144 



Mr. Taylor on Professor Wilson's 



[July 



With regard to the particular MS. and that passage of it which now 

 stands forth so prominently, I could wish that the expression quoted by 

 Professor Wilson had been softened. Being cut out from its connexion 

 and printed in italics, it reads harsh, whereas the whole paragraph in 

 the Prefatory Notice to the 2d volume of translations, would I suppose 

 be by all admitted to be deferential in no ordinary degree. Every sen- 

 tence, or member of a sentence, of any writer may be so used ; but it is I 

 believe an axiom among critics, that any expression so excided is not to 

 be taken as indicating the spirit or meaning of the entire context. The 

 point of the question is this, that several authorities traced up the 

 lineage of the most early rulers of Madura, to a particular son of a par- 

 ticular patriarch (so to speak) among the ancestors of the Hastinapuri 

 race of kings. The position assumed by Professor Wilson, if accurate, 

 at once nullified the whole of these authorities. The particular passage 

 is (Descriptive Catalogue vol. 1, p. lxxiv.)— "the founder of the 

 (Pandya) kingdom according to the local traditions, was a person 

 named Pandya, a native of Oude, and of the agricultural caste." 

 But " the local traditions" as indicated by me (Oriental Histo- 

 rical MSS. vol. 2, Ap., p. 35) did not, to the best of my judgment, 

 direct to such a statement ; all my authorities were against it j 

 and on tracing the matter minutely in the Descriptive Catalogue, 

 the statement, or rather something like it, was found only in one MS. 

 in the account of which (Descriptive Catalogue vol. 1. p. 188,) it is said, 

 " amongst these (pilgrims) was Mathura-ndyaka Pandya* a man of 

 agricultural tribe from the north of India, who colonized the country 

 along the Vygi river and founded the city of Madura." The MS. 

 itself on being examined did not fully bear out this statement ; and that 

 circumstance was mentioned, on its being discovered, in the simplest 

 possible language, in a short note (Oriental Historical MSS. vol. 2. Ap. 

 p. 39), of which Professor Wilson has used only the concluding words. 

 The particular point turned on the word " Oude," and on the word 

 " Pandiya," as denoting a man, or person so called, as a proper name, 

 which two things are not borne out by the manuscript, and the import- 

 ance of the discrimination rested in this fact, that if the position chosen 

 by Professor Wilson was just, then all other authorities were wrong : a 

 matter of some consequence to the discussions in which I was engaged. 

 I may add that in the original of the MS. in question the translation 

 which I gave in the above note, of Vada desattilulla pdndiyandkira 

 velldzhan, might have been still better and more accurately rendered 

 " an ancient agriculturist in (or of) the north country." As before ren- 



* Being translated, c( the Madura lord Pandya."— W. T. 



