The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c19.46

c19.46

We see that the temples also furnished numerous occasions for disputes on various matters. A record in the sixteenth year of Māravarman Sundara Pāndya (No. 141 of 1902) states that the authorities of the temple of Dēvanāyakapperumāḷ in Tiruvēndipuram decided to follow the system of worship practised in all other temples, and we have no means of knowing the nature of the innovation that necessitated this rather conservative affirmation regarding the manner of worship. A record of the late thirteenth century (No. 432 of 1913) narrates a dispute between the chetties and the oil-mongers (*vāṇiya-nagarattār*) of Aragalūr (Salem district) with regard to the management of temple festivals, and apparently the chetties succeeded in the end.² A case of dispute between two *bhaṭṭars* as to the right of conducting worship in the temple which was settled by the intercession of the village assembly has been mentioned before.³ There were also disputes as to the order of precedence in which the sacred ashes in Śiva temples and the *prasādam* in the Viṣṇu temples were to be received, or the rope of the god's car had to be held in drawing it and such other matters.¹ About the middle of the thirteenth century a rather acrimonious quarrel between the Śaivas and the Vaiṣṇavas representing the two adjoining temples at Tirumaiyyam in the Pudukcottah state is said to have resulted in a cessation of worship in both the temples, and to have been finally settled by the mediation of a military officer of the Hoysala Vira Somēśvara, Appaṇṇa Daṇḍanāyaka by name.²