The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c19.39.1

c19.39.1

A few facts, gleaned from a mass of similar data, may now be set down to confirm these statements about the temple and its part in the life of mediæval South India. An inscription of about A.D. 1260 from Maḍambākkam (Chingleput) dated in the tenth year of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya (No. 322 of 1911) states that ‘the assembly of the village seeing that it was not possible to maintain the lamps, offerings and festivals in the temple from the income available for that purpose, assigned the north division (*vaḍakūru*) “with its wet lands, garden lands, houses and house-sites” to the temple, but retained therein 3,000 *kuḷi* of land with houses and house-sites for their own use. They decided also to pay the dues on them such as *pon-vari* and *nāṭṭu-vari* from their own pockets and agreed that “if ever, owing to unfortunate circumstances, we are induced to sell this land, we shall do so, for the price at which it then sells, to the sacred treasury of the temple”.’¹ An inscription from Kāmarasavalli (Trichinopoly) of the tenth year of Jaṭāvarman Vīra Pāṇḍya (No. 88 of 1914) gives an idea of the manner in which funds were raised by the inhabitants of the *vaḷanāḍu* for effecting certain repairs to the temple. They agreed to pay to the temple a small cess on all merchandise sold by them, e.g. one-fourth *paṇam* on each bundle of cloths for women, on each *poḍi* of pepper, on each *paḍi* of areca-nuts, one *kāśu* on each *poḍi* of paddy, etc.² A record from Aḷagāpuri (Ramnad) (No.