The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c6.s2.1

c6.s2.1

In fact the origin of the Pāṇḍyas is, like all such questions of origin, involved in much obscurity. This line of kings is given in the legends two different origins which are not easy to reconcile. The story of the three brothers of Koṟkai¹ is of the Romulus pattern and perhaps indigenous. The connection with the Pāṇḍavas² and the moon is the result of another and a more ambitious type of legend which threw the more humble story into the shade in historical times. And it may be noted here that the *Tiruvilaiyāḍal* of Nambi mentions the lunar origin of the Pāṇḍyas only in the course of a restoration after a deluge (No. 47); and in this it is followed by the later versions which, of course, contain more embellished accounts (No. 49 in Nelson). None of the legends can be taken as proof, as has sometimes been done,³ that the Pāṇḍyas ruled from other centres like Koṟkai, Maṇalūr or Kalyāṇapura, before they made Madura their capital, as the very first king in all the lists of kings that have been handed down to us is said to have founded Madura.