South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c11.s1.2

c11.s1.2

There is direct evidence to confirm this presumption in a work called Kōyiloḷuhu. This is a work which deals with all the benefactions made to the temple at Śrīrangam by people from its foundation to almost the eighteenth century. There are various editions of this work, differing in details, which cannot all of them be regarded accurate without confirmation. The more important of these, however, seem based upon the inscriptions in the temple, some of which may not be available at present. This work has a few paragraphs devoted to the sack of Śrīrangam and the carrying away of the idol of Ranganātha, apparently under Malik Kafur. The account begins that the king of Delhi having conquered Pratāpa Rudra, invaded both the Toṇḍamaṇḍalam and Śōlamaṇḍalam. The invading armies spread along the whole country and made a general sack of temples carrying away the idols as well. In the course of this campaign, they entered Śrīrangam as well, by the north gate, which was in the charge of the Ārya Bhaṭṭas, the Northern Brahmans. The guards, by name Panjukoṇḍān, were over-powered, the temple was entered into and all the property was carried away including the idol of the god. There was a woman who had made it her daily habit never to take her food without worshipping the god in the temple. She was a native of Karambanūr, otherwise called Uttamarkoil, on the other bank of the Coleroon. As the army was retreating after the sack, she gave up her household and followed the army in the guise of a mendicant having learnt that they were carrying away the idol of Rāmapriya as well from Tirunārāyaṇapuram (Melukoṭṭai). She reached ultimately the palace at Delhi where these idols were all locked up in a safe chamber. One of the younger princesses of the Sultan's family having been struck with the beauty of the Ranganātha idol, asked permission and obtained the idol to play with. She kept herself in the constant company of the idol. Knowing so much, perhaps feeling that the idol was in safe custody, the woman managed to steal away from the palace and journeyed back to Śrīrangam to give information of it to the people there.