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MAY, 1896.)
THE AGE OF TIRUNANASAMBANDHA.
121
depended upon by Dr. Caldwell. The Sundar Bandi who dies in 1293, re-appears in 1310, and flees from Madura to Delhi for protection against a rebellious brother of bris! But it is need less for our purpose to go into the evidence of these so-called historians, cited by Dr. Caldwell to support his view. Let us suppose that the reconciliations he proposes, between these and other queer statements of theirs, are satisfactory, and also that the identification of Marco Polo's Sender Bendi of Soli with their Sundar Bandi of Malabar is as sound as the learned Doctor could wish ; still, are we any way nearer our conclusion? A distinctly different identification would yet remain to be made. Is the Kün Pandya of Sambandha the same as the Sandar Bandi of the two Muhammadan historians ? There is not the least shadow of evidence in favour of the supposition, while every historical fact known is decidedly against it. We need mention here but two. (1) The minister of Kûn Pandya was not the Muhammadan Shekh Jamalu'ddin, but Kulachobirai Nayapar - one of the sixty-three canonized Saiva saints.36 . (2) The dominions of Kan Pandya, instead of extending from Külam or the Persian Gulf to Nellore, did not go beyond Trichinopoly, where the three Tamil kingdoms met in the days of Sambandha." The Chôļa kingdom itself did not embrace Cuddalore, which was then a Pallava province.
Now turning to Mr. Nelson, --surely his procedure is more judicious. He has no decided theory to uphold, but arguing from certain premises, he concludes that “it is very possible that Kun Pandya reigoed in the latter half of the eleventh century." The premises assumed are, (1) that certain conquests and feats, claimed for one Sundara-Pandya in an undated inscription, are true and applicable to Kan Pâədya; and (2) that Mangaiyarkkarasi, the queen of Kun Pandya, was the daughter of Karikála Chôļa, who persecuted Ramanuja. Now both these premises appear to me more than questionable: and I shall consider them separately.
The most remarkable point in Mr. Nelson's inscription is the alleged occurrence in it of thi name of Mangalyarkkaraki, the patroness of Sambandha. But, as Mr. Venkayya informs me, the name of Mangaiyarkkaraši is a mere misreading of Mr. Nelson for Ulagamuļududaiyál,37 the Tamil equivalent of Lôkamahadevi. This removes the only ground for any plausible identification of Sundara-Pandya with the Kar Påądya we are in search of.
The only other historical allasion in the document is the burning of Tanjore and Uraiyûr. Mach is made of this by Mr. Nelson. But it is altogether fatal to his theory. Kun Påodya could not have burned Tanjore, for the simple reason that Tanjore did not then exist. Neither Sambandha, nor Appar, nor Sandara found such a place in their systematic and incessant peregrinations. They do not even seem to have heard of such a place, which would be certainly inexplicable, seeing that all of them, and particularly 'the third, spent so much of their time in what is now called the Tanjore district, where scarcely a village was left oncommemorated in their endless hymns. Sandara, indeed, mentions a Tanjore, as the birthplace of a particular saint, but it is not our Tanjore at all, but a village now called Pottai Tanjâvûr, a bamlet near Negapatam. By the time of Karavar Devar, one of the nine authors of the TiruIsaippa, Tanjore makes its appearance with its temple of Rajarajêsvara, 90. and in that supplement to the Déváram, a hymn is found for the first time for Tanjore. Nambi Âşdir Nambi thus finds it necessary to qualify the original Tanjore of Sundara with a distinguishing
* We have Sambandha's own evidence for this fact. For instance, he says "Korravan.tanakku mandiriy-dya Krulachchiqari;" Hamasvami Pillai's edition, p. 838.
- See Sambandha's Mudkichchara-padigan, p. 84.
* Soo Tinnloukkarasar Puranam, verse 84. Tiruppådirippuliyar, now called Old Cuddalore, was the capital of Pallava province and the seat of Buddhist university; hence its name, which is simply a Tamil rendering of Pitaliputra
» Soe Dr. Burgess and Mr. Nateks Saatri's Tamil and Sanskrit Inseription, P.51, noto 2.
* Over five hundred and twenty-five such villages are mentioned in the Dévora Hymna, nearly half of whioh *in the Tanjore distriot.
It ww buut by the Chola king Rajaraja about A. D. 1000 ; so South Indian Inscription, Vol. II. p. 1.
