Page:Tamil studies.djvu/420

Rh Tamil literature and in the Madura stalapurana. The copper plates refer also to the founding of a college of poets at Madura and the translating of the Mahabharata. The first has been considered in our essay on the Tamil academies. As regards the Mahabharata which in the opinion of Prof. Macdonell attained its complete form in Sanskrit about A. D. 350, there appears to have been more than one Tamil translation. All the Tamil versions must have therefore been made subsequent to A. N. 400. The first of these versions is probably the one referred to in the grants. The translator's name is at present unknown and the very existence of the work is doubtful. Whether it was identical with the Bharata. Venba of Perundevanar (A.D. 750) or altogether different cannot be ascertained owing to the paucity of information. Provisionally, however, it may be assumed that the Bharata. Venba of Perundevanar was a second translation. The third was by the Saivite Aranilai Visakan Trailokyamallan Vatsarajan of Arumbakkam in the reign of Kulottunga Chola III (1178-1215). This translation of the epic, though it does not survive to this day, might have been undertaken when Kamban was engaged in translating the Ramayana. The fourth rendering of the epic into Tamil was by Villiputtur Alvar, a Vaishnava poet of the fifteenth century. It is only a fragment or an epitome, but completed by Nalla Pillai in A.D. 1732-1744.

So far the history of the early Pandyas from Tamil literature and inscriptions. From both the sources the