Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/208

186 to him instead of his brother, and to co-operate with him in an attempt to drive Ràjendra from the throne. The confederate princes marched towards Madura for that purpose; but they were encountered by the Pandya king, defeated, and taken prisoners. Ràjàsinha was detained in confinement during the rest of his life, but the Chola monarch was released and dismissed with civility to his own dominions.

Saundarya Páda Sek'hara, the son of Rajendra, succeeded his father. Like his predecessors, he is said to have been engaged in hostilities with the Chola monarch; and, whatever we may think of the circumstantial details of these repeated conflicts, it seems not at all improbable that a struggle for supremacy in the peninsula did exist, at a remote date and for a long period, between these rival dynasties, which terminated in the temporary ascendency of the Pandya monarchs. On this occasion it is related, that the Pandya king was forced to fly before his invaders, but their prince was drowned in the pursuit of his defeated foes, and the kingdom of Madura was thus preserved from foreign subjugation. Of course, the accident was not a mere casualty, but was brought about by the seasonable interference of the tutelary deities of Madura. Saundarya Pàda died soon after his return to his capital, or, as it is said of every Pandya prince, he went into the adytum, or inner chamber, of the temple of Múla Linga, and was united to the god. If we do not suppose that this was a contrivance of the priests to get rid of those princes of whom they were tired, or with whom they were dissatisfied, we must conclude the ceremony to have been part of the religious institutes of the kingdom, and that the princes and persons of note were carried to the temple, to die in the presence of the tutelary gods, in the same spirit as that which, in Upper Hindustan, conveys the expiring individual to breathe his last upon the banks of the Ganges.

Varaguna, the son of the last prince, succeeded. His reign contains the usual proportion of marvels; but nothing of a historical character in the authorities hitherto followed. This omission is the more remarkable, as the Chola records ascribe the disappearance of the series of their princes to the transfer of the kingdom to Varaguna, by his marriage with a Chola princess, as has been noticed above; and the union of the two principalities under a common sovereign appears to have actually occurred about the period at which this prince may possibly have reigned. The fact is supported by another