The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c7.26

c7.26

The form of government was, of course, monarchy. It is not possible to understand the exact import of the ‘five great *Kulus*’ and ‘eight great *Āyams*’ which are often referred to as part of the king’s paraphernalia on ceremonial occasions.² These institutions seem to have been common to the three monarchies of the Tamil land and commentators differ as to their significance. The older annotation makes the five *Kulus* consist of the people (மாசனம்), priests (பார்ப்பார்), physicians (மருத்தர்), astrologers (நிமித்தர்) and ministers (அமைச்சர்) while a later gloss adds commanders, messengers and spies to the ministers and priests (புரோகிதர்) to make the five groups. Likewise there are two explanations given of the ‘eight Āyams’; the earlier one makes them groups of attendants on the king’s person like perfumers, dressing boys, etc.; a later account names more important groups of persons among whom are included the people of the capital city (நகரமாந்தர்) and the leaders of the elephant corps and of the cavalry. One should like to know more about these apparently ceremonial groups of attendants, officials and non-officials, before one accepts Mr. Kanakasabhai’s statement that ‘the council of representatives safeguarded the rights and privileges of the people’.¹ It is well known that the ideals of monarchy laid down in the Kural are of a very high order, and these seem to have been constantly pressed on the monarch’s attention by the numerous poets of the land in the age we are dealing with. Thus one poet (Puram 184) vividly contrasts the effects of moderate taxes which replenish the royal treasury periodically and make the king popular with those of oppressive exactions which impoverish the country and render the king unpopular; and illustrates his meaning by the difference in the cost of feeding an elephant from a barn and of letting him roam freely over fields ripe for the harvest. Another (Puram 55) stresses the need for impartiality in the king’s justice, and valour, grace and liberality in his conduct in terms that deserve to be quoted in the original.