buted to Agastya, besides his grammatical aphorisms. These consist of poems in praise of Siva, and a number of medical works.[1] It is not very probable, however, that the appropriation is generally correct.[2] At the first institution of the Madura sangattar, it would appear that some dispute arose immediately between the professors and the Saiva priests, connected, not impossibly, with that contention for pre-eminence of knowledge which has ever prevailed in the Tamil countries between the Brahman and inferior castes.[3] The priests, however, proved the more powerful; and a reconciliation took place between them and the literati of Madura. At least, we may thus interpret the legend of Narakira incurring the wrathful glance of Siva, and only escaping being burnt to ashes in the flames emanating from the eye in the forehead of the god by plunging into the holy pool Pattamàri, and there composing the Andàdi Pànyam, a poem in honour of Siva. After this event the parties continued upon good terms; and Siva presented to the professors a diamond bench of great critical sagacity, for it extended itself readily for the accommodation of such individuals as were worthy to be upon a level with the sages of the sangattar, and resolutely detruded all who pretended to sit upon it without possessing the requisite qualifications. In other words, the learned corporation of Madura resembled learned bodies in other countries, and maintained as strict a monopoly as they possibly could of literary reputation.
The foreign transactions of Vamsa Sek’hara's reign were limited to a war with Vikrama, the Chola prince, who besieged Madura, but was repulsed with the aid of Siva. The son of this prince was more fortunate; and he was engaged in disputes of no more serious a nature than those which were engendered by the rivalry of his literary dependents.
- ↑ One of these, the Agastyar Vaidya Anguru, is cited by Dr. Ainsler, Preface to the Materia Medica of Hindustan.
- ↑ In a manuscript account of Agastya, in the Collection, List, No. 14, thirty-eight works attributed to him are said to be still current. His grammar is, however, said to be lost, in consequence of a curse denounced upon it by Tulagappyam, the disciple of Agastya, according to some legends. In a MS. written by an intelligent native, and already referred to under the title of Chola Pàrvika Charitra Vyákhyanan, it is said, that the reputed invention of the Tamil language by Agastya is very improbable, as, in the medical works uniformly ascribed to him, the style indicates a very confined possesion of the language; and as to the Agastyam, or Grammatical Institutes, said to be lost, there is little reason to suppose it was ever written, as least by Agastya, as he never mentions it, although he states in his Gnyánam, or work on theology, that he has written a lack of sentences on theology, an equal number on alchemy, and two lacks on medicine. These inferences are scarcely questionable, as applied to an Agastya of, perhaps, the eighth or ninth century; but the traditions that ascribe the introduction of letters and religion amongst the people of Drávira to an earlier teacher of that name, do not seem to hare originated wholly in imagination.
- ↑ Ellis on the Málayálam Language, p. 26.
