A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.37

c12.37

Tondaimān Iḷandiraiyan, who ruled at Kāñchipuram, was a contemporary of Karikāla and is also celebrated by the poet of the Paṭṭinappālai in another poem in the ‘Ten Idylls’. Iḷandiraiyan is said to have been a descendant of Vishnu and belonged to the family of Tiraiyar given by the waves of the sea. There is no hint anywhere of his being related to Karikāla or of his political subordination to the Chola power. Nor is it clear whether it was to him or to some other member of his line that Avaiyār went as Adigaimān's ambassador. Iḷandiraiyan was himself a poet, and there are four extant songs by him, one of them on the importance of the personal character of the monarch in the promotion of good rule.