The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c9.5

c9.5

¹ Mr. Venkayya (A.R.E., 1907, Part ii, para 20) arrived at the middle of the eighth century as the date for Arikēsari Parāṅkuśa and identified the campaigns of this king with those of Udayacandra, the Pallava general referred to in the Udayēndiram plates of Nandivarman. (S.I.I., vol. ii, pp. 361 ff.). The occurrence of the names Nelvēli and Śankaragrāma among the battles won by Udayacandra may seem to lend some support to this view. But apart from the objections we have urged against the whole system of Mr. Venkayya's identifications, we may draw attention here to the following points which seem to render it impossible to follow him. (1) He allows only twenty years for each generation, an extremely short allowance to make in calculating by averages the chronology of an uncharted age. (2) In the revised genealogy he gives at p. 54 of A. R. E. 1907-08, he separates the battles of Nelvēli and Śankaramangai and ascribes the former to the son of Śendan and the latter to his (son's) grandson--a course which is difficult to justify in the face of the Veḷvikkuḍi grant ascribing Nelvēli to the former definitely, and the Śinnamanūr plates coupling Nelvēli with Śankaramangai and ascribing them to an Arikēsari Parāṅkuśa whose identity remains to be made out. We could understand Mr. Venkayya if he had at least repeated a second battle of Nelvēli among the later (his)