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SEPTEMBER. 1916)
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
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CHAPTER VI. The Second Mussalman Conquest. Tirumal Naik the builder (1623-1659).
INTRODUCTION. We now come to the reign of the renowned Tirumal Naik, a sovereign about whose position and character, there has been much misunderstanding among historians. It has been deliberately said that he was "the greatest of his dynasty," that the Naik monarchy obtained the acme of its power in his days. The statement, first made by Nelson, has been reiterated by others, until at length it has come to be considered a truism. And yet no statement can be more wide of the truth. Nelson mistook the magnificence of Tirumal Naik for greatness, his pomp for power, his artistic taste for political genius. The splendour of the works which the great Naik left, the undying nature of his monuments of art, blinded Nelson as to the absolute worthlessness of Tirumal Naik as a soldier, statesman or politician. A study of the chronicles of his reign will convince even the most indulgent critic that there is not one redeeming feature in him as a soldier or as a politician. An inordinate ambition and a headlong passion for empty titles made him engage in various wild goose chases, in hankering after untealities, which resulted only in the loss of the substantial realities he had already possessed. A man lacking in the foresight of a statesman and the virtues of patriot, he was a traitor, who subjected not only his kingdom and his subjects, but the whole of South India, to the horrors of permanent Mussalman conquest and domination. Three hundred years had passed since the Mussalman had tried, but in vain, to plant his footsteps permanently in the land of the Chôļas and Pandyas ; and it was reserved for Tirumal Nåjk to invite him and give him that which he had failed to grasp three centuries back. It is indeed true that, owing to the downfall of the Vijayana. gar Empire and the reduction of its emperors to the obscurity of petty chiefs, the expansion of the Mussalman kingdoms of Golcondah and Bijapur into the extreme south of the Peninsula was a mere question of time, and would have come to pass even without the suicidal treason of Tirumal Naik ; yet it was he that hastened the catastrophe and heightened its seriousness. But for him and his machinations, the Mussalman irruption would have been neither so rapid nor so thorough. In his foreign policy Tirumal Naik was th us the evil genius of his time and brought destruction on Hindu independence. His reign in consequence was one of grave disasters; and witnessed a serious loss in the power and prestige of Madura. Politically then, Tirumal Naik was a failure, and brought his kingdom to the nadir of efficiency; but his defects and crimes have been forgotten in the noble services he rendered to the arts of architecture, sculpture and painting. The political iconoclast has been forgotten in the generous builder, and posterity, while ignoring the miserable part he played in the domain of war and politiðs, has given him unstinted praise as the author of South Indian Artistio Renaissance. Many were the kings of this age who gave sufficient support and patronage to artists and were able to spread artistic taste and culture. Temples and palaces, chatrams and study-halls, summer retreats and pleasure bowers, were built on an extensive scale, and afforded employment to thousands of labourers and builders. But Tirumal Nâjk was the most generous of these sovereigns
