Tamil words in English

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

In a message dated 98-02-18 22:37:09 EST, mahadevasiva at HOTMAIL.COM writes:

<< the same also holds true of the king iruGkovEl who claims
 descent from the yAdavas of dvAraka >>

A minor correction. iruGkOvEL does not make the claim himself. It is the poet
who praises him as belonging to the glorious lineage. Here is something I had
earlier posted on this chieftain. "PuRam 201 describes the poet kapilar
calling himself an 'antaNan2' (usually interpreted as brahmin)  taking the
daughters of pAri after pAri's death to the chieftain iruGkOvEL of erumaiyUr
or present Mysore region. Kapilar praises him as belonging to the 49th
generation descendant of a king who was born in the sacrificial pit of a
northern muni and ruled in Tuvarai (dvArakA)
with a fort made with copper. The western portion of peninsular India
especially Karnataka and Maharashtra was called "vEL pulam" in Tamil (or the
land of the vELs)."

Another name of the chieftain iruGkOvEL which occurs in the poem is
pulikaTimAal which can be translated as "kRSNa who defeated the tiger".
("mAal" = kRSNa). This story/name must have been popular in the region for a
very long time because the origin myth of Hoysala kings who built a capital at
dvArasamudra also had a king who defeated a tiger. The Hoysala origin myth is
apparently given in an inscription of narasimha hoysaLa deva at bElavAdi in
bElUr district as quoted by auvai cu. turaicAmi from Epigraphica Carnatica
Vol.I, BI: 171. Note the similarity between Ta. vEL and Ka. bEl- (in the names
of the two localities) and also the similarity between the names tuvarai,
dvArasamudra and dvArakA.

Regards
S. Palaniappan