Again in his Tirukkovaiyar he refers to that king thus :—
... வரகுணனார்
தென்னவனே ற்றுஞ்சிற்றம்பலத்தான். (306)
... சிற்றம்பலம்புகழு
மயலோங்கிருங்களியானைவரகுணன்(327)
It is thus evident that our saint lived in or after the reign of Varaguna Pandya. Epigraphical researches have up to now brought to light only two Pandya kings of that name, the earlier of whom lived in the first quarter of the ninth century. And the Varaguna alluded to by Manikka Vachakar must have been the Varaguna Varman mentioned in the Ambasamudram inscriptions (Ep. Ind. Vol. IX., Pt. ii). He was a devout worshipper of Siva and granted donations of money and land for his worship in many Siva temples.
But the Halasya Mahatmya informs us that Manikka Vachakar lived in the reign of one Arimardhana Pandya who was forty-second in succession from the only Varaguna given in the Mahatmya list. This is one of the many shocking anachronisms which one may find in the above stala-purana.
(7) In the sacred sports of Siva at Madura as narrated in this purana, the 'jackal miracle' which is erroneously connected with Manikka Vachakar and which is stated to have occurred in the reign of Arimardhana Pandya, the sixty-first in the list, comes after the sport of turning into rock the Elephant that came to destroy Madura in the reign of the seventh Pandya, and the hearing of Nakkirar's commentary on Iraiyanar's Agapporul by the dumb child, Rudra Sarman, in the reign of the forty-sixth king. The slender data on
