uraga and AlavAy

[Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan]

Thanks to questions raised by Michael Rabe earlier, I had sought more
information on Raghuvamsa's discussion of Pandyas. L. Srinivas was kind
enough to provide the details. What I heard convinced me that Kalidasa
definitely must have known the precursors of some of the Madurai stories
which appear later in tiruviLaiyATalpurANam. (It is possible Kalidasa
received the information from a Tamil zaiva Sanskritist pilgrim or emigre
from Madurai.) When considered along with the information in paripATAl,
cilappatikAram, etc., Raghuvamsa provides interesting possibilities for
dating these texts as well as the history of some religious developments in
Tamilnadu.

Raghuvamsa talks about a Pandya getting a special weapon from ziva.
cilappatikAram mentions Pandya's victory over Indra without mentioning ziva.
Even the patikam (considered by many to be a later interpolation) which
mentions ziva and silver hall does not talk about mIn2AkSi as the incarnation
of pArvatI. The guardian deity of Madurai in cilappatikAram, maturApati, is
depicted with the left half of the body with DevI's attributes - dark
complexion, lotus in hand, and female anket while the right half seems to
have ziva's attributes - golden complexion, axe in hand, and male anklet. But
there is no explicit indication that the right half was male. maturApati is
described as the patron deity of the Pandyan dynasty from its beginning.
There is nothing to indicate that she is linked with any mountain or she has
a temple in town or she is an incarnation of pArvatI.

Regards
S. Palaniappan