Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/166

144 With regard to the particular MS. and that passage of it which now stands forth so prominently, I could wish that the expression quoted by Professor Wilson had been softened. Being cut out from its connexion and printed in italics, it reads harsh, whereas the whole paragraph in the Prefatory Notice to the 2d volume of translations, would I suppose be by all admitted to be deferential in no ordinary degree. Every sentence, or member of a sentence, of any writer may be so used; but it is I believe an axiom among critics, that any expression so excided is not to be taken as indicating the spirit or meaning of the entire context. The point of the question is this, that several authorities traced up the lineage of the most early rulers of Madura, to a particular son of a particular patriarch (so to speak) among the ancestors of the Hastinapuri race of kings. The position assumed by Professor Wilson, if accurate, at once nullified the whole of these authorities. The particular passage is (Descriptive Catalogue vol. 1, p. lxxiv.)—"the founder of the (Pandya) kingdom according to the local traditions, was a person named Pandya, a native of Oude, and of the agricultural caste." But "the local traditions" as indicated by me (Oriental Historical MSS. vol. 2, Ap., p. 35) did not, to the best of my judgment, direct to such a statement; all my authorities were against it; and on tracing the matter minutely in the Descriptive Catalogue, the statement, or rather something like it, was found only in one MS. in the account of which (Descriptive Catalogue vol. 1. p. 188,) it is said, "amongst these (pilgrims) was Mathura-náyaka Pándya a man of agricultural tribe from the north of India, who colonized the country along the Vygi river and founded the city of Madura." The MS, itself on being examined did not fully bear out this statement; and that circumstance was mentioned, on its being discovered, in the simplest possible language, in a short note (Oriental Historical MSS. vol. 2. Ap. p. 39), of which Professor Wilson has used only the concluding words. The particular point turned on the word "Oude," and on the word "Pandiya," as denoting a man, or person so called, as a proper name, which two things are not borne out by the manuscript, and the importance of the discrimination rested in this fact, that if the position chosen by Professor Wilson was just, then all other authorities were wrong: a matter of some consequence to the discussions in which I was engaged, I may add that in the original of the MS. in question the translation which I gave in the above note, of Vada désattilulla pándiyanákira vellázhan, might have been still better and more accurately rendered "an ancient agriculturist in (or of) the north country." As before ren-