414 NAIK DYNASTY. Chap. XXY. 



deeply venerated by the Tamil people, and his healing spuit 

 is still believed to hover amongst the mountains of Conrtal- 

 lum, in Tinnevelly ; ^ where he is worshipped as Agast-isvara, 

 or the star Canopns. 



From the ninth to the tenth centuries the Jain religion 

 predominated in Madura. The Jains were animated by a 

 national and anti-Brahminical feeling, and it is chiefly to them 

 that Tamil is indebted for its high culture and independence 

 of Sanscrit. They Avere expelled in the reign of Sundara 

 Pandya, at about the time when Marco Polo visited India. 

 The Mohammedans first made an inroad into the Deccan in 

 tke reign of AUa-ud-deen of Delhi in 1293, they crossed the 

 Kistna in 1310, and advanced as far as Eameswara in 1374. 



After reigning for many centuries the Pandyan dynasty 

 became tributary to the powerful Brahminical kingdom of Bi- 

 jayanuggur in Mysore, in about 1380 a.d. A list of more than 

 seventy kings is given in the annals.'^ But in the fifteenth 

 century an ofticer of the Bijayanuggur Kajah, named Nagama 

 Naik, was installed as feudatory King of Madura, and founded 

 the Naik dynasty. He procured the cession of Trichinopoly 

 from the Chola Eajah, and his son Viswanath Naik distributed 

 the district of Tinnevelly amongst his adherents of the Totia 

 caste, the ancestors of the Poligars of Tinnevelly. His descend- 

 ant Tirumalla Naik, who succeeded in 1623 a.d., had a long 

 and flourishing reign, and public edifices still furnish splendid 

 proofs of his wealth and magnificence. He died in 1657 a.d. ; 

 and the Naik dynasty, which came to an end in 1730 a.d.,^ was 

 followed by obscure feudatories of the Nawabs of the Carnatic, 

 who eventually made way for British rule. 



1 Dr. Aiuslic, in his Materia Me- j nals, by H. H. Wilson; from MS. 

 dica, gives a list of twenty works by j collections of the late Colonel Mac- 

 Aghastj'a, chiefly on medical subjects, I kenzie. 

 some of them ta'anslatcd from Sanscrit, j ^ Tanjore was seized by the Mali- 



- For a list of kings of Madura, of j rattas in 1675. The last' Naik sove- 

 tlie Pandyan and Naik dynasties, see [ reign of Madin-a Avas installed as a 

 a paper in the Asiatic Society's Jour- I tributary of the Nawab of the Carnatic. 



