Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/209

1837.] authority, however, and a cheritra, or history of Varaguna, states his repulsion of an invasion by the Chola king, Karàvar Chola, his subsequent conquest of that kingdom, and its annexation to the Pandya monarchy. A celebrated poet, named Bàna, or Pàna-patra, is said to have flourished in this prince's reign.

Vara Raja, or Raja Rajendra, succeeded Varaguna. In his reign a ridiculous legend is narrated, which so far merits recapitulation, that traces of it are frequent in the sculptures still visible at Madura.

At Kuruvaituri, west of Madura, a rich farmer had twelve sons, who spent their time in various sports, and especially in the chase. They one day attacked a wild hog and his family, killed some, and pursued the rest to the vicinity of a holy sage engaged in profound meditation. Having disturbed the abstraction of the sage, he cursed them, denouncing their future birth as hogs themselves. On their humiliation, however, and earnest prayers for forgiveness, he so far modified his imprecation as to make the temporary degradation the means of future honour and fame.

The twelve youths being reborn in their porcine capacity, lost their tender parents by the spears of Raja Rájendra and his fellow-sportsmen, whilst they were yet too young to provide for their own subsistence. Their pitiful state moved the compassion of Choka Náyaka and Minákshi Amman, who happened to be in the forest during the chase, and they determined to act as the parents of the porkers. Minákshi officiated as their nurse, in which character figures of her occur, and Choka Náyaka as their tutor. One effect of this divine protection was to humanise their bodies, so that they became men with the heads of pigs, in which combination their statues are sculptured. Another consequence of their fortunate destiny was their deriving from their preceptor profound conversancy with arts, sciences, and letters, and their consequent advancement to the ministerial administration of the affairs of the Pandya kingdom.

The reign of Raja Rájendra is followed by an interval which is imperfectly filled up in most of the authorities by a mere string of names. The enumeration does not exactly agree in all cases; but in those which are the most authentic, it appears to extend to twenty-four or twenty-five princes. If we allow twenty years to a reign, and admit the accuracy of the enumeration, we should place the prince who succeeds these shadows in the second century of the Christian era: at the same time, as the data are altogether insufficient, it is obvious, that