South Indian Bronzes: A Historical Survey of South Indian Sculpture with Iconographical Notes Based on Original Sources c7.4

c7.4

The Pandyan Kings are reputed to have favoured Jainism and the conversion of Kubja Pandya, the ‘hunchback,’ who was by birth a Jaina, is typical of the conflict which raged about the time between a form of Hinduism and the non-Brahmanical faith before the former supplanted Buddhism and Jainism. It is said that Kubja Pandya after he had espoused the Saivaite faith was “cured alike of his physical deformity and spiritual obliquity and took thenceforth the name of Sundara (beautiful) in contradistinction to his former name of Kubja (‘hunch-back’).” The Tamil works which recount the events of the reigns of the Pandyan Kings record a legend about a marriage of the granddaughter of Kulasekhara, the founder of Madura, with the god Siva who is said “to have come down in mortal form to wed the Pandyan Princess and perpetuate that line.” This seems to point to the conclusion that the earlier Pandya Kings were Saivaite before the advent of Buddhism and Jainism.