The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c13.22

v1.c13.22

3. The first of these troubles came soon after. In the country lying to the south there were five kings who had been tributaries to the Pandya. These now joined together and refused to pay tribute to the new foreign ruler at Madura. The *History of the Karnataka Governors* ³ does not say who these five kings were. The *Mrtyunjaya MSS.* call them merely "five independent princes of the South, who acknowledged no earthly superior" ⁴. But according to the *Genealogical Narrtaive of the House of Appiya Nayak*, the Palaiyakaran of Kannivady, (one of the MSS. of the Mackenzie Collection), they were collateral descendants of the ancient Pandya race ¹. Who, then, were these five collateral descendants of the Pandya family? Mr. Rangachari seems inclined to believe that this uprising was headed by the Pandya of Tenkasi himself, Tirunelveli Kulasekhara Perumal ²; the other four Pandyas being four of his close relatives, who perhaps shared with him the honor of royalty ³. But it seems to us more probable that the chief of this rebellion was the brother and predecessor of Tirunelveli Kulasekhara Perumal, named Perumal Parakrama Pandyadeva, alias Kulasekharadeva. He was crowned in Tenkasi in 1543, and his Singottai inscription of three years later calls him "the unrivalled hero of the world, the light of the Chandra-kula, the lord of the three worlds" ⁴. These titles, so unusual in the inscription of the Pandyas of those days, do certainly bespeak a man who refused to acknowledge any earthly superior. In this case, the rebellion of Perumal Parakrama Pandyadeva with his four partners in the throne took place after the year 1546; and if we suppose that he was the Pandya finally killed by Visvanatha, we must place the war at about 1552, since his successor was crowned in 1553.