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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[MAT, 1911.
the lapse of a few years, the then reigning Chôla sovereign built a small temple at Uraiyûr and set up an image of the goddess (Nachchiyar) in it.
In Kali 50, Kulasekhara-Perumal became the lord of the Chêra, Chôla and Pandya territories. He built palaces at Madura, Kolli and Uraiyûr, Solakulavalli, the daughter of this king effected certain improvements to the temple at Srirangam.
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In Kali 360, a lord of the Gauda-desa came with hoards of treasure and made a gift of them to the god. The treasure, not having been accepted by the god, remained in charge of certain northern Brahmanas, whom the lord of Gauda-dèáa left behind him. The way in which these Brahmanas conducted themselves pleased Ranganatha so well that the deity accepted the treasure afterwards.
In Kali 445, the Vaishnava saint Tirumangai-Alvâr was living in Srirangam composing his famous work Tirumoli and executing certain repairs to the temple. At this time a certain Tiruvilakku-Pichchan accused Tirumangai of self-praise in his compositions. Madhurakavi Alvâr set up the image of Sadagopan at Tirunagari", defeated Kamban' in the great academy of Tamil poets and was much devoted to Nammålvår. He frequently visited Srirangam to scrutinise the temple accounts. It was at this time that Tirumangai composed the six Tiruneḍundandagam and Nammalvar's work Tiruváymoli received such a sanctity as to be sung along with the Vêdas.
Eduttagai Alagiyasinga-Nayinar and Tondaraḍippoḍi-Alvâr are said to have been important devotees prior to the time of the three Âlvårs.
In the first place it may be remarked that the chronology of this part of the book is not very reliable. The Kali years assigned to Kulasekhara-Peruma! and the three Alvârs are decidedly wrong as will be pointed out below. There are also grounds to suspect that the events are not recorded in the order in which they took place. Until it is controverted, I think the correctness of the events may be accepted. It seems possible that owing to a confusion or ignorance on the part of those who collated the materials, the kings of one dynasty are named as belonging to another. Four kings are mentioned, viz., Dharmavarman, Kili-Chola, Rajamahendra and Nanda-Chôla. The first of these was regarded by Prof. Hultzsch as a mythical personage. As Kili-Chôla is said to have come in the line of Dharmavarman, the latter has to be looked for among the ancestors of the Cholas; but we do not find his name in the mythical genealogy of the Chôlas furnished in the large Leyden plates. What is here omitted is happily preserved elsewhere. The Saiva saint Tiruñânagambanda who lived in the middle of the 7th century A.D., refers to king Dharma in one of his hymns on Piramapurams. Though the exact time of this king cannot be made out at present, the reference is useful as it shows that he must have flourished prior to the time of the saint, Kili, if it is a contraction of Killi, is assuredly an historical personage. As Tamil literature furnishes the names of several kings by this name, it is not possible to say which of them is referred to here, But it will be useful to examine the evidence contained in Tamil works regarding the kings bearing the name Killi. As a result of my enquiry I find that it is a mistake to take each king of that name to be a separate sovereign and to allot him a place in the Chôla genealogy.
This is another name for Nammalvår.
This village goes by the name of Alvår. Tirunagari and is in the Tinnevelly district. Karugor was its
other name.
According to the extant Tamil literature, there was but one Kamban and he appears to have lived in the 13th Century A.D. The person referred to here must be different from him as he belongs to the 8th Century.
The stanza, in which the name occurs, runs thus:
Bengo-nadavi-ppall-uyirkkun-cheyvinai meytiriya
Vengo-Ddaruman mêviy-apda Venguru meyavané.
Yenguru was one of the twelve names by which abiyali was known in ancient times,
