11 



Other free stones * were at intervals during the sixteanth century granted out 

 of these 96^ privilege stones by the Nayak to various temples from religious motives, 

 as in 1542 and 1546. 



Besides the Nayak of Madura, the Portuguese allowed to his tributary the 

 Setupati Raja of Ramuad f a further number of free divers (60 stones) in each fishery 

 in return for the help he gave in contributing to the success of the fishery and in 

 guarding and providing pilots for the passage of the narrow strait called Pamban pass, 

 separating the mainland from the Island of fiameswaram. 



This petty sovereign, who is the hereditary guardian of the temple of Eameswaram 

 and is the head of the Mara war caste, was commonly known as the Katta Theuver or 

 Tuever in the days of the Portuguese and the Dutch. While nominally under the 

 Madura monarch, the Setupati was virtually independent and leaned more to the 

 foreigners, for his lands being coastal and insular, danger was greater from the sea 

 than from the land. His territory included the coast as far south as Kilakarai, the 

 great Moor diving centre at the present day, and for that reason his assistance had to 

 be courted and purchased by the European lords of the pearl fisheries. 



Like him of Madura, the Ramnad lord granted some of his privilege divers to the 

 great Hindu temples of his district, giving seven stones to Kanieswaram pagoda in 

 lo09 and three more in 1714. 



Besides the 60 free stones, the Setupati had the right by custom under the 

 Portuguese to one day's fishing from all his subjects, as had the Nayak from his. 



Taken generally the fisheries under the Portuguese appear to have been of great 

 collective profit during the first half of the period of their rule, a period coincident 

 with the height of Portuguese energy and power, when they had no European rivals 

 and when they were free to concentrate their forces entirely against the native races. 

 After breaking the power of the Arabs, the Portuguese enjoyed all the advantages 

 conferred on the nation possessing the mastery of the sea, a consideration of supreme 

 importance in connection with such an essentially maritime industry as the pearl 

 fishery. 



Encroachments and claims on the part of the Nayak of Madura were then as com- 

 mon and as troublesome as those experienced in the eighteenth contury by the Dutch in 

 their relations with the Nawab of the Carnatic. The methods adopted by the Portu- 

 guese to cope with these infringements of treaty rights and to afford protection to their 

 subjects and allies, the Parawa?, appear to have been most radical and effective, consist- 

 ing in the removal of all Christian natives from the Madura coast to Mannar and 

 to the string of islands skirting the coast from Tuticorinto Pamban with a concurrent 

 blockade of the Nayak's seaboard. Nor was the blockade a peaceful one as we learn 

 from Van Reede and Laurens Pyl's Memoir of 1669 quoted above. To use their 

 words ' ; the Portuguese with their boats pillaged the entire sea- coast, which they 



* By "stones", divers are to be understood, a diving stone being the inde«pensable item in a diver's equipment. 

 Faeh stone is, however, usually sh-tred by two divers, so it is probable that the 96J- stones here referred to represented an 

 aDowanee of 193 divers. 



t The rulers of Bamnad have hid many titles indicating an ancient and illustrious past. To-day their lands form a 

 zemindari and from the date of Talikota (1565) they constituted one of that peculiar class of petty Hindu Sovereigns who 

 held their lands tributary to larger States, usually Muhammadan, and to whom belong rightfully the title of zemindar. As 

 usually employed now in India as a designation of any large landed proprietor the term is used in an altered and 

 corrupt sense. 



The title by which the Caief of Ramnad is now known is that of Baja ; in former days Setupati or Sethupathi and 

 Katta Theuver were titles more particularly distinctive and peculiar to these petty rulers. 



The Raja of Bamnad is the hereditary chief of the warrior caste of Marawas, of whom the honorific and generic caste 

 name is Thevar or Tevar and from this was derived the title Katta or Catta Theuver or Teuver by which the Dutch refer 

 to the Sovereign of Bamnad in all their documents. 



The ICajas of Ramnad have ever been intimately connected with the great Hindu temple of Bameswaram ; they are 

 the hereditary guardians of the temple and held possession till 1767 of the narrow channel between Bameswaram and the 

 mainland known as Pamban Pass. The remains of a broad and well-built causeway stretoh from the Indian shore 

 across the " pass " and onwards from Pamban over the eight miles of sandy ground that remain to be traversed ere 

 pilgrims reach the shrine of Bama. Originally the causeway waB continuous from shore to shore, a causeway 

 invaluable to the millions of pilgrims resorting to the temple and the source of much importance to the sovereign of the 

 district, who possibly derived his most ancient title from this fact — " Setupati " or " Lord of the Causeway" (Sethu or 

 Setu, a causeway and Pati, a lord) though as Adam's Bridge, the bank connecting the islands of Bameswarem and 

 Mannar, is known specifically as '-the causeway" (-Setu) among Tamils, we may also read the title as signifying " Lord 

 of Adam's Bridge ". 



At the height of their power the Setupatis owned much of the low country between Bamnad and Madura, together 

 with the island of Bameswarem, and Setupati coins exist dating from this period. The growing power of the Nayaks 

 of 11a dura circumscribed their limits in the sixteenth century and thereafter they existed chiefly by the aid afforded by 

 an alliance first with the Portuguese and later with the Dutch. 



