TRIMAL NAIG. 
35 
saying of one of their own people ; " Of all precious 
things knowledge is the most valuable : other riches 
may be stolen, or diminished by expenditure, but 
knowledge is immortal ; and the greater the expendi- 
ture, the greater the increase : it can be shared with 
none, and it defies the power of the thief.” Ever since 
this period their numerous works have been adopted 
as class-books for the higher orders of scholars in all the 
Hindoo seminaries of learning throughout India. This 
is a sufficient proof that the modern prejudices, which 
are the bitter fruits of caste, did not exist, or but in 
a very limited degree, while literature flourished in 
Hindostan. 
The city of Madura, up to the period of the great Ma- 
homedan invasion by Mahmood, was the focal spot at 
which all the pilgrims met in their journey to the temple 
of Ramisseram, then the most celebrated in Southern 
India, and resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of 
the peninsula. Its importance may be conceived, from 
the circumstance that the longitude in Hindoo geo- 
graphy was calculated from the meridian of the little 
island upon which this celebrated sanctuary stood, 
as the longitude in English geography is determined 
from that of Greenwich. At Ramisseram the ser- 
vices of the temple were every day performed with 
Gangetic water, daily supplied at a vast expense for 
this purpose ; and the idol regularly underwent a 
matutinal ablution with that consecrated element. 
These pilgrimages were continued, though the con- 
course was not so great as in earlier times, during 
that dynasty of which Trimal Naig was so dis- 
tinguished a member ; and it was to the protection 
