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NOVEMBER, 1905.]
THE AGNIKULA; THE FIRE-RACE.
patron, solves the puzzle by pointing to the particular personage who is the object of praise. As a rule, therefore, these poems are directly addressed to the patron by the poet. And this circumstance makes them of great importance for purposes of the history and social condition of those times.
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Unfortunately, however, the author does not mention the Three Kings by any specific names, a matter of indifference to them, as they could not have had any idea of the rise of laborious students of history among their posterity. But the Seven Patrons are referred to specifically enough. And certain of the details relating to the Kings themselves give important clues. The Seven Patrons are, in the order given by the poet:- Pêhan, round about the Palnis; Pâri, along the Western Ghâts further north; Kâri, round about Tirakkovalûr in South Arcot; Ay, round about Padiyil Hill in the west of Tinnevelly; Adihaman, of Tagadûr, either the place of that name in the Mysore country or Dharmapuri preferably; 3 Nalli, of Malanaḍu (there is nothing else by which to fix his exact locality); and Ori, with his territory round about Kolli Malai in Salem. The Chôla is associated with Uraiyûr, and the Chêra with Vañji, specifically, and not in the general terms in which the Maharajas of Travancore are nowadays styled.
Kapilar is generally associated with Parapar; and the two together are usually spoken of by the older commentators Kapila-Paraṇar. That this is due to contemporaneousness, is proved by the fact that Kapilar was an elder contemporary of "the Chêra of the Elephant-look" in whose reign the Ingurunûru collection, of which Kapilar composed the third part, was made by Kûḍalûr Kilar, a Sangam celebrity. Further, both these poets, Kapilar and Paraṇar, interceded with Pêhan on behalf of his wife when he deserted her in favour of another woman. Thus, then, Kapilar and Paranar were contemporaries, and the latter celebrated Senguttuvan Sêra in the third section of the "Ten-Tens." This, therefore, takes the Agnikula tradition to the age of Senguttuvan, who was the grandson of Karikala-Chôla. This Karikala is placed in the Leyden Grant and in the Kalingattupparani far anterior to Parântaka I.; and the Silappadhikaram itself makes Sengaṭṭuvan the contemporary of a Gajabâhn of Ceylon, whose date is held to be A. D. 113 to 125.
The name of Pâri had become proverbial for liberality in the days of Sundaramûrti-Nayanâr. This latter must have lived centuries before Rajaraja the Great, as some of his grants make donations to the image of the Nâyanâr. It was Rajaraja's contemporary, Nambi Ândar Nambi, who elaborated the Tiruthondathogai of Sundara. On these and other considerations, Sundaramârti has been alloted to the eighth century of the Christian era, and therefore Kapilar and others have to be looked for at a respectable distance anterior to this. For, between the date of Sundara and the fifth century A. D., the Pallavas of Kâñcht occupied the premier position in South India, and there is absolutely no reference to this in the body of the literature to which the works under consideration belong.
The Chêra capital, as given in all these works, is Vañji, on the west coast, at the mouth of the Periyar; while the Chola capital was Uraiyûr. In the later period, from the days of Kulasekhara-Alwar, the Chêra capital certainly was Quilon. This change is said to have taken place, according to tradition, after the days of Chêramân-Perumâl, who was a contemporary of Sundara. Besides this, the language of the whole of the south was Tamil; Malayalam had not yet become differentiated from it. These considerations, again, would lead us to refer Kapilar and the galaxy to a period anterior to the seventh century, according to even the most
unfavourable estimate.
But, in point of fact, the time referred to is much earlier than this. The contemporaneousness of Gajabahu refers the period of Kapilar to the second century A. D.; and this, so far,
See Vol. XXII. above, pp. 66 and 143, and Epigraphia Indica, Vol. VI. p. 331.
