Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/127

Rh were the original stock from which the Pandyan kings were descended. During the reign of the Pandyan, Nedunj-cheliyan I, Palayan-Máran was next to the king, the highest dignitary in he state. When the Chola king Killi-Valavan besieged Madura with a large army, Palayan Maran attacked him with a powerful force consisting of warriors mounted on fleet steeds and fierce elephants and utterly routed the Chola army. The Chera king Chenk-kudduvan is said to have once invaded the territory belonging to Palayan Maran in order to chastise him for an insult offered to one of the princes feudatory to the Chera.

The chiefs of Alumbil, Kuthirai-malai, Pali and Thakadoor were subordinate to the Chera king. Alumbil Vel was lord of Alumbil, a town situated most probably in Kuddanad. The Pandya Nedunj-cheliya I, who invaded the dominion of the Chera attacked and defeated Alumbil Vel and annexed all his territory to the Pandyan kingdom. After the death of that redoubtable monarch, Alumbil Vel appears to have recovered his territory and we find him to be one of the leading noblenien in the court of the Chera Chenkkudduvan. Piddan-Korran, lord of the mountain Kuthirai-malai was the commander-in-chief of the Chera army. Venman was the title of the princes of Pali, a fortified town in the gold mining district, which comprised the whole of the country now known as Coorg, North Wynaad and north-east Malabar. Two other towns in the province were Arayam and Viyalur. Nannan-Venmân, a prince of Pali acquired notoriety as a murderer, having condemned to death a girl whom her relations offered to save with a ransom of nine times her weight in gold! A prince of this line was defeated by the Chera king Kalankaik-kanni-nâr-mudichcheral in the battle of Perunthurai.

Athiyaman, chief of the tribe of Malavar, was the ruler of Thakadoor the modern Dharmapuri in the district of Salem. His ancestors introduced the cultivation of sugar-cane into Southern India. Nedumân-anchi was the head of the Athyamán