1837.] Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya. 195 



Kuna Pandyan was married to Vani Daswani the daughter of the 

 Chola Raja, who was a devout worshipper of Siva.* She invited 

 Gnyana Samandar, a famous teacher of her sect, to Madura, and an 

 opportunity soon occurred of gaining for him the countenance of the 

 Raja Kuna, who was attacked by a fever which resisted the drugs and 

 spells of his Jaina priests. Gnyana Samandar undertook his cure, en- 

 gaging to make his success a test of the superiority of his religion. 

 His opponents accepted the challenge ; and the medical skill of the 

 Saiva surpassing their expectations, they found themselves vanquished. 

 Attributing the success of Gnyana Samandar to magic, they proposed 

 other tests, to which he readily agreed. Leaves, with the sacred texts 

 of their respective parties were thrown into the Vaiki, under a stipula- 

 tion that the sect should triumph whose mantra floated upwards 

 against the current. The Saiva charm prevailed : it ascended the 

 river to a place called Tiruvedaka, where Siva, in the form of an old 

 man, took it out of the water, and brought it back to Guyana Samandar. 

 In commemoration of the event, a city was founded on the spot to 

 which the leaf was borne, and a temple was erected by the king to 

 Tiruvedaka Nat'h. The Samanal were persecuted and hanged, or 

 banished, to the number of eight thousand. Kuna Pandyan, who 

 before his conversion was deformed, "as his name implies (Kuna mean- 

 ing " hunch-backed"), no sooner received the initiatory mantra of the 

 Saiva faith, than he became erect and straight, and thenceforth assumed 

 the name of Sundara (the " handsome") Pandyan. Guyana Samandar 

 w T as established as the chief pontiff of the religious faith which he had 

 restored ; and he seems to have instituted a peculiar hierarchy which 

 still subsists, several convents being found in the south of India ten- 

 anted by Brahmacharis, or coenobites, of the Saiva persuasion, whose 

 spiritual head bears the hereditary title of " Gnyani Siva Achari."f 



suppose the Kali, or fifth age of the Jamas, to he intended, hy which the date will be 

 reduced to about thirty years b. c. Besides, in the published account of this place and 

 image by Colonel Mackenzie, the country of the minister and king is not mentioned 

 (A. R. vol. ix. p. 262), except in a general way, as lying in the south. Chamunda Raya, 

 in another place, is called a king of one of the Chola or Belala races (p. 246). There is 

 nothing in the local traditions of Madura to warrant the assertion. The princes of the 

 name of Malla, it may be observed, reigned in the Carnatic and Mysore in the eleventh 

 and twelfth centuries ; and an inscription of a grant by Raksha Malla, printed in the 

 Asiatic Researches (vol. ix,), is dated Sal. 1090, or a. d. 1 173 (p, 43l), 



* In an account of the Gopuram of the Bauddha temple at Pudcovaily, this lady is named 

 Mengayakarasi, and called the daughter of Kerikiila Chola, who ruled, it is said, a, d: 478. 



+ Account of the Gnyana Siva Acharis, MSS. No. 17. Colonel Wilks, as observed be- 

 fore, identifies these with the Pandarams, or Jangamas, but this is very questionable. 

 They do not seem to be known as a religious order above the Ghats. In the Carnatic the 

 name has been adopted within the last fifty years, I understand, by a set of Saiva teach- 

 ers, who officiate as the priests of the blacksmith caste, 



