2 
SETHUPATI COINS. 
probable. It is unlikely, however, to receive tbe conclusive 
confirmation of documentary records, since the very suppo- 
sition of a wild marauding race renders it improbable that 
they would value or leave to posterity such records. 
Another supposition places the rise of the family in the 
eleventh or twelfth century A.D. There are two statements 
of this case differing according to the source from which 
they come. According to the one, which has its source in 
South India, the rise of the family took place in or about 
1059 A.D., when Eaia Raja, the Chola king, upon his 
invasion of Ceylon, appointed princes, whom he knew to be 
loyal to himself, and who, according to some, had aided him in 
his conquest of all Pandya, to act as guardians of the passage 
by which his armies must cross to and fro, and supplies be 
received from the mainland. According to the other state- 
ment, which has its source in Sinhalese records, the family 
took its rise from the appointment of Parakrama Bahu's 
general Lankapura, who, according to " a ^ very trust- 
worthy Sinhalese epitome of the Mahawanso, after con- 
quering Pandya, remained some time at Eamespuram, build- 
ing a temple there, and that while on the island he strack 
Kahapanas " (small coins, similar to those of the Sinhalese 
series). 
Whichever of these statements we may accept, the facts 
seem to point to the rise of the family in the eleventh or 
twelfth century A.D., and inscriptions quoted from Dr. Bur- 
gess by Mr. Robert Sewell,^ show that grants were made by 
Sethupati princes in 1414, again in 1489, still again in 1500, 
and finally as late as 1540. These bring the line down to 
within two generations of the time when Muttu Krishnappa 
Nayakka in 1604 is said to have found affairs sadly dis- 
ordered in the Marava country and to have re-established 
' Cf. Rhys Davids' Numis. Orieii., pi. vi, s. 63. 
' Sketch of Dynasties of South India, p. 87. 
