m 



Notices of Books. 



[July 



P Alavayi, from a particular mythological legend to be found in th© 

 " body of the work. The boundaries of the kingdom have been stated 

 u by various writers with unimportant differences. ***** The history 



" of the country, thus defined, is professedly the leading object of the 



" present work." 



V In the first volume the leading MS. has been entitled by the trans- 

 lator, the Pandion Chronicle. It commences with the origin of time, 

 and geographical divisions of the world, on the Pauranic view of those 

 particulars; and, through many fabulous circumstances, comes down 

 to the close of that very ancient, but well authenticated, dynasty ; 

 leaving much uncertainty surrounding an interval of anarchy and dis- 

 order. It includes a notice of the first Mahomedan invasion of the 

 south, in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, together with some 

 indications of other foreign ascendancy, not well defined, until an 

 appeal made to the ruling sovereign at Vizianuggar, (or Bisnagur) 

 led to an army being sent thither, and ending, through the medium of 

 circumstances not needing here to be detailed, in the ancient Pandion 

 kingdom of Madura coming under the rule of viceroys from Bisnagur, 

 towards the close of the fifteenth century. Thenceforward the MS. 

 gives a very brief sketch of the race of kings, the posterity of those 

 viceroys; of the troubles occasioned by the Mahomedans at the close 

 or this dynasty ; and of the circumstances leading to British conquest 

 and ascendancy, 



" At an early period of the annotations on the Pandion Chronicle, an 

 abstract of the Stalla Purana, or legend of the Saiva-iem^le at Madura 

 is introduced, in the way of illustration ; there being an evidently close 

 relation between the two. At a later period a supplementary manu- 

 script is introduced, as being fuller in an account of a period left ob- 

 scure by the first MS., and in some respects differing from it, chiefly as 

 regards details of that obscure period. Further, two MSS. containing 

 the royal pedigrees of Ayodhya and Hastinapuri, or primordial Oude 

 and Delhi, are given. The former was probably abstracted, by its 

 native author, from one of the ancient Pur anas, and the latter is an 

 abridgment, by a native, from the poem of the Mahabharata, still fur- 

 ther abridged by the translator. The remaining portion of the first 

 volume is accompanied with annotations ; and this division of the work 

 forms the more ancient portion of the history. 



" The second volume opens with the manuscript entitled Carnataca 

 dynasty, or a history of the northern viceroys, and the kings who 

 descended from them. This portion, though modern, commencing 

 about the middle of the 15th century, is yet accompanied with mytho- 

 logical fable at the outset. It is more full than the documents in the 

 first volume, on the circumstances of that series of kings, though still 

 very brief, if tried by the standard of modern European authors in 



