Administration and Social Life under Vijayanagar c14.45

c14.45

²⁴ The date of Meykanda is one of doubt. Prof. Seshagiri Śāstri, suggests that he lived about A.D. 1550. (*Rep. on Sans. and Tam. Mss.*, 1896-97, pp. 52 and 56). The author of the *Madras Manual* assigns him to the eleventh century and says that the Siddar schools came into existence after Ativīra Rāma Pāṇḍya whom he places in the eleventh century (Vol. I, pp. 57 and 120). Gopinatha Rao however thinks that Ativīra Rāma Pāṇḍya lived about A.D. 1236 (*Madras Review*, 1904). See in this connection *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. XLIII, pp. 156-57. Meykanda appears to have lived in the twelfth century at the latest. Umāpati Śiva, fourth in the spiritual succession to Meykanda, wrote his *Śaṅkarpa Nirākaraṇam* in Ś. 1235 (A.D. 1313). See S. Anavaratavinayakam Pillai, *Śaiva Siddhānta Varalāru*, p. 33.