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NAYAKKAN
DYNASTY, 1559-1736
In
1559 was founded the famous Nayakkan dynasty of Madura, which
held the Country for nearly two centuries until the Musalmans
took it in 1736. The origin and early doings of this line
are recounted neither in inscriptions nor in really reliable
histories, and for light upon both we are driven to depend
mainly upon the vernacular manuscripts in the three volumes
of the Rev.W. Taylor’s catalogue Raisonne of Oriental
MSS. (Madras,1857), in the same author’s Oriental Historical
MSS. (Madras,1835) and in the collections of manuscripts by
Colonel Mackenzie which are now in the Connemara Library.
These (in the judgement of so eminent an authority as Bishop
Caldwell) are of very doubtful veracity, but happily they
are frequently illumined by the letters and periodical reports
of the priests of the well-known Jesuit Mission at Madura,
which (though unfortunately incomplete) have been collected
and published in four volumes under the title of La Mission
du Madurai. Mr.Nelson has collated all these authorities with
much care in his book, and the ensuing narrative follows closely
(though, owing to he exigencies of space, very briefly) his
account of this period.
Its
Origin
It seems, then that at about the
close of Vitthala Raja’s administration the then Chola
ruler invaded the Madura country and dispossessed the pandya
king. Whereupon the latter appealed to the court of Vijayanagar
and an expendition under a certain Nagama Nayakkan was accordingly
sent to his aid. Nagama easily suppressed the Chola king and
possessed himself of Madura, but he then suddenly threw off
his allegiance and, declining to help the pandya, assumed
the position of an independent ruler. The Vijayanagar emperor
was furious at his defection, summoned a council, laid the
matter before his most faithful officers, and cried out to
the assemblage ‘ Where amongest you all is he who will
bring me that rebel’s head?’ To the astonishment
of every one present, Nagama’s own son, Visvanatha ,
volunteered to do so, and after some natural hesitation the
king despatched him with a large force against the rabel.
Visvanatha defeated his father in a pitched battle, placed
him in confinement, and at length procured for him the unconditional
pardon which had doubtless been from the first the object
of his action.
He so far obeyed the orders of the
Vijayanagar king as nominally to place the pandya on the throne,
but second policy and his own interests alike deterred him
from handing over the entire government of the country to
the old feeble dynasty, and he set out to rule on his own
account. This was in 1559. Doubtless he held a wide commission
as governor from the Vijayanagar court, and perhaps there
was little difference between the powers he exercised and
those wielded, for example, by Vitthala Raja. But the peculiar
characteristic of the new regime was that, whether by accident
or design, it developed first into a governorship which became
hereditary and then into what was practically and hereditary
monarchy. The Nayakkans never, it is ture, assumed the insignia
or titles or royalty, and were content with the position of
lieutenants under Vijayanagar even after they had ceased to
pay tribute to that power; but in essentials their away was
practically absolute and the pandyas disappear in effect henceforth
from history.
Visvanatha Nayakkan 1559-63
Visvanatha,
then,became the first of the Nayakkan dynasty. Visvanatha
is said to have immediately set himself to strengthen his
capital and improve the administration of his dominions. He
domolished the pandya rempart and ditch which at that time
surrounded marely the walls of the great temple, and erected
in their place an extensive double-walled fortress defended
by 72 bastions; and he led channels from upper waters of the
vaigai—perhaps the Peranai and Chittanai dams owe their
origin to him—to water the country, founding villages
in the tracts commended by them.
In his administrative
improvements he was ably seconded by his prime minister Ayya
Nayakka Mudali (or, as he is still commonly called, Arya Natha),
a man born of peasant Vellala parents who had won his way
by sheer ability to high position in the Vijayanagar court.
