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JANUARY, 1914.] THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
This period of Muhammadan rule was, we have every reason to believe, a period of misrule and misery, of popular suffering and keen discontent, of merciless oppression 18 and furious iconoclasm. Unable to distinguish a permanent rule from temporary military occupation, the Muhammadan rulers committed atrocities hardly reconcilable with the wisdom of statesmanship. "Men wereafraid of one another," says the chronicle we have already quoted, "and all things were in chaos. The tutelary God of Madura had to be taken into the Malayalam country.10 The walls of the temple, with their fourteen towers and the streets inside, were destroyed. The garbha graha, the ardhamantapa, and the periamantapa alone escaped this destruction."20 The temples were profaned and destroyed, villages plundered, towns sacked, and women dishonoured. Trade was completely at a standstill, and personal liberty or security at an end. With the cessation of public worship and of the business of trade, with the absence of security and the dread of violence, the proud city of Madura, the richest and the most flourishing city of South India21, became, with tragic suddenness, a scene of terror and desolation.22 Everywhere there was disorganisation and dislocation, chaos and confusion, which seemed irrevocable and eternal.
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The Pandyan Kings-1324-71.
It is an interesting question to discuss whether, throughout this reign of terror, the Pandyan kings were in power or not. Was the dynasty extinet, or was it alive and powerless in the presence of the conquerors? The chronicles are reticent in regard to the subject, and seem to imply that the dynasty was completely overshadowed. But the evidence of archæology and epigraphy clearly informs us that the Pândyan line did not die under the Muhammadan rule, and continued to be nominally in power, being in reality the slave of the foreigner. As the Madura Gazetteer says, "not only during the Mus 'mân occupations, but also throughout the rule of Kampana Udayâr and his successors, and even, see below, through the time of the later Nâyakkan dynasty and down to the overthrow of the Vijayanagar kingdom in 1565, Pândya chiefs remained always in authority in Madura." (p. 39). According to Kielhorn there were at least three kings in this Muhammadan period, namely, Mâravarman Kulasekhara II (1314-21), Mâravarman Parakrama Pâidya (1334-52), and Jâtavarman Parakrama Pâidya23 (1357-72). According to Mr. Krishna Sastri, the epigraphist of Madras, the king of the Pâidyas from 1310 to 1356 was one Vira Pândya whom he identifies with the rival of Sundara Pâidya, the Delhi exile and the cause of Musulmân invasion. From inscriptions discovered at Tirupatur in 1908,21 Mr. Sastri points out that the Muhammadans, who had occupied the local temple of Tiruttaliyândar, had destroyed it; that it was rebuilt by one Visâlaya Devar in the 46th year of the reigning
19 Madr. Manu. p. 81; O. H. MSS. II; See also the appendix.
19 For the difficulties to which Sri Ranganatha was subjected, see Koyilolugu, 1888, p. 48-52.
20 The Pând. Chron; "The supple. MS. "says that the high tower and the entrance tower also escaped destruction. Taylor's Oriental Historical MSS. I.; The Madr. Manu. I, 123 reproduces part of the MSS.
21 For a short description of the splendours of Madura, based on Marco Polo, the Muhammadan, Chinese and Singhalese chronicles, about 1300, see Madura Gazetteer, 37. For an account of the foreign visitors themselves, see Madr. Manu. I. 137-40; Yule's Marco Polo; Stuart's Tinnevelly Manual, 38-40; Caldivell's Tinnevelly, etc.
22 The Musalmân Governor, however, had his residence there, and the city became, says Iba Batuta, as large and prosperous as Delhi. Stuart's Tinnevelly Manu, p. 38, Madura. Gaztr., etc.
23 Madura Gazetteer, I, p. 35. Ep. Ind. X, p. 146-147.
24 Nos. 120 and 119; Ep. Rep. 1908-9, p. 83.
