The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c11.2
The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c11.2
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c11.2.1
THE history of the Pāndyan kingdom in the period between the restoration after the Kalabhra occupation and the fall of Madura before Parāntaka early in the tenth century, as made out by us so far, cannot by any means be regarded as either final or complete. Only the barest outlines of the story have been traced. Many points have had to be left unsettled; others have been noted as points for future study in the light of further evidence that may become available. We have also had to pass by a large number of stone inscriptions dated in the regnal years of Māran Sadayan and Sadayan Māran which undoubtedly belong to this period, but cannot with certainty be assigned to particular rulers. If we know so little about the main line of the Pāndyas, our knowledge about their subordinates and feudatories is even more limited. Passing references have been made already to the local chieftains known as Vēls, of whom the chiefs of the family of Ay seem to have enjoyed a long spell of power and influence in the mountainous country between the Tinnevelly district and Travancore. The Adigans of the Kongu country also felt the strength of the Pāndyan kings and were forced for a time to acknowledge their supremacy. Somewhat more prominent than these chieftains seem to have been the Muttarayar¹ who have left behind several epigraphical records which have only been partially studied till now.
c11.2.2
It is certain that these rulers held large portions of the Tanjore and Trichinopoly districts and possibly parts of Pudukottah for several generations and that the centre of their power was somewhere in the district of Tanjore. Sendalai, at present a small village near Tirukkāṭṭupaḷḷi, appears once to have been a flourishing town with the beautiful name Candralēkhā, and either this place or Niyamam in its neighbourhood was most probably the centre of Muttaraya rule. There is even now in existence a village by name Muttaraśanallūr within five miles of Trichinopoly. It is well known that a Perumuttarayan is mentioned twice in the Nālaḍiyār. The inscriptions from the Sendalai pillars mention three continuous generations of the Muttarayar; the last of them was Śuvaraṇ Māran alias Perumbiḍugu Muttarayan who claims to have fought at many places on behalf of the Pallavas and against the Pāndyas. There is also a curious coincidence in strange birudas between these rulers and the Pallava kings:—examples are Perumbiḍugu and Viḍēlviḍugu. These facts might lead one to suppose that these rulers were the subordinate allies of their Pallava contemporaries. On the other hand, there are other facts which seem to make it necessary to modify this conclusion. First, some kings of the Muttaraya line date their records in their own regnal years (18 of Iḷangō Muttarayan in No. 12 of 1899 from Sendalai).
c11.2.3
Secondly, one inscription (10 of 1899) which records a gift by a servant of a Muttarayan is dated in the tenth regnal year of Māraṇjaḍayan. And lastly, there is a gift by the queen of a Śatrubhayankara Muttarayan recorded in a stone inscription in the Tinnevelly district and dated in the twenty-first regnal year of Śaḍayan Māran (421 of 1906). In fact at one stage it was even supposed that the Muttarayar were a branch of the ruling house of the Pāndyas and emphasis was laid on the recurrence of the name Māran among the Muttaraya kings. But the facts set forth above indicate clearly that no simple hypothesis is likely to furnish the key to the true history of these chieftains. The best way of reconciling all the known facts about the Muttarayar seems to be to suppose that they held their sway for several generations in the debatable land between the Pāndyas and the Pallavas and ruled, either independently or in subjection to the Pāndyas or the Pallavas, in accordance with the trend of contemporary politics. It is unfortunate that no definite and detailed conclusions can be arrived at regarding the history of these rulers and the part they played in the story of South India. But the conjecture may be accepted that when Vijayālaya recovered Tanjore for the Cholas, he must have taken it from a Muttaraya chief. The Sendalai inscriptions call one of them the lord of Tanjai and Vallam.