The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagara, Vol. I v1.c31.112

v1.c31.112

II. We have not spoken of the literary activity in the city of Madura, which was nevertheless a centre of learning in the South of India. The famous Sangams always attracted hundreds of students to the old city of the Pandyas. Fr. de Nobili, an impartial eye-witness, in a letter of 1610, says that there were then in Madura more than ten thousand students. There was not, it seems, a body of professors, corresponding to the staff of our Colleges and Universities; but the students selected the teacher they liked, and under him they were trained to pass their final examination before the Sangam. Fr. de Nobili only says that those ten thousand students ‘go to different professors’. The same missionary informs us that Venkata II and the Nayak of Madura, probably Muttu Krishnappa, had in order to foster study “royally endowed several Colleges for the maintainance of professors and students while they are studying; they are there supplied with victuals, clothes and every thing they are in need of”.