1 94 Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya. [July 



story is altogether fabulous,* no stress need be laid upon the assertion. 

 The MS. list of Tamil authors states his work to be 1600 years old: 

 and Mr. Kindersley, who has translated a prose version of part of 

 it,f mentions that the original is understood to have been written 

 fourteen hundred years ago. He also notices the extreme difficulty 

 of the style, from which a high antiquity may be inferred; and, from 

 these considerations, we may conclude that the age of Tiruvalavar 

 may have been between the sixth and ninth centuries. 



As far as we can judge from the extracts of the Kadal, which have 

 been translated, we have some reason to suppose that their author was 

 not a very orthodox member of the Hindu faith. He appears to have 

 advocated moral duties and practical virtues above ceremonial ob- 

 servances and speculative devotion, and so far trespassed upon the 

 strict law. By his allusions to the heaven of Indra, and to various 

 parts of the regular pantheon, as well as the respect he inculcates to 

 Brahmans and ascetics, he does not appear to have been a seceder 

 or a sectary. How far, therefore, he contributed to the introduction 

 of the Jain, or Bauddha faith, into the Madura monarchy, may be 

 doubted, although the diffusion of his doctrines was calculated to 

 undermine the Brahmanical system. At any rate, it is agreed that 

 the kings of Madura had adopted sectarial principles, and that Kuna 

 Pandyan was a follower of the Samanal doctrines, intending by those 

 the Jain faith ; although the term will apply also to that of Buddha, 

 with which there is equal reason to identify it. 



Some traditions assert that this heresy was introduced from Ceylon. 

 In that case it was the faith of the Bauddhas. The same also aver, that 

 ■when the heretics were banished they were exiled to that island, — 

 a legend leading to the same conclusion. On the other hand, the 

 expulsion of the Bauddhas from India appears to have been the work 

 of earlier periods, whilst the remaining records of the kings of 

 Humchi, and the Belal princes, shew that in Mysore the Jain religion 

 was established at this period ; and at Madura, the first converts of 

 Gnyana Samandar are usually considered to have been Jaina authors. 

 We may, therefore, consent to call the religion of Kuna Pandyan, Jaina; 

 but the truth seems to be, that neither Jaina nor Bauddha doctrines ever 

 gained an extensive footing in the southern divisions of the peninsula, 

 •which have maintained from the earliest to the latest periods an un- 

 deviating fidelity to the worship of Siva and the Lingam.} 



* It is detailed at length by Dr. John. 



+ Extracts from the Tiruvalavar Kadal, or Ocean of Tiruvalavar. — Kinder sley'S 

 Hindu Literature. See also Extracts from the same, or Tiruvalavar Koral, by Mr. Ellis ; 

 Mackenzie Collection, vol. i. p. 232. 



± Some of the traditions of the Jamas assert, that Chamunda Raya, who erected the 

 ima^e of Gomateswara, was minister of Raksha Malla, a king of Madura, in the year of 

 Kali 600. This account is rendered suspicious by the antiquity of the date, even if we 



