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APPENDIX III
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the greatest stronghold of Saivism in the south, and the most devout Saiva poets and saints belong to that city. The simultaneous existence of Vaisnavism cannot indeed be ruled out, but it seems to have played a subsidiary rôle during the Pallava period and probably long after. The earliest of the Alvārs were associated with Kāñci, but it is not easy to assign dates or the extent of their influence on contemporary society. Tirumangai, the last of the Alvārs, has been assigned to the eighth century, and he was probably a contemporary of Nandivarman Pallavamalla.? Among the great Pallavas, Parameśvaravarman II appears to have been a devout Vaisnava, and the Vaikuntha Perumal temple built by him at Kāñci is one of the few large Pallava temples dedicated to Vişnu.3 The Keśava Perumal temple at Kūram near Conjeeveram is another Pallava shrine dedicated to Vişnu. It contains an inscription of the reign of Dantivarman, and there is no doubt that the temple belongs to the latter half of the eighth century. Similar traces of Vaişņavism are found in the Pāņdya country where, as we have seen, some of the early triumphs of Saivism had been achieved. In 770 A, D. Mārangāri or Madhurakavi, a minister of the Pāņdya king Varaguņa Nedunjaďayan built a stone temple for Vişņu in the Anamalai hill near Madura, and gave a village to some Brahmins apparently on the occasion of the installation of the image of Narasimha in the temple. The king, too, built a large temple for Vişņu, but though he is called parama-vaisnavan in inscriptions, he was liberal in his benefactions to Saiva temples.
The Pallavas were supplanted by the Colas about the end of the ninth century A. D. when Aditya I defeated Aparăjita, the last independent king of the Pallava dynasty. The Colas were ardent Saivas, and their rule prolonged the domination of the Saiva faith. They were also great builders of temples, and from an architectural point of view, the later Pallava style merges into the early Cola. According to the Anbil plates. Aditya I (circa 871-907 A, D.) built on both banks of the Kāverī tall stone temples in honour of Siva. After his death, a Sive temple called by the names Adityeśvara and Kodaņdarāmeśvara was founded in his memory by his son and successor Parāntaka I (907-953 A. D.). As already mentioned,
1 Longhurst (op. cit.), Part III, p. 9. 2 Aiyangar (op. cit.), p. 275. 3 Like the Kailasanatha temple, the pyramidal tower consists of a central shrine on
the ground floor and three upper storeys. The one on the ground floor contains a large four-armed image of Visnu in a sitting posture. The shrine of the first floor contains a fairly large image of Vişnu in the form of Anantaśayana. The cell on the second floor contains a smaller image of Vişņu. The third story of the tower is hollow. The Anantaśayana form of Visnu seems to have been popular in the South, Between the Shore Temple and the small attendant Siva temple at Mahabalipuram,
is a third shrine containing a large decayed stone image of Vişnu in a recumbent position and representing that deity in the form of Anantaśayapa. It is an oblong cell built up against the back wall of the smaller Siva temple, and appears to be &
later addition. Lunghurst (op. cit.), pp. 3, 16. 4 Jouveau-Dubreuil: Pallava Antiguities, Vol. II, p. 14. 5 Sastri: The Pandyan Kingdom, p. 63.
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