This book is about “Pāṇdyaness”, that is, what makes the Pāṇḍya kings of South India singular in their auto-perception and self-presentation over a period nearing two millennia from the first centuries of the common era to the mid-eighteenth century.
The subject is certainly interesting. The successive royal lineages that present themselves as Pāṇḍyas share peculiar features, such as breaking the crown of Indra, the king of gods. A study such as this, that covers a long period, is certainly a desideratum given the wealth of material and the relative paucity of scholarly attention that the Pāṇḍyas have recently received – with the exceptions of the contributions of Leslie Orr and Valérie Gillet.
This question is addressed by examining, in chronological order, primary sources that pertain to Pāṇḍya kings, from Caṅkam poems to inscriptions on copper plates and stone, to the Pāṇḍyakulodaya by Maṇḍalakavi, a literary text known from a single manuscript. In fact, approximately one-third of the book (Chapter 4) deals with this long poem.
The book ends abruptly, without a conclusion or recapitulative views on the issues at stake. The final chapter is followed by appendices, notably genealogical tables and a list of “the most recurrent Pāṇḍya narratives”. It would be more accurate to speak of “mythemes” rather than “narratives” since we are mostly dealing with very short descriptions of feats such as engraving the royal emblem on the top of a mountain peak.
Overall, this book is a little disappointing, since, beyond the presentation and analysis of the relevant sources, it lacks global reflections and perspectives. “Pāṇdyaness” is, for instance, loosely defined in the introduction as Tamilness and Sanskritness (p. 5). There is no discussion of the relevance of the sources. Whose conception of the Pāṇḍyas does a Caṅkam poem or an epigraphical eulogy reflect? That of the poet, of the patron, or of the commissioner of the inscription? The continuity between the various lineages named Pāṇḍyas is taken for granted, even though there are breaks, known to the author. Does a Tenkasi Pāṇḍya (fifteenth–sixteenth century) appropriating the name and feats of the early Pāṇḍyas look at his own past or at the past of a glorious dynasty of the past, that he claims as his own past in order to appear as the heir to that glorious dynasty?
The book is mostly a collection of data, pointing to interesting facts but rarely going beyond observation. For instance, the author notes that the Pāṇḍya emblem is either a single fish or two fishes, but offers no explanation for this variation, and does not explain whether it is significant.
There is a lack of comparative data in general, as attested by a surprisingly short bibliography of secondary sources. This sometimes leads the author to over-interpret as peculiar features of the Pāṇḍyas what in fact belongs to the conventional description of kings. With the three mythemes that concern Indra (breaking his crown, wearing his garland/necklace, and sitting on his throne, alone or along with him) we have the Pāṇḍya version of a conventional royal trait: being or supplanting Indra, who is devendra, “the king of gods”, whereas the king is narendra, “the king of men”.
As for the garland of Indra and its connection to the Pāṇḍyas, this is mentioned in Cōḻa sources. For instance, Rājendra I Cōḻa (first half of the eleventh century) is described in his meykkīrtti – his Tamil eulogy found as preamble to dozens of inscriptions – as seizing in Lanka “the crown of Sundara and the garland of Indra, that the Pāṇḍya had kept with him [the king of Lanka]” (muṉṉavar pakkal teṉṉavar vaitta cuntara muṭiyum intiraṉ āramum; see Pu. Cuppiramaṇiyam, Meykkīrttikaḷ, Ceṉṉai: Ulakat Tamilārāycci Niruvaṉam, 1983, pp. 27, 32). The same information is found in stanza 58 of the Karantai copper plates (see K.G. Krishnan, Karandai Tamil Sangam Plates of Rajendrachola I, New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1984, pp. 74 and 199).
As for the Pāṇḍyakulodaya by Maṇḍalakavi, perhaps too much space is devoted to this poem which is transmitted through a single manuscript – which is possibly telling about its importance. At the very least, the relevance of this text should be addressed in more detail. Presenting this text as revolutionary, for offering full-fledged divinization of the king, seems to this reviewer to be exaggeration. Is the inverted description of the hero from head to toe, rather than from toe to head, so very contrary to the conventions of kāvya, and is it that significant? The author also fails to convince when he makes this text an epic of resistance against Vijayanagara dominance (p. 299), or when he tries to apply to his materials the concept of liminality (p. 288) or Assman’s theory of cultural memory (p. 300).
As for the original texts quoted and translated in the book, looking at the inscription nicely illustrated on the front cover of the book, one notices that it is poorly reproduced (p. 314), with many mistakes. Note also that there is no mention of the Iḷaiyāṉ Puttūr grant issued by the early Pāṇḍya king Arikēcari Parāṅkucaṉ, son of Jayantavarman, although it was published in 2007 (E. Cupparāyalu and Ve. Vētācalam, “Pāṇṭiyaṉ neṭumāraṉiṉ iḷaiyaṉputtūrc ceppēṭu”, Āvaṇam 18, 2007, pp. 1–15).
This book is thus certainly useful as an interesting collection, description, and discussion of relevant sources, but, unfortunately, it does not offer deep reflections beyond observing enduring features of the various lineages that claimed to be Pāṇḍyas.
