South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c12.s1.2

c12.s1.2

This arrangement receives unlooked for confirmation from an inscription at Panaiyūr in the Tirumeyyam Talūk of the Pudukoṭṭa State which refers itself to the ninth year of ‘Muhammadi Surattān’ (Muhammad Sultan). This would be the year A.D. 1334 when his authority was acknowledged as a matter of course in the southern part of the Pudukoṭṭa State. The Sultanate of Madura then must be held to have begun in A.D. 1335 and that is the beginning of the end of Muhammad’s empire. There are a number of inscriptions which refer themselves to the Hijira year in the district of Ramnad, of which one is published along with this. They refer themselves in general terms to the rule of Rājādhirāja Sakala Nṛpakulakkōn; the dates given are 732, 761 and 771 in these records which have been referred to the Kollamāṇḍu (Malabar era) in the Epigraphist’s report. But the record from Kaṇḍadēvi published in this work makes it clear that it is the Muhammadan era that is referred to, as the Muhammadan month and its equivalent Tamil month are given in the inscription itself. The record of 732 refers itself to the time of ‘Ādi Surattān’ (First Sultan). These finds put it beyond doubt that the era under reference is the Hijira era, and that the authority of Muhammad Tughlak was acknowledged in the far south up to the year A.D. 1334, and the authority of the Muhammadans, apparently the Sultans of Madura, up to A.D. 1371.