the Tamil grammarian Tolkapyar lived. The third and the most famous among the early Pandyas was Palsalai Mudukudumi[1] Peruvaludi. He was a great patron of learning and Brahmans and performed many yagas or sacrifices. He might have been the king who sent an embassy to Augustus Cæsar in B. C. 25; and this fact has been alluded to in the Velvikudi grant as 'going as ambassador to the gods'. Ugra Peruvaludi is said to have engraved the fish on the Himalayas. Nedum Seliyan I constructed many tanks for irrigation, which fact has been commemorated in a poem by Kuda Pulaviyanar. He committed suicide for having, without a proper enquiry, ordered the decapitation of Kovalan an innocent merchant of Kaveripatam at the instigation of a crafty goldsmith. The merchant's wife Kannaki committed sati and was deified as a Goddess of Chastity. To appease her wrath the king's son Verri Vel Seliyan sacrificed one thousand goldsmiths. Nedum Seliyan II while yet a boy defeated the two Tamil kings and five chieftains at Talaiyalamkanam. Sattanar the famous author of Manimekalai and a stanch Buddhist lived in the reign of Nanmaran I and the poet Nakkirar flourished probably in the days of Nanmaran II.
With the discovery of the Chinnamanur copper plates in 1906 and of the Velvikudi grant in 1908, the mist that enveloped the early history of the Pandyas may be said
- ↑ The custom of keeping a tuft of hair on the head was purely Indo-Aryan. In Southern India no non-Aryan tribe or caste had it. Hence the early Brahman settlers were called குடுமியஞ் சென்னியர் (Kal. 71). This Pandya king was perhaps the first Dravidian who adopted this Aryan custom on account of his having performed many yagas or sacrifices like the Brahmans.
