412 PANDYAN DYNASTY. Chav. XXV. 



between 500 and 600 B.C. Previously the kings of the 

 Pandyan dynasty resided at a place called Kurkhi.® 



Another tradition states that a merchant lost his way in 

 the forests, and discovered an ancient temple dedicated to 

 Siva and his wife Durga, which had been erected by the 

 God Indra. The merchant was directed by the God to 

 announce to the Pandyan king, named Kula Sekhara, that it 

 was the will of Siva that a city should be erected on the spot. 

 Kula Sekhara, therefore, cleared the forest, rebuilt the tem- 

 ple, and founded a city. On the completion of the work a 

 shower of nectareal dew fell from heaven, spreading a sweet 

 film on the ground, and hence the name of Madura (sweet).'' 



The wife of Siva became incarnate as the daughter and 

 successor of this prince, under the name of Minakshi ; and 

 Siva himself as Sundara, or the handsome, was her mortal 

 husband. Thus the Pandyan kings, like many of the dynas- 

 ties of ancient Greece, placed their gods at the head of their 

 genealogical tree. The immigration of a colony of Aryan 

 Brahmins from Magadha into the Madiu-a country, and the 

 commencement of Tamil civilization and literature, have 

 been placed, by Mr. Caldwell and others, in about the 

 seventh century B.C. 



At the Christian sera the kings of Madura were very 

 powerful, and had extended their dominions over the whole 

 of the peninsula. They sent two embassies to Eome — the 

 first in the eighteenth year after the death of Julius Csesar, 

 which found the Emperor Augustus at Tarragona ; and the 

 second six years later, when he was at Samos.^ Subsequently 

 the kingdom was reduced in size by the independence of 



^ Kolki of the Periplus ; perhaps i tus and Tiheriiis, with desarea marked 

 Kilkliur, on the Coromandel coast, i on them, the place where they were 

 opposite Eameswaram. j struck. Buchanan's Travels, ii. p. 318. 



'' In Sanscrit. One coin, a Roman a^reHS, has t)eeu 



^ In 1802 a pot of Roman coins | found in a cairn on the Ncilgherry 

 was dug up near Dharaparum, in i hills. — Captain H. Congreve's Anti- 

 Coimbatore, of the Emperors Angus- j quiiies of the Neilglierry llills. 



