The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c6.s3.20

c6.s3.20

In some discussions the following assumptions have been quietly made, though there is nothing in the epigraphs themselves to support any of them¹ and some of them are even opposed to indications in the records—(a) Muḍukuḍumi ruled immediately before the Kaḷabhra interregnum; (b) the name of Kaḍungōn's grandson is Śeḷiyan; (c) this Śeḷiyan must be the same as the famous Talaiyālaṅānattu Neḍunjeḷiyan of Śangam fame especially because the Śinnamanūr plates which begin the genealogy immediately after this Śeḷiyan refer to Talaiyālaṅānam as among the past glories of the Pāṇḍyas. But Muḍukuḍumi could not have reigned immediately before the Kaḷabhra occupation, for if he did so, a man speaking centuries afterwards could not say that his gift was enjoyed for long before the foreign inroad. And the name of Kaḍungōn's grandson is not Śeḷiyan, which is only a common name for the Pāṇḍyas, and occurs here in the midst of an ornate introduction to the king’s real name, Śēndan which seems to be confirmed by the genealogy of the smaller Śinnamanūr plates which begins with Jayantavarman. Moreover it must be explained why, if this Śēliyan Śēndan as he is called by the epigraphists was the victor of Talaiyālangānam, a battle so famous in literature as to lend a prefix to the name of its hero, that historic fight is not mentioned in the Vēḷvikkuḍi grant which gives a long account of the achievements of the kings it names. It thus seems clear that the mention of Muḍukuḍumi and Talaiyālangānam in these epigraphs confirms in some measure the particulars we gather from Śangam literature, and that it throws no new light on the age of the Śangam. If anything, the reference to the long interval between Muḍukuḍumi and the Kaḷabhra occupation, and the reckoning of the Śangam and the translation of the Bhāratam together with Talaiyālangānam among the legendary achievements which constituted the heirloom of the family, may lead an unbiassed student to the conclusion that these belong to an age altogether removed in the past from the kings whose history is recorded in these epigraphs.