The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c8.34

c8.34

¹ Mr. Venkayya made an attempt to clear up the story of the Kaḷabhra occupation from Mūrti Nāyanār Purāṇam in the *Periyapurāṇam* and the *Tiruvilaiyāḍal* (*A.R.E.*, 1908, p. 53). But there is nothing in the *Purāṇa* except the mention of a Karnātaka king of Jaina persuasion ruling in Madura which can connect it with this age. (See K. G. Sankara, *Q.J.M.S.*, vol. x, p. 178). Mūrti, not Kaḍungōn, succeeds the childless foreign ruler in the *Purāṇa*. Judging by results, Venkayya committed a more serious mistake in suggesting the identity of Kaḷabhra with the Erumaiyūran, one of the opponents of the Pāndyan king in the battle of Talaiyālangānam, and saying, 'it may be that Neḍuñjeḷiyan drove out from the Pāndya country the Kaḷabhras' (*A.R.E.*, 1908, p. 53). This has led others to identify Neḍuñjeḷiyan with Jayantavarman, as we have seen before. Mr. T. N. Subramanian (*Q.J.M.S.*, vol. xii, pp. 304-6) makes a number of statements which are not easy to support from the evidence at our disposal. He says 'From the analogy (in the Vēlvikkudi grant) it appears that the Pāndya line was unknown to the world while the Kaḷabhras ruled there. Thus the evidence of the *Periyapurāṇam* that there was no Pāndya prince (!) left to succeed when a Kaḷabhra king died might