1844.] Account of Mamallaipur. 



53 



a number of petty chiefs of the Curumbar race,* who with 

 their followers were almost entirely extirpated by the Cholas. 

 The family that posessed Mamalleipur was probably one of 

 the principal of these. The excavations therefore could not 

 well have been made later than the 6th Century. Neither 

 could they have been much earlier, for the forms of the 

 letters both Grantham and Nagari do not justify the suppo- 

 sition of a higher antiquity, f 



Under the Chola dynasty we find Tamil invariably em- 

 ployed as the character of inscriptions. 



Whether all the temples were excavated by the Pattams 

 seems questionable. They were evidently worshippers of Siva. 

 Many of the subjects, particularly those in plates 2, 5, 7, 10 

 of Dr. Babington's paper, belong to the Vaishnava creed, 

 which is more particularly referred to in the inscription at Pa- ? 

 vajackaran's Choultry, and is known io have been of later 

 origin. It is not improbable, therefore, that these may have 

 been the work of more recent devotees, emulous of the fame 

 of Kama Raja and Ati Rana Chancja Pallava. 



In the possession of the Pujari of the modern temple is a 

 deed in Telugu, engraved on copper plates connected by a 

 ring, with the figure of a boar and a sword on the seal, pur- 

 porting to be a grant of the village of Nelatur to Kesavarya 

 Sri Rangachariya by Vencatapati Sri Deva Raya in the 

 Saca year 1532, Plava Samvatsara. 



* 2d Report on the McKenzie MS3. by the Rev. W. Taylor p. 86. Journal VII. p. 311. 

 + See Prinsep's comparative table of Hindu alphabets. 



