Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 335

328 K. A. NĪLAKAŅŢA ŚĀSTRI & V. RĀMASUBRAMAŅIAM, ‘AUNDY'
76. But the history of the Ayi dynasty of Kanyākumāri district in that decade is unfortunately obscure and confusing. Dr. K. K. Pillay of the university of Madras says, "The history of the Ayi-vel kings, down to the eighth century A.C., remains to be reconstructed. ['Two Early Ay-vel Inscriptions', in 'Seminar on Inscriptions', Madras, 1966] We have already referred to a votive image at Tirucchānāttumalai, with the following inscription underneath: 'Varagunan servitta śrīmeni', (Holy image made under orders from Varaguna). This Varaguņa has been identified as the Vikramāditya Varaguņa, the Ayī king, whose name appears in another epigraph at Tirunandikkarai, which was also a great Jaina centre of the same area in the same epoch. He was one of the successors of the Ayi king, subjugated by Arikesari Märavarman, the Pandya contemporary of Gnanasambandha. A Kalugumaļai (Tirunelvely district) inscription mentions an Ayi vassal of a Pandya Monarch, Saḍayan Karunandan, of the latter half of the eighth century and he was a Jaina. (K. K. Pillai). Since yet another independent Āyī king, Ko-karunandaḍakkan, who assumed the name Sri Vallabha, has been the founder of a Vaișnava temple and Veda-pāṭhaśālā at Parthiva-Sekhara-Puram in Kanyākumāri district, in circa A.D., 866, he must certainly have been a Hindu successor of the Jaina Varaguņa. (Huzur Office Plates, Travancore Archaeological Series). We have, therefore, to place the Jaina Varaguņa in the period between circa A.D. 810 and 825.1
77. All the 'Sankara-Vijayams' (Biographies of Sankara), mention several debates of his with such great philosophers as Kumārilla Bhaṭṭa, Mandana Miśra, Padmapāda, Anandagiri, Toṭaka, Śaktibhadra, Govinda and others, including the one at Kanchipuram, where he establishes a pillar of victory (Jayasthambha). But the later eleventh century 'Madhurai Chronicles' had not cared to mention his name at all!
1.
Even if the Ayi problem is solved, the basic problem of Sri Sankara's date itself remains still floating. The generally accepted period,circa A.D. 788 to 820,-assigned to him, is only approximate and tentative.