South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c8.s1.34

c8.s1.34

In the nineteenth year (A.D. 1235) ¹ we find Rājarāja III paying a visit to the Tiruvorriyūr temple on the occasion of the Āvaṇittiruṇāḷ (festival in August or September, each year). He was present at the musical rendering of the Ahamārgam.² This is apparently the singing, to the accompaniment of dancing, to exhibit the erotic sentiments embodied in the devotional works of the Śaiva saints. Some of these personal acts of the king would indicate that he had a reign of comparative peace, when he could take himself away from the more responsible duties of his high station. The apparent calm was but the precursor of the storm that was gathering from the hostility of the Pāṇḍyas on the south, the ambitions of the chief feudatories within, and the aggressions of his neighbours in the north. It is as against all this, and perhaps in an honest effort to help the Chola, that the Hoysala intervention took place.