Indian Antiquary Vol 43

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

Page 35

FEBRUARY, 1914.] THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
Sastri a certain Vîra Pâudya ruled and distinguished himself during the same period. We may be sure that, in the time of Kampaña Udayâr's dynasty and of the Naik Viceroys who followed him, the indigenous kings continued to rule. But we have got few inscriptions of this period to enlighten us on the reigning dynasty.
31
Pandyan Emigration to Tinnevelly.
This absence of inscriptions in the name of the Pandyans between 1370 and 1550 has made some scholars suppose that the Pâidyans had left Madura. They indeed never abandoned the title of "Lords of Madura"; never for a moment thought themselves as otherwise than the kings of the city of Minakshi and Sundraêsvara, of the city which the halo of tradition connected with prehistoric scerres, in which the gods played a more active part than men. Nevertheless, they ceased to be the direct rulers of Madura. They shifted their headquarters to the district of Tinnevelly, to the town of Tenkasi which they built and beautified. Henceforward their immediate activities were in the basin of the Tâmbraparni and not the Vaigai, and their immediate neighbours were the Kéralâs and not Chôlas. The frequency of invasions, Chôla as well as Hoysala, Hindu and Muhammadan, Telugu and Canarese, must have been the cause of this emigration. Nearness to the historic areas of Trichi and Tanjore, of Coimbatore and Dvârasamudra, was a source of constant danger and ceaseless anxiety; and the Musalman conquest must have completed that dread and anxiety which the occupation of Madura must have inevitably engendered in the minds of its occupiers.
The Banas established in Madura.
The Pandyas of the Vijayanagar period, then, ruled in the Tinnevelly District. They, however, it should be clearly understood, never gave up the title of "Lords of Madura." In fact it is more or less certain that the chiefs who were in the direct charge of Madura considered themselves to be the dependents and feudatories of the Pâudyans at Tinnevelly, both of course being under the control of the Telugu agents of Vijayanagar. Who were these chiefs, then? Were they the relations of the Pâudyans, or did they belong to a distinct hereditary line? It is in answering this question that we find a significant clue in the statement of the Pand. Chron. we have already noted, namely that in the middle of the 15th century, Lakkana Dandanayaka installed, in Madura, the illegitimate sons of the Pandyan, Mâvilivâna Râya Kâlayâr Sômanâr, Anjâtha Perumâl and Muttarasa Tirumali Mâvilivâna Raya; and that these ruled till 1499, when Narasa Naik became the master of the Empire. Now, the Pand. Chron. is valuable only in giving us a clue as to the rulers in Marlura and nothing more. It does not enlighten us as to details. In fact, a minute consideration of it puzzles the investigator. From its phraseology, for instance, it is inferable that all these four chiefs were brothers and crowned at once: that could, of course, not have happened. The first Mâvilivâna alone would have been brought from Kâlayâr Koil, and the others should have been his successors. They might have been his brothers or sons, or even grandsons. Then, again, the chronicle implies they were Pandyas. This can be dismissed as false. It may be true that they were connected by marriage with the Pâidya royal family, but they were not Pândyan except in title. They were, or at least two of them were, as their very name shows, Banas. The term Mâvilivâna Raya was long a puzzle to the historians of Madura. Mr. Taylor believed that Mâvilivâna was identical with Mahabalipuram ! "The allusion to the king of Mâvilivâna " he says, "is made in a passing and familiar way, as to a matter very well-known and understood at the time when the MS.se was written. The word Mavilivanam will not bear an application to the Marava country. The Malayalam country is also radically different in its orthography. There is no independent pâlayam of this name in our lists. And the only name (within our knowledge) to which the names agree is Mâvalivaram, or the Seven Pagodas, near Madras, sometimes learnedly termed Mahabalipuram
36 Mr. Taylor refers to the Hist. Carna Dynast.; but this applies equally to the present MS.