Indian Antiquary Vol 42

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 72

68
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
MARCE, 1913.
companions wished him joy and congratulated the lady on her conquest. The god requested her to go back to her capital, and promised that he would go there on the eighth day, being Monday, to claim her in marriage. The princess was prevailed npon to return. True to his appointment, the god appeared at Madura, and claimed of the queen-mother the hand of her daughter in marriage.
The wedding of the divine pair came off much after the fashion among high-class mortals. The religious ministration, however, as might be expected, was of divine agency. Brabma acted s the priest. Vishņu gave away the bride. All the rishis, all the gods and angels witnessed the ceremony and sat down to the wedding-feast. By right of marriage the god succeeded to the throne, and reigned under the name of Somasundara-Pandya.
[Daring the time that the princess ruled, the kingdom obtained the name of Kanninada or the country of the parthenos. This Parthenos is the presidiog deity of the ancient temple of Kanyakumari or Cape Comorin, at the southern extremity of the Peninsula.--. HittitePhoenician foundation. It is probable that the Madura temple was consecrated to the same divinity, after the settlements extended inland ; and that, at first, it was the goddess alone that was worshipped there and that the association of the god-consort was a later idea. The princess, who is represented in the story as having bad three breasts, is really the goddess herself, as is plain by the narration of her miraculous birth from the sacred fire. This warrior-queen is the Hittite Amazonian-goddess, the Ephesian Diana, with her many breasts, symbolising the superabandance of nature. The number, three, of the breasts in the tale is not definitive of the real number, but merely suggestive of plarality.
Doubtless it was in Madura, as it was in other ancient countries of parallel civilization. The king was the high priest, and the queen, where she ruled, was the chief priestess. In later periods, when the spiritual chieftaincy was dissociated from the temporal, a prince of the blood royal was the prisst, or the princess royal, a virgin, was the priestess. The priests and priestesses assumed the name and title of the deities to whom they ministered. In theory, the whole land was the demesne of the deity, an appanage of the temple, and the priest-king or priestess-queen was only the vice-gerent ef the god or goddess.
The Dravidian Pandyans, as we find them in this early period, bad progressed into tbe gentile organisation, but the gens still claimed through the female. It was a stage of social evolution, from which the neighbouring allied tribes of Malabar have not as yet emerged.
Descent and inheritance was therefore mostly in the female line, with the innovation of male descent encroaching on the old role and creating exceptions. The dominion was ruled over by . queen. She did not cease to be s virgin, because she became a mother, any more than the goddess wbom sbe worshipped and represented. We have the high authority of Pliny to vouch for the fact that women ruled as queans in this district. Vide, Christopher Cellarius in his Commentaries. Vol. II, in loco :--Ab illis gens Pandae, sola Indorum regnata feminis. Unam Herculis serus ejus genitam ferunt, ob idque gratiorem praecipuo regno donatam.
A similar custom in dynastic Egypt is spoken about by Maspero, in his Struggle of the Nations, in a passage, which may be cited with advantage here. From the 12th dynasty downwards, the part played by princesses increased gradually and threatened to eclipee the power of the princes. Perhaps it was due to the males being killed out in the continuous wars. The histor is obscure. When it becomes clearer, we find qnite as many ruling queens as kings. Song took precedence of daughters, when they were the issue of a brother and sister along with their full blooded sisters. But the song lost this privilege when there was any inferiority in origin on the mother's side, and their chances diminished in proportion to the remoteness of the mother from the line of Rs. In the latter case, all their sisters born of marriages, which to us appear incestuous, took precedence of them and the eldest daughter became the legitimate Pharaoh, who set in the throne of Horus on the death of her father and even occasionally during his life-time. The prince whom she married governed for her, offered worship to the gods, commanded the army and administered justice. At her death, ber children inberited the crown."