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The Indian Analyst
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South Indian Inscriptions |
EPIGRAPHIA INDICA regarded as the rulers of Koṅgu, though at no time their rule extended to the whole of that territory. One of the greatest kings of the line was Adigaimān Neḍumān Añji.[1] He is called Malavar-Perumān.[2] He is said to have fought against seven kings and chiefs, gained victory, and destroyed Kōvalūr.[3] One of his ancestors is stated to have introduced sugar-cane.[4] In speaking of him one of the verses in the Puram[5] says, “like his ancestors, he had the garland of Palmyra”. This reference is of importance as showing his descent from the Chēras. He is also said to have worn a garland of tumbai flowers and Aegle Marmelos.[6] His son was Poguṭṭelini or Elini.[7] The Chēra origin of the early Adigaimān, as gathered from the Saṅgam works, is quite in agreement with and receives confirmation from what we find recorded in two later inscriptions of the time of the Chōḷa king Kulōttuṅga III. One of them comes from Kambayanallūr in the Salem District and the other from Pōḷūr in the North Arcot District. In these inscriptions[8] the later Adigaiman chief Viḍukādalagiya-Perumāl (Sanskrit ‘ Vyāmuktaśravaṇōjvala ’) is called a lineal descendent of the Kēraḷa or Chēra Elini (Skt. Yavanikā). The Adigaimāns did not maintain cordial relationship with the Chēras even in earlier days. The Chēra king Peruñ-Chēral Irumporai is said to have fought a battle on the top of Kollikkūrram and won a victory over the two kings, i.e., the Pāṇḍya and the Chōḷa, along with an Adigan who commanded an army of several battalions, to have seized their war drums, parasols and crowns, and to have destroyed Tagaḍūr which was guarded by powerful warriors.[9] But this cannot be a bar to Adigaimān’s descent from the Chēra which is well established by the references cited above. That the Adigaimāns continued to exist will be clear from the following.
An Adigan chief is reported, in the Madras Museum plates of Jaṭilavarman,[10] to have fought against Neduñjaḍaiyan at Ayirūr, Āyiravēli and Pugaliyūr, and another is said; in the Periyapurāṇam, to have fought against Pugal-Chōla.[11] The Nāmakkal cave inscription speaks of Atiyānvaya, ‘a descendent of Adigaimān’, and of Atiyēndra.[12] From all that we have pointed out above it will be clear that the Adigaimāns or Adiyar were quite different from the Koṅgar and were lords of a different locality coexistent with Koṅgu. But the fact that the Adigaimāns were of Chēra origin, as proved by Tamil literature and inscriptions, may suggest that at some remote age the Chēras overran the northern part of the Koṅgu country and set up a member of their family there, to act as a kind of restraint on the Koṅgu people from advancing northwards, and the Pallavas from pushing south. If this was the case, we can regard the territory of the Adigaimāns as having been originally included in Koṅgu. But there is no means of knowing what exactly was the earliest extent of the Koṅgu country as it is not specified in the Saṅgam works. It would appear further that when the Pallavas settled the Western Gaṅgas in the souh,[13] much of the territory of the Adigaimāns had passed into their hands. Gaṅga rule further south than the northernmost part of the Gōpicheṭṭipāḷaiyam Taluk of the Coimbatore District is not warranted by facts and hence we must regard as incorrect the statement of the Koṅgudēśarājāk- ________________________________________________________________ [1] Puranānūru, 92.
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