And, Strange To Say, More Than A Century
Before, During The Continental Wars Of Parakrama Bahu I., The Most Martial
Of Singhalese kings (A.D. 1153-1186), we find another Kulasaikera (=
Kalesa of Wassaf), King of Madura, with another Vira
Pandi for son,
and another Sundara Pandi Raja, figuring in the history of the
Pandionis Regio. But let no one rashly imagine that there is a confusion
in the chronology here. The Hindu Chronology of the continental states is
dark and confused enough, but not that of Ceylon, which in this, as in
sundry other respects, comes under Indo-Chinese rather than Indian
analogies. (See Turnour's Ceylonese Epitome, pp. 41-43; and J.A.S.B.
XLI. Pt. I. p. 197 seqq.)
In a note with which Dr. Caldwell favoured me some time before the first
publication of this work, he considers that the Sundar Bandi of Polo and
the Persian Historians is undoubtedly to be identified with that Sundara
Pandi Devar, who is in the Tamul Catalogues the last king of the ancient
Pandya line, and who was (says Dr. Caldwell,) "succeeded by Mahomedans, by
a new line of Pandyas, by the Nayak Kings, by the Nabobs of Arcot, and
finally by the English. He became for a time a Jaina, but was reconverted
to the worship of Siva, when his name was changed from Kun or Kubja,
'Crook-backed,' to Sundara, 'Beautiful,' in accordance with a change
which then took place, the Saivas say, in his personal appearance.
Probably his name, from the beginning, was Sundara.... In the inscriptions
belonging to the period of his reign he is invariably represented, not as
a joint king or viceroy, but as an absolute monarch ruling over an
extensive tract of country, including the Chola country or Tanjore, and
Conjeveram, and as the only possessor for the time being of the title
Pandi Devar.
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