South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c9.45

c9.45

The account of his benefactions to this temple which we find recorded in the Tamil work called Koyiloḷuhu seems apparently to be based upon the inscriptions, but adds a few more details. It is hardly necessary to give in detail all the repairs he made, or new structures and extensions that he constructed, which took on the character of extensions of colonnades and halls, providing connecting passages roofed over, and paving the circuits round the main temple. He seems to have added vastly to the thousand-pillared hall, and another hall, in the same yard. It was also he that constructed the various buildings, the Yāgaśāla (building for the celebration of Vedic sacrifices) and those adjoining. But what is of some interest here is that these and various other things such as cars, gold and jewel fittings for the car, jewels of various kinds for the God and Goddess, all these amounted to eighteen lacs of pieces of gold of the current coin. This vast amount he set apart for these various purposes by a peculiar kind of tulābhāra (weighment against gold). He got two boats of the same size and weight constructed, and had them afloat on the river in the bathing ghat which goes by the name Makha (the asterism in the full moon of February-March of each year under which a festival takes place). He probably connected them both, and on one of them placed an elephant seven cubits, ‘of the carpenter’s yard’ high, and himself mounted on it in full panoply of war with all his warlike accoutrement; and on the other put in an equal weight of gold and pearls and gems of all sorts so mixed as to rise to the same height.¹ He then made it over to the temple for these miscellaneous items of expenditure. This magnificent gift had to lie over for two years as the temple authorities, in the name of God, would not accept it for some reason. Ultimately they were persuaded to accept it. His difficulties did not come to an end there. After making all the vast repairs and new constructions he cherished the ambition, natural to persons of the kind in such circumstances, of placing a statue of his and apparently that of his queen Chērakulavalli in some prominent place in the temple. These again the temple authorities would not have, perhaps on the ground that no statue of a human personality, however high, should defile the precincts of the holy temple. The great Pāṇḍya had to content himself with merely making two statues in the form of a god and goddess, but bearing the respective names ‘Ponvēynda Perumāl’ or ‘Hēmāchadanarāja’, the great one that covered the roof with gold, and ‘Chērakulavalli’, as also a large sized statue of Garuḍa the Brahmani kite, ‘the chief vehicle’ (vāhana) of Viṣṇu. These are yet shown in the temple. His munificence however, in spite of the want of a statue of his, is yet green in the memory of people, and the name of Sundara Pāṇḍya is familiar to those that know anything of the temple. His name is handed down in various forms on coins of his; ‘Emmaṇḍalamumgoṇḍaruḷiya’ (the conqueror of all kingdoms), ‘Eḷāmtalaiyānān (he that is first of all), being some. It is apparently this Sundara Pāṇḍya that enjoyed the special distinction of Vāḷālvaḷitirandān (he that opened the way by the sword).¹ He is also given the title Kōdaṇḍarāma, on some of his coins and inscriptions.