story is altogether fabulous,[1] no stress need be laid upon the assertion. The MS. list of Tamil authors states his work to be 1600 years old: and Mr. Kindersley, who has translated a prose version of part of it,[2] mentions that the original is understood to have been written fourteen hundred years ago. He also notices the extreme difficulty of the style, from which a high antiquity may be inferred; and, from these considerations, we may conclude that the age of Tiruvalavar may have been between the sixth and ninth centuries.
As far as we can judge from the extracts of the Kadal, which have been translated, we have some reason to suppose that their author was not a very orthodox member of the Hindu faith. He appears to have advocated moral duties and practical virtues above ceremonial observances and speculative devotion, and so far trespassed upon the strict law. By his allusions to the heaven of Indra, and to various parts of the regular pantheon, as well as the respect he inculcates to Brahmans and ascetics, he does not appear to have been a seceder or a sectary. How far, therefore, he contributed to the introduction of the Jain, or Bauddha faith, into the Madura monarchy, may be doubted, although the diffusion of his doctrines was calculated to undermine the Brahmanical system. At any rate, it is agreed that the kings of Madura had adopted sectarial principles, and that Kuna Pandyan was a follower of the Samanal doctrines, intending by those the Jain faith; although the term will apply also to that of Buddha, with which there is equal reason to identify it.
Some traditions assert that this heresy was introduced from Ceylon. In that case it was the faith of the Bauddhas. The same also aver, that when the heretics were banished they were exiled to that island,—a legend leading to the same conclusion. On the other hand, the expulsion of the Bauddhas from India appears to have been the work of earlier periods, whilst the remaining records of the kings of Húmchi, and the Belal princes, shew that in Mysore the Jain religion was established at this period; and at Madura, the first converts of Gnyana Samandar are usually considered to have been Jaina authors. We may, therefore, consent to call the religion of Kuna Pandyan, Jaina; but the truth seems to be, that neither Jaina nor Bauddha doctrines ever gained an extensive footing in the southern divisions of the peninsula, which have maintained from the earliest to the latest periods an undeviating fidelity to the worship of Siva and the Lingam.[3]
- ↑ It is detailed at length by Dr. John.
- ↑ Extracts from the Tiruvalavar Kadal, or Ocean of Tiruvalavar.—Kindersley's Hindu Literature. See also Extracts from the fame, or Tiruvalavar Koral, by Mr. Ellis; Mackensie Collection, vol. i. p. 233.
- ↑ Some of the traditions of the Jainas assert, that Chamunda Raya, who erected the Image of Gomateswara, was minister of Raksha Malls, a king of Madura, in the year of Kali 600. This account is rendered suspicious by the antiquity of the date, even if we
