M. E., with intervals too short to lead us to suspect their unbroken succession. But now for the first time appears an apparent blank. The next king of Vêņâd revealed by the documents in my collection is Sri-Vira-Udaiyamartandavarman II., who ruled on the 22nd of Kumbha 491 M. E. There is thus an interval of 64 years - a period presumably too long to be allotted to one reign. What princes, if any, enjoyed the throne of Vēņâd during the interval, and whether they have left any traces at all behind them, future researches alone can determine. I have about 15 documents in my present collection, dated from 400 to 491 M. E., but none of them gives me any help. On the other hand, judging by the light of these records, one would be led to conclude that this unaccounted interval of half a century was a time of trouble in the south-eastern frontiers of Vêņâd. It is about this time that the foreign temple of Rajendra-Choleśvara at Kottar receives several grants and dedications from private parties, prima facie foreign to Travancore. In the midst of these grants and presumably of the same age, so far as palæography and situation can tell us, occur four inscriptions dated in the 11th year of KÔ-Jatavarman alias Sri-Sundara-CholaPandyadeva. In an inscription at Suchindram, dated in the 9th year of the same Pandya king, this ancient village is itself called Sundara-Choļs-chaturvedimangalam. Finally in Saka 1293, or 546 of the Malabar era, this same foreign temple of Rajendra-Cboļa receives substantial repairs at the hands of Parakrama-Pandyadeva. What could all this mean bat that South Travancore was once more, about this period, under foreign sway? It looks highly probable that 'Sri-Sundara-Chô!a-Pandyadê va of the inscriptions we have just noticed, was the same as Jatâ varman alias Sundara-Pandye, whose accession is calculated by Mr. Dikshit of Dhulia, from materials furnished by Dr. Hultzsch, to have taken place in the Saka year 1172, and whose ninth year of reign in consequence would be Saka 1181, or 434 M. E., i.e., exactly seven years after the chieftains of Vîra-Padmanabha-Mártåndavarman completed their reconstruction of the temple at Varkkalai, Probably, then, soon after the completion of that architectural undertaking in the north, Sri-Vira-Padmanabha-Mártanda varman must have been called upon to do more anxious duties in the south. The cloud must have been gathering in that horizon even much earlier. I find the foreign temple of Rajendra-Choleśvara rising into favour from 392 M. E. The contest might have been long kept up, but the result could not have been other than unfavourable. Sundara-Chola-Pandyadêva succeeded at least in wresting the whole of the district of which Kottar was the centre. He seems to have established also his authority so widely and well as to lead private parties to reckon their grants in the year of his reign, and to call an ancient hamlet like Suchindram by a new fangled name, coined specially to flatter his pride. Sundara-Chôļa-Pandya was by no means the last of the revived dynasty of Pandyas to trouble Travancore. I bave with me an inscription dated in the 3rd year of Udaiyar Sri-Chola-Pandyadeva Kochchadaiyavarman, another dated in the 2nd year of a simple Kochchadaiyavarman, probably the same as the last ; two again dated in the reign of Maravarman alias Vikrama-Cha-Pandyadeva, and two more in the reign of Maravarman alias Srivallabha-deva. Pending further researches, we may, therefore, for the present, reasonably assume that the hiatus of sixty years, of which we have now no account, was a period too full of trials and tribulations to allow occasions for such acts of charities and temple buildings as form the subject matter of the Travancore inscriptions in general.
But before the end of the fifth century, the Pandya wave of conquest must have receded for a while; for we get once more a glimpse of the Vénad throne in 491 M. E. On the 22nd of Kumbha of that year, that throne was occupied by Sri-Vira-Udaiyamartandavarman II., alias Vira-Pandyadova. My authority for this statement is an inscription in five
n Ante, Vol. XXII. p. 221.
