Kuna Pandyan was married to Vani Daswani the daughter of the Chola Raja, who was a devout worshipper of Siva.[1] She invited Gnyana Samandar, a famous teacher of her sect, to Madura, and an opportunity soon occurred of gaining for him the countenance of the Raja Kuna, who was attacked by a fever which resisted the drugs and spells of his Jaina priests. Gnyana Samandar undertook his cure, engaging to make his success a test of the superiority of his religion. His opponents accepted the challenge; and the medical skill of the Saiva surpassing their expectations, they found themselves vanquished. Attributing the success of Gnyana Samandar to magic, they proposed other tests, to which he readily agreed. Leaves, with the sacred texts of their respective parties were thrown into the Vaiki, under a stipulation that the sect should triumph whose mantra floated upwards against the current. The Saiva charm prevailed: it ascended the river to a place called Tiruvedaka, where Siva, in the form of an old man, took it out of the water, and brought it back to Gnyana Samandar. In commemoration of the event, a city was founded on the spot to which the leaf was borne, and a temple was erected by the king to Tiruvedaka Nat’h. The Samanal were persecuted and hanged, or banished, to the number of eight thousand. Kuna Pandyan, who before his conversion was deformed, as his name implies (Kuna meaning "hunch-backed"), no sooner received the initiatory mantra of the Saiva faith, than be became erect and straight, and thenceforth assumed the name of Sundara (the "handsome") Pandyan. Gnyana Samandar was established as the chief pontiff of the religious faith which he had restored; and he seems to have instituted a peculiar hierarchy which still subsists, several convents being found in the south of India tenanted by Brahmacharia, or cœnobites, of the Saiva persuasion, whose spiritual head bears the hereditary title of "Gnyani Siva Achari."[2]
- ↑ In an account of the Gopuram of the Bauddha temple at Púdcovaily, this lady is named Mengayakarasi, and called the daughter of Kerikála Chola, who ruled, it is said, a. d: 478.
- ↑ Account of the Gnyana Siva Acharis, MSS. No. 17. Colonel Wilks, as observed before, identifies these with the Pandarams, or Jangamas, but this is very questionable. They do not seem to be known as a religions order above the Ghats. In the Carnatic the name has been adopted within the last fifty years, I understand, by a set of Saiva teachers, who officiate as the priests of the blacksmith caste.
suppose the Kali, or fifth age of the Jain as, to be intended, by which the date will be reduced to about thirty years b.c. Besides, in the published account of this place and image by Colonel Mackenzie, the country of the minister and king is not mentioned (A. R. vol. ix. p. 303), except in a general way, as lying in the south. Chamunda Raya, in another place, is called a king of one of the Chola or Belala races (p. 246). There is nothing in the local traditions of Madura to warrant the assertion. The princes of the name of Malla, it may be observed, reigned in the Carnatic and Mysore in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; and an inscription of a grant by Raksha Malla, printed in the Asiatic Researches (vol. ix.), is dated Sal. 1090, or a. d. 1173 (p. 431).
