Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/204

182 shi herself became incarnate as the daughter and the successor of this prince.

Múmulai Tadátaki, the new queen of Madura, was a warlike princess. She subdued, it is said, the whole of the peninsula, and carried her arms over northern Hindustan to the Kailása mountains. Here her victorious career terminated in an event more glorious than her preceding triumphs. She was opposed by no less a person than the god Siva, by whom she was defeated and taken a prisoner. It was now her turn to vanquish: the god became enamoured of her charms and allowed her to return in liberty to Madura, whither he followed her and obtained her hand. Having assumed a human form of great beauty, the god was known by the title Sundara (the handsome) Pandyan; and although it does not appear how he attained the privilege of giving a cognomen to the emblem of himself, worshipped in Madura, yet the Múla Linga is most commonly known by the name of Sundaréswara, the god of Sundara, which it shares with that of Choka Náyaka.

That this tradition is not wholly without foundation is established by several circumstances, if we look to its implied rather than to its literal import. It is not improbable that the worship of Siva was introduced into the peninsula from northern Hindustan some few centuries before the Christian era, and that, in the reign of one of the early princes of Madura, it was established in that city. The tradition which peoples the peninsula from the north of India, and the existence of the Saiva faith there, coeval with the era of Christianity, are fully in harmony with the account given of Sundara Pandyan. In further confirmation of the native country whence the Tamil faith was derived, it may be observed that Sanskrit, which, in Drávira Désa, as in every other Hindu country, is the language of religion, is always called by Tamil writers Vádá Mozhi, the northern speech, and, finally, the learned writer from whom the remark is taken, observes, that the literature and religion of the Brahmans were brought by them into the peninsula from northern Hindustan. Whether this occurred at so early a period as the one now under discussion may be doubted, although some of the circumstances we have adverted to are in favour of the supposition. That there are, on the other hand, reasonable bounds to its antiquity cannot be disputed; for, besides the inference derivable from the traditions relative to the colonisation of the peninsula, we