Indian Antiquary Vol 45

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

Page 83

APRIL, 1916]
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
75
settlement of the afflicted province. Besides building the city of Tinnovelly and its suburb Palamkôta and furnishing it with temples, he replaced the miserable and wretched cottages which lined the l'âmbraparoi banks and which had been owned by the indigenous cultivators, by regular and well-built villages of Brahman colonists from the north. It was a measure most pregnant in after consequences, and the descendants of these colonists remain to the present day the owners of much of the best lands, and the most intelligent, influential and cultivated section of Hindu Society in Tinnevelly. His liberality also endowed, in other parts of the province, lands for Brahman agraharams, and bis enlightened agrarian policy carried out as many irrigation works from the Tâmbraparni as from the Vaigai. The security of the people was also safeguarded by the establishment of a vigorous and efficient police.
The death and character of Visvanatha. All this work meant ceaseless activity, restless energy, which even the iron frame of Visvanatha could not endure. Worn out by war and work, the cares of defence and statecraft, he gave up his life in the midst of his labours at evidently a comparatively early age of about 55 or 60. Enough has been said to shew that he had so regulated his behaviour as to win the affection of his people and made his death keenly felt by them. He was an uncommon statesman with all the elements of greatness in his character. With the right apprehension of the needs and necessities of the times and a clear grasp of the means whereby they could be satisfied, he had set to work with a firm will and broadminded sympathy, evolved order out of chaos and a powerful kingdom out of a confused collection of refractory and turbulent vassal-states, into which Madura was then, owing to the degeneration of the Pandyan kings into mere phantoms of royalty, practically divided. His work of construction and consolidation was so thorough that, in spite of the frequent revolutions to which the country was then habituated and in spite of the incompetence of many of his successors, the kingdom which he established lasted for two centuries. Bold, active, generous, kind and tactful, Viấyanatha Naik was a man of versatile talents, endowed with a personal magnetism which enshrined him in the hearts of his subjects, and enabled him to leave a deep impression on the history of south India. The best trophy which posterity has erected to his memory is his statue in the Vasanta Mantapa of Sundarêśvara's temple in Madura, worshipped even to-day by numberless people, who know only vaguely that Maha Rajâ Mânya Sri Visvanatha Nâikan Aiyan Averga! was the great Karta of Madura in days of old, but who do not know how great and good he actually was.
(To be continued.) 6 Tinnevelly Manual, p. 70.
It has been already pointed out that he was born in the beginning of the 16th century or a decade before. He could not have been more than 60 at the time of his death in 1563. There is no basis what. ever to believe that Visvanatha diod, as Wheeler says, in the field of battle. (Wheeler's Hist., Vol. V., pt. II, p. 574.) The Hist. Oarna. Dynas. Asigns Visvanatha's death to 1458 A. D., which is of course absurd. The * Supple. M. S." agrees with it. The Pand. Chron. says that he ruled from Raudri Margali to Dundumi, i. e. for the space of 2 years and 4 months, and from Budhirdikdri down to Angirana, his son Kumara Krishpappa was in power. (Rudhirókari=1663-4). Mirtanjya M. s., ("Royal line of the Carnataca princes") gives a more accurate date. It says that on Tai II, Rudhirdikdri, Visvanatha caused his son to be anointed. It seems from this that the Karte was alive when his son was anointed. Most probably he was on his death-bed and wanted to see his son on the throne before his death. It must have been soon after his death that Kumara Krishnappa gave the 8 villages mentioned in the Krishnapuram temple inscription. (Inson. 17 of 1912). See Ep. Rep., 1913, p. 17. According to Sewell Visvanatha's death was in December 1563. (Antiquities, II, p. 201).