Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/97

Rh besiege Vanji to conquer the Vânavan, lord of the handsome high chariot, who has set his flag of the bow on the lofty Imaya mountains which yield gold.”

“Whether thou killest or savest, thou knowest best what thou shouldst do. But it is shameful that thou should, with (thine army and) drums decked with garlands, wage war with a King who has (like a coward) shut himself up in his capital, while the sound of the felling of trees—with the long handled axe whose edge is sharpened by the blacksmith’s file, on the sandy banks of the Porunai, where young girls wearing bracelets and sounding ankle-rings used to play with Kalarchi nuts of golden colour— echoes in his place within the fortified walls.”

Killi-Valavan first married Peelivalai, the daughter of the Naga King, Valaivanan whose territory lay on the Western Coast of Ceylon. Subsequently he took for his consort Sithathakai, the daughter of a King (probably of Mahishamandalam, or the modern Mysore) who claimed, to be descended from Mababali, the mythical King to conquer whom the god Vishnu is said to have been born as a Brahmin dwarf. By Sithathakai, he had a son named Udaya-Kumara who grew up to be a handsome and promising youth but was murdered one night accidentally. The King then appears to have sent for his other son born by the Naga Princess. She sent her son in a merchant vessel which sailed from Manippallavam to Kavirippaddinam. On the way, on a dark and stormy night, the passengers landed on an island and there they left the prince in the dark, and sailed again when the weather cleared. Finding afterwards that the prince was missing, they searched throughout the island and the neighbouring coasts, but without success. The sad news of the loss of the prince reached KilliValavan just about the time that the festival of Indra was to. commence. The King neglected to perform the festival and went in search of his son. A sea wave rushed over Kavirippaddinam and destroyed the town. It was believed by the superstitious people of that age that Manimekhala or the goddess of the ocean sent the wave to punish the people for their having not performed the festival of Indra, the King of the gods. Killi-Vallavan died