1837.] Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya. 189 



Vamsa Churamani, also called Champaka, who, probably, completed 

 what his father only commenced. 



The professors of the Madura college were at first forty-eight in 

 number, called the sangattdr, or assembly. The chief of these were 

 Narakira,* Buna, and Kapila, of whom no works remain. These 

 received instructions in the Sutras, or rules, of the Dravira language, 

 it is said, from the god Siva himself, who appeared amongst them as 

 the forty-ninth professor, and enabled them to expound and propagate 

 the primitive institutes of the language, which are invariably attribut- 

 ed in the Dekhin to the Muni Agastya. The cultivation of the Tamil 

 language, as has been noticed above, is supposed by Mr. Ellis to have 

 preceded that of Sanskrit in the south; and this would be a circum- 

 stance in favour of the early existence of the sangattdr, for it could 

 not have been long after the Christian era that the fables of Northern 

 India were domesticated in the peninsula. However, the opinion 

 evidently is correct only within certain limits. The Sanskrit language, 

 in prayers, hymns, and legends, must have accompanied the introducti- 

 on of the Saiva faith anterior to the Christian era, and must have been 

 cultivated as far as it was connected with religion. Its profane litera- 

 ture, and even its Pauranic mythology, may have subsequently become 

 objects of study ; and they apparently superseded the cultivation of the 

 native tongue, till the eighth or ninth century after Christianity, when 

 its revival was effected, as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice. 



The prominent figure which Agastya is thus made to assume in the 

 literary history of the south of India, attaches an interest to his exist- 

 ence which, it is to be apprehended, will scarcely derive much satis- 

 faction from the accounts of this sage which are recorded. In the first 

 place, a high antiquity must be assigned to him on the authority of the 

 Ramayana, the oldest work, after the Vedas, perhaps in the Sanskrit 

 language. His migration to the south is there detailed ;f and, disre- 

 garding the fabulous motives assigned for his residence there, it seems 

 not a forced conjecture to infer his being a chief agent in diffusing the 

 worship of Siva in the Dekhin. Neither this remote date, nor his 

 character as a foreigner, renders it likely that he was the first Tamil 

 teacher ; and if we are not allowed to suppose that this character ori- 

 ginated in his legendary reputation, we must conclude that the author 

 of the various works attributed to Agastya was a different individual, 

 although of similar name. There are still many works current attri- 



* I have already observed the Pandya-Rdjdkal is ascribed to them, apparently errone- 

 ously. To Narakira is assigned the tale of Makesa, or king of Alaka, and his four 

 ministers ; but the style is unfavourable to its supposed origin,— Tamil works being diffi- 

 cult in proportion to their antiquity, so that the oldest are now unintelligible to ordinary 

 scholars.— Kindersley's Hindu Literature, p. 47. 



+ In the Aranya Kandam. 



