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JUNE, 1896.)
THE AGE OF TIRUNANASAMBANDHA.
155
But whoever built the Ponnambalam, in the days of Manikkavasagar, or well nigh the classical, or the Sangam, period of the Tamil literature, the name had not any more connotation about it than its well known synonym Puliyûr, or Tiger-village. From the mere occurrence, therefore, of the expression Fonnambalam in the hymns of Appar, we cannot jump to the conclusion that Appar lived after Parântaka. Such an inference would be not only unwarranted, but absurd also, in the face of the facts we have mentioned above. In fact, we have unmistakable evidence to shew that in the Dévára period, Chidambaram was not even a Côļa possession, but a strong-hold of the Pallavas.87 After it was re-annexed to the Chôļa dominions under the dynasty of Parântaka, the town did not go out of the hands of his successors, till long after the days of Anapaya, the patron of Śêkkilậr. The period of Pallava supremacy at Chidambaram mast have been, therefore, long anterior to the reign of Parantaka; -an inference that strongly supports the conclusion we have otherwise arrived at, with respect to the relative age of Sambandha and that sovereign.
(3) The only Chola that Sambandha refers to is the red-eyed 'Kochchengannan,- the hero of an archaic poem of Poygaiyar, called Kalarali-Nárpadu, - one of the eighteen didactic pieces compiled by the Paydits of the old Madura college. The dynasty of Parantaka I. is a distinctly different line, probably an offshoot of an alliance of the old Chola family with the Pallavas of Ka nchi. Kalingattu Parani, the historical poem we have already referred to, seems to break off rather abruptly 80 with this red-eyed king, in its poetical account of the old Chôļa line, and to begin afresh when it takes up the story of the dynasty of Parantaka. A long period of confusion would seem to have prevailed between the demise of Kochchengannan and the establishment of the new Chôla-Pallava dynasty to which Parântaka and Kandaraditya belonged. Sambandha, most probably, lived in this period of transition, when the old Chô!a kingdom had gone to pieces, and the new Pallava-Chôļa kingdom was in the course of formation. At any rate, such is the impression left on my mind by the Dévára Hymne, and if it is confirmed by the experiences of others, the estimate here formed of the interval between Sambandha, in whose memory the old Chola line was still fresh and green, and Kaņdaráditya, one of the later princes of the new dynasty, will not be regarded as excessive.
(4) The same conclusion would be forced on us, if we consider the practical extinction that had come over the Buddhistic religion by the time of Kaņdaraditya. The creed that was, in the days of Appar and Sambandha, so universally predominant, as to lead to the former's persecution, and to need the curse of the latter in every one of his padigams, evidently attracts little attention from the authors of the Tiru-Isaippa.
Do not such considerations as these and they may be multiplied, if necessary)" raise a strong presumption in favour of a long interval of time between Sambandha and Kaņdarâditya of the ninth century ?
Thus then, we need not go beyond the sacred literature of the Saivas, to establish two important positions, with respect to the question in hand. In the first place, the facts I have mentioned enable us to trace the influence of Sambandha successively backwards through the 14th, 12th and 1th centuries to the close of the 9th, the age we have assigned to Kaņdaraditya. If there is any force in facts, these prove beyond all doubt, that Sambandha could not have lived later than the 9th century. In the second place, certain other typical facts that
66 For an example of such a jamp in the dark, see The Yadura Country, Part III. Chapter II. p. 63. .
87 See Sundara's Kiyil Padigam, verse 9, where he speaks of the god of Chidambaram 48 & terror to whose who refuse rightful subsidies to the Pallava rulers.
# For, according to the Kyil. Puranam, the town was founded by a Chola prince. Again, in the Periya. purinam, the Brahmans of Chidambaram are said to have declined to crown Karruva-Nyapar on the ground that the Cholas were alono entitled to that honor.
* See canto viii. verse 19; but much stress cannot be laid on the arrangement of verses in this work. The whole poem requires careful editing by capable Tamil scholars in touch with the modern historical spirit of inquiry.
* For instance, the rise of the temple of Gangaikonda-Chôļebrara at the capital of the revived Chola dynasty of Parantaka, which finds no place in the Devara Hymns, but which has a Tiru-Iiai ppd for itself.
