1S37-] Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya. 197 



princes of the ancient royal family, ceased, According to the legend, 

 this king unjustly condemned to death a merchant of Congeveram, 

 whom business had brought to Madura. Upon hearing of his fate his 

 wife followed him to that city, where, ascending a funeral pile, she 

 denounced an imprecation upon the place and its sovereign. In con- 

 sequence of this denunciation, Madura was shortly afterwards almost 

 wholly consumed by fire, and the king and all his family perishing in 

 the flames, the Pandya dynasty was destroyed. 



The twelve princes of this list apparently commence with Kuna Pan- 

 dyan, under his new title of Soma Sundara, and should, therefore, ad- 

 vance to the eleventh century at least; but it may be doubted whether 

 it is very accurately compiled. A distinguished name in Tamil litera- 

 ture is that of a Pandya prince, who is sometimes called Hari Vira, and 

 at other times Adi Vira Pandyan. He is the reputed author of various 

 translations from Sanskrit,* and is said to have flourished in 973 of 

 Salivahana, or a. d. 1041 ; and his name is not found in the list here 

 referred to, or in any subsequent ones, although there is no great rea- 

 son to question the correctness of his supposed era. There are, indeed, 

 corroborative proofs of its accuracy. A history of the kings of Konga, 

 after that country had become subject to the Chola princes, gives an 

 account of a war between Vira Pandyan and Divya Raya, in which the 

 former was defeated and taken, and had his ears cut off. And in the 

 next reign, the Chola army advanced to Madura and took the city, the 

 Pandya prince saving himself by flight. He was restored subsequent- 

 ly by the Chola monarch, on account of the relationship subsisting be- 

 tween them, but appears thenceforward as a subordinate and tributary 

 prince. These events are placed by the Konga history f in the end of 

 the tenth century, which is as near to the traditionary accounts of Hari 

 Vira's date as w T e can well expect. Perhaps it is not very unreasonable 

 to connect the tradition above cited of the conflagration of Madura, 

 with the account of its capture in the Konga history, and to infer that 

 they both relate to the same events $ or the occupation and partial de- 

 struction of the capital, and temporary subversion of the state by fo- 

 reign invasion, in the beginning of the eleventh century. 



The history of the kings of Pandya relates, that the overthrow of the 

 dynasty was succeeded by an interval of anarchy, the duration of 

 which is not specified. At the close of the period the throne was tak- 

 en possession of by an adventurer, the son of a Brahman by a dancing 

 girl, and a native of Kolam, near Madura, who assumed the name of 



* The Kasi Khanda of the Skancla Purana, the Kurma and Linga Puraaas, and the 

 Naishadha.— List of Tamil Authors. 



i Konga Desa Raja Cheritiaro, translated from the Tamil. 1?.. 



