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OCTOBER, 1914] THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA.
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA. By V. RANGACHARI, M.A., L.T., MADRAS.
(Continued from p. 192).
The Battle of the Tambraparni and its significance. Such were the imperial Generals who led the campaign of 1532. Achyuta Kaya combined, we are told, the activity of a soldier with the piety of a pilgrim. In the course of his expedition he visited the sacred shrines of Tirupati, Chidambaram, etc. and reached Sriraigam. There the sanctity of the place arrested his march and induced his stay, and made him despatch his brother-in-law to the south, whither Sâluva Náik had fled. Mârtânḍavarma had in the meanwhile advanced to the Tâmbraparai banks. There the two forces met. The engagement was one of high political importance. On one side were ranged the resources of the empire and of its Pândyan vassal, and on the other the gallant Nâyars of Travancore. The Nâyars, in those days, were a "peculiarly military" race trained in the exercise of war from their earliest youth49. A writer of the first decade of the 17th century speaks of them in language of admiration and praise. "It is strange to see" he says, "how ready the souldiour of this country is. at his weapons. They are all gentile men and tearmed Naires. At seven years of age they are put to school to learn the use of their weapons, where to make them nimble and active, cheir sinnewes and joints are stretched by skilful fellows and annointed with the oyle sysamus; by this annointing they become so light and nimble that they will winde and turn their bodies as if they had no bones, casting them forward, backward, high and low even to the astonishment of the beholders. Their continual delight is in their weapon perswading themselves that no nation goeth beyond them in skill and dexterity50." With such men the imperialists had to fight, and on the result of that fighting lay the position of the Pândya and the integrity of the Empire. The skill of Tirumalaiya and of his colleagues, however, was more than a match for Nâyar valour, and ultimately gained the day. The colours of Vijayanagar waved in triumph over the Tâmbraparṇi banks, and the vanquished king of Nânji hurried to come to terms. He took the victor to Trevândrum, presented a number of elephants and horses51, and accompanying him to Srirangam, made obeisance to the Emperor, and obtained pardon on promise of a faithful allegiance and regular tribute in future. At the same time he seems to have restored the territory of the Pândyan king, which he had unlawfully seized. The emperor gave a wise termination to the whole affair by cementing his alliance with the Pandyan and marrying his daughter. The fate of Sâluva Naik is unknown.
49 Capt. Drury comparee "the effeminate disposition" and the incapacity "to bear transplantation from his native soil," which he attributes to the Nayars of early 19th century, with the Nayars of the, 16th and 17th centuries, and gives the palm of superiority to the latter. See Madr. Journ. III (1858),!
203-4.
50 Johnson's Relations of the most famous kingdom in the world, 1611, quoted by Capt. Drury. Ibid; see also Logan's Malabar Manual and Thurston and Rangachari's Castes and Tribes, V, p. 285-90 for other referendes to Nayar valour, by various writers in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term Nayar is held by some scholars to be derived from the same term as Naik. The glossary of Yule and Burnell, in fact, says that "the Nayars of Malabar are closely connected by origin with the Nayakans of Vijayanagar." P. L. Moore in his Malabar Law and Custom maintains the same view. His reasons are quoted in Castes, and Tribes V, p. 292. .Munro used the terms Naik and Nair interchangeably. It seems to me that there has been a general misapprehension among these writers and the confusion has been caused by a similarity of sound between the two words.
51 See Trav. Arch. Series, based on the achyutardyabhyudayam, p. 55.
