1837.] 



Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya. 



199 



The invasion of the Musalmans was attended with the downfal of the 

 usurping dynasty ; and, after a short interregnum, a prince, descended 

 from the ancient rajas, was placed upon the throne with the assistance 

 of the Canara people, it is said; but, probably, the Raya of Vijayana- 

 gar is intended, to whom, at an early period of that empire, or shortly- 

 after the middle of the fourteenth century,* the Pandya kingdom pro- 

 bably became tributary. The prince placed upon the throne was nam- 

 ed Soma Sek'hara, and he was followed by a series of seventeen princes 

 to Chandra Kumara Pandyan, when an officer of Krishna Ray esta- 

 blished the line of Telinga princes, generally termed the Naiks (Naya- 

 kas) of Madura, and abolished the shadow of authority retained by the 

 Madura kings over a portion of the ancient kingdom, now restricted 

 almost to the boundaries of the capital. 



Besides the earlier encroachments made on the east and north by 

 the Tanjore princes, and on the west by the Belal rajas, the interval 

 that elapsed between the Musalman invasion, and the establishment 

 of the Vijayanagar Nayakas on the throne of Madura, had witnessed 

 the separation of the southern provinces from the ancient dominion of 

 the Pandya kings ; and, particularly on the eastern coast, the exten- 

 sive districts of Ramnad and Marawa, became, and ever afterwards 

 continued, independent of the Pandya sovereignty, of which, for many 

 ages, they had formed important divisions. 



After the establishment of the chiefs of Marawa or Ramnad, as in- 

 dependent princes, adulatory ingenuity was employed to devise for 

 them an honourable origin. The founder of the family was accord- 

 ingly made contemporary with Rama, who having, after his conquest 

 of Lanka, erected a ling a on the small island opposite Manar, which 

 was thence denominated Rameswar, consigned the hereditary charge 

 of the deity and temple, and superintendence of the pilgrimage, to the 

 Adi Setu Pati, or first lord of the causeway. f The effort to aggrandise 

 the ruling family here ceased ; and, during an uncertain and protract- 

 ed interval, the supposed descendants of this chief continued, it is ad- 



* One account (Sketch of Madura History, No* 19) says, the country was governed from 

 1370 to 1402 by Mysore viceroys, when two chiefs, named Ellakana and Mathuna, held it 

 till 1448 ; then resigning it to a prince of the old dynasty. That the Mysore or Belala 

 princes exercised a supremacy over Pandya, is unquestionable, but it must have been ear- 

 lier than the period here mentioned, as by the first date (1370) the Belala power had been 

 overturned. The authority exercised by them aud the Vijayanagar kings, too, did not, 

 probably, involve the removal of the native princes; and this probability is converted into 

 certainty, as far as affects the latter, by the appearance of inscriptions in the name of Vira 

 Pandyan, one of which is dated 1402 Sal., in the fifth year of his reign, and a subsequent 

 one in the fifteenth, or Sal. 1412 (a. b. 1490) ; a short time, therefore, before the final era- 

 dication of his family. 



t General History of the Kings of Ramnad, or the Setu Pati Samasthanam, 20 ; Memoir 

 of the tfetu Pati, 21. 



