Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.139

c7.139

Possibly conscious, of the flaw in the position, Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar sets forth in quest of more direct evidence from the *Perumbāṇārruppaḍai* on the descent of Toṇḍaimāṉ Iḷandiraiyan from the Cōḷas, that is, from Karikāla. "If this Tiraiyaṉ was a chief of the Toṇḍaiyar," he asks, * "how could he have also been the grandson of Karikāla?," and answers: "This could have been if his mother was a Tiraiya (*sic* Cōḷa?) woman." We expect to hear about the identity of this mother; but we do not. We are told this, however: "That Iḷandiraiyan was descended both from the Śōḷa and Tiraiya families is mentioned in the *Perumbāṇārruppaḍai* (ll. 29-36)", and in his translation of these lines all the references to the Śōḷan are introduced within brackets by Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar without the least sanction from the text. Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar indeed, as we have seen, understands the poet's statement that the Tiraiyaṉ was of the family of Viṣṇu as implying that he came from the Cōḷa family, and retails the story of the Cōḷa prince of Negapatam raising the Toṇḍaiyar line by his liaison with the Nāga maiden. But the fact remains that the text of the poem only states that the Tiraiyaṉ came of the line of Viṣṇu. All kings are of the line of Viṣṇu in some sense. The Kauravas and the Cālukyas of the lunar race also claimed descent from Viṣṇu. There is no compelling reason to accept that descent from Viṣṇu must necessarily mean descent from the Cōḻa line. And one can hardly resist the feeling that Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar’s gloss at this point is itself reminiscent of the Maṇimēkalai story. Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar rejects the story, but keeps the comment and uses it to support his view that the Tiraiyaṉ’s mother was a Cōḻa woman of whose identity he has nothing to tell us. A straight literal translation of the text will show that it can bear no such interpretation, or at any rate, that, if there is nothing else to support the descent of the Tiraiyaṉ from the Cōḻa line, we shall be justified in our scepticism in regard to such descent. “You are of the family of the sea-coloured (god) who strode over the broad earth and whose breast carries the beautiful mole; (you are) the descendant of the strong chieftain given by the waves of the self-same sea. (Your) sceptre is like the right-whorled chank in its flawless superiority, repels injustice and administers justice; it is esteemed by the three (sovereigns) who with armies possessing loud drums guard all the beings of the wide world.”