The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c9.45

c9.45

Minor considerations apart, the main points in the question seem to be the following: Māṇikkavāśagar *does* claim that the miracle of the transformation of foxes into horses was performed by Śivan on his account (நமை ஆண்டான்) in Tiru Ponnuśal, l. 45; also Tiru Ammānai, ll. 17-18; Tiruvārttai, ll. 14-15 and Ānanadamālai, ll. 25-26, to save him from the consequences of his master's wrath. And Appar, by general consent the earliest of the three Tēvāram hymnists, does refer to this miracle and also to a Vācaka in a manner which seems to leave no room for doubt that it is a reference to our saint. Then there is the fact that in all the traditional lists of Pāndya Kings, the contemporary of Mānikkavāśagar is placed several generations before Kūn Pāndya, the contemporary of Gnānasambandar. It must also be noticed that Mānikkavāśagar's life and history occupy a rather earlier, and perhaps more conspicuous place in the cycle of the Madura sports of Śivan and that it has not been possible to recognize so far any clear epigraphical references except to the last of the kings in the lists given in the different versions of these stories. It seems a natural inference from all this that Mānikkavāśagar, the antagonist of Buddhism, was older than the saints of the age of Sambandar whose chief contests appear to have been with the Jains.