Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/62

Rh she was, the monarch stood a while entranced, and the God of Love armed with the conquering bow, swiftly shot his flowery darts deep into the king’s heart. His eyes were charmed with her beauty : with ravished ears, he heard her musical voice: the perfumes of her person confounded his senses, and he who had commanded legions, now became her devoted slave. Full one month he spent with her in that grove in rapturous enjoyment. She told not who she was, nor whence she came, but at the end of that month, she disappeared as suddenly as she had met him at first. Yearning to meet her again, he who had smote many a rival king, now went in search of her, smitten by her matchless charms. He met a saint who could penetrate the caverns of the earth, or soar into the aerial regions,, or dive into the deep ocean; and having made the usual reverence prayed to the saint to find out the hiding place of her who was dear to him as his own life. ‘I know the princess’ said the saint ‘though I have not seen her myself, I have heard of her, listen thou O! monarch. There is a king, whose lance is ever victorious in war, and who rules Naganadu. His name is Valai-vanan and his wife is Vâsa-Mailai: their beloved daughter is the beauteous princess Peeli-Valai. At her birth a seer had foretold that a prince of the solar race would espouse her. Her son will come to you, but thou shalt meet her no more.” That the Chola king Killi-Valavan married, though for a time only, the daughter of a neighbouring Naga king appears to be a historical fact. But Cheethalai-Chaththanar, the author of the poem Mani-mekalai, who was a contemporary of Killi-Valavan has, with poet’s license, given a romantic account of the marriage, probably because he considered it degrading to a Tamil king to marry a Naga princess.

There were several tribes of the Nagas, such as the Maravar, Eyinar, Oliyar, Oviyar, Aruvâlur and Parathavar. Of these, the Maravar appear to have been the most powerful and warlike tribe, and most hostile to the Tamils. “Of strong limbs and hardy frames” says a poet “and fierce looking as tigers, wearing long and curled locks of hair, the blood thirsty Maravar, armed with the bow bound with leather, ever ready to injure others, shoot their arrows at poor and helpless travellers, from whom they can rob nothing, only to feast their eyes on the quivering limbs of