Indian Antiquary Vol 54

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 16

10
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[JANUARY, 1925
(ii) the biographical sketches of this king, of Sundaramürti, and of their contempora
ries, as narrated in the Periyapuranam; (iii) the Tiruvilaiyadarpurdņam of Paraðjótiyâr, which mentions the deputation of
the lutist PAna-Bhadra to this Chêra's court as the 55th of the sixty-four divino
sports of the god Sundaręsa of Madura ; and (iv) other miscellaneous references.
(i) The Kerałólpatti 10, a Malayalam work of no great antiquity or chronological authenticity, purporting to be a historical chronicle of the Kêraļa kings, places the end of the · Chéram&p rule in the fifth century (A.D. 428), and relates of a certain Banapperuma) that he went on a pilgrimage to Mecca on conversion to an alien creed. Mr. Logan, linking this information with the alleged discovery of a tomb-stone dated in 829 A.D. supposed to record the death at Sahar-Mukhal of a certain Hindu royal convert re-named Abdul Rahiman Samûri, on his return journey to his native land, has tried to trace the origin of the Kollam era to this hypothetical conversion. Now that the institution of the era is more or less definitely attributable to the foundation, or at least the expansion, of the maritime city of Kollam11 at about this time under the Christian immigrant Maruvan Sapir ls, and that the truth about the existence and purport of the Arabian epitaph is discredited for want of definite testimony, the tradition of a Chêraman's conversion to Muhammadanism has by scholars been dismissed as groundless. It is not impossible that the mysterious disappearance of a Chêra king, as mentioned in the Periyapurdņam, miraculously or otherwise, and the extensions and improvements to the seaport of Quilon at the instance of Maruvan Sapir 188 and his thriving Christian co-religionists, which may have all taken place within a few decades of each other, and the actual, but later, conversion of a Zamorin of Calicut to Muhammadanism, as recorded by the historian Ferishta were commingled in haphazard fashion when the Keraja chronicle was patched up a few centuries ago. As the dates given for the Chēramans in this work are not very trustworthy, no implicit reliance need be placed on the account which terminates the Chéraman rule in the first half of the fifth century A.D., when we know from epigraphical sources of two other Chêra kings, Chêraman Sthaņu-Ravi and Bhaskara-Ravi, who were reigning in the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.
From the Periyapurdņam it is learnt that the Siva temple at Tirukkandiyar, one of the Ashtavfrattapams & mile to the south of Tiruvaiyyâru in the Tanjore District, was visited by Chéraman-Perumal in company with Sundaramürti, and that it was only in its vicinity the river KAvêrî parted its swollen waters at the command of god Panchanad&svara, so as to leave a dry ford for the two devotees to walk across with ease 19. It is therefore highly probable that the Siva temple at Tirukkaņdiyûr in the Chengannur taluk of the Travancore State, which is traditionally considered to be one of the oldest in Kerala and to have been erected by Chêram&n-Perumal himself 13, was perhaps built by him and given the same name, in commemoration of the Tanjore episode : and as we also know from a lithic record14 that it came into existence in A.D. 823, two years before the starting of the Kollam era, Ch@rama-PerumA], its author, can also be reasonably assigned to the first quarter of the ninth century A.D.
11
Trav. Arch. Series, vol. II, p. 76.
16 Trao. State Manual, vol. I, pp. 228 et neg. 19 Ohtramdy-Perumdadyandr purdgam, yv, 186-79. + Trav. State Manual, vol. II, p. 608,
#4 Trap. Arch, Sorios, vol. I, p. 200.