This officer is supposed to have been the founder of ‘
the poligar system,’ under which the Madura country was
apportioned among 72 chieftains—some of them local man
and other Telugu leaders of detachments which had accompanied
Vishvanatha from Vijayanagar— who were each placed incharge
of one of the 72 bastions of the Madura fortifications, were
responsible for the immediate control of their estates, paid
a fixed tribute to the Nayakkans, and kept up a certain quota
of troops ready for immediate service. Unless their family
traditions are uniformly false, these men did much for the
country in those days, founding villages, building dams, constructing
tanks and erecting temples. Many of them bore the title of
Nayakkan, and hence the commonness of nayakkanur as a termination
to the names of places in this district. They also brought
with them the gods of the Deccan, and thus we find in Madura
many shrines to Ahobilam and other deities who are rarely
worshipped in the Tamil country. Their successors, the present
zamindars of the district, still look upon Arya natha as a
sort of patron saint.
This man is also credited
with having constructed the great thousand-pillared mantapam
in the Madura temple, and he is still kept in mind by the
equestrian statue to him which flanks one side of the entrance
of this, and is even now periodically crowned with garlands
by the hero-worshippers of to-day. He lived till 1600 and
had great influence upon the fate of the Nayakkan dynasty
until his death.
Visvanatha also added
the fort of Trichinopoly to his possessions. The Vijayanagar
viceroy who governed the Tanjore country had failed to properly
police the pilgrim roads which ran through Trichinopoly to
the shrines at Srirangam and Ramesvaram, and devotees were
afraid to visit those holy places. Visvanatha accordingly
arranged to exchange that town for the fort of Vallam (in
Tanjore), which was his at that time. He is said to have then
vastly improved the tortifications and town of Trichinopoly
and the temple of Srirangam, and to have cleared the banks
of the Gauvery of robbers.
He
had some difficulty with ‘the five pandyas’ who
resisted the introduction of his authority into Tinnevelly,
but he vanquished them at length (in circumstances set out
with much poetic detail in the manuscripts) and then greatly
improved the town and district of Tinnevelly. He is also credited
with an expedition to subdue a local chieftain at Kambam (in
the periyakulam taluk) near the Travancore border. Visvanatha
died full of years and honour in 1563. His name is still affectionately
remembered as that of a great benefactor of his country.
His immediate successors,
He was succeeded
by his son Kumara Krishnappa (1563-73), Who is represented
as a brave and politic ruler. A revolt occured among the poligars
during his reign,but its leader, Tumbichi Nayakkan, was captured
while holding the fort of paramagudi in the Ramnad zamindari,
and was beheaded; and the troubld was quenched. Krishnappa
is also declared to have conquered Ceylon-and exploit of which
heroic details are given in the manuscripts, but of which,
in view of the silence of the usually candid annals of that
island, the very existence may well be doubted.
He was succeeded in 1573
by his two sons, who ruled jointly and uneventfully till 1595;
and they by their two sons, one of whom ruled till 1602.
These were followed by
Muttu Krishnappa (1602-09). He is credited with the foundation
of the dynasty of the Setupatis of Ramnad, the ancestors of
the present Raja of that place, who were given a considerable
slice of territory in the Marava country on condition that
they suppressed crime and protected pilgrims journeying to
Ramesvaram through that wild and inhospitable region. Mr.Nelson’s
book (pt.3,109-14 and elsewhere) deals at length with this
transaction and other events in the history of the Setupatis,
but these relate to the Ramnad zamindari and the present volume
is not concerned with them.
Muttu
Krishnappa was succeeded by Muttu Virappa (1609-23), a hardly
more distinct figure.
Fall
of Vijayanagar Kingdom,1565
Meanwhile,
in 1565,the power of the rulers of vijayanagar, the suzerains
of the Nayakkans, had been dealt an irreparable blow by the
combincd Musalman kings of the Deccan at the memorble battle
of Talikota, one of the great landmarks in the history of
south India. They were forced to abandon a large part of the
districts of Bellary and Anantapur to the victorious Muhammadans,
to flee hastily from Vijayanagar, and to establish their capital
successively at ponukonda in Anantapur and at Chandragiri
and Vellore in North Arcot. Their governors at Madura and
Tanjore still paid them usual tribute and marks of respect,
but in the years which now follow traces begin to appear of
the weakness of the suzerain, and of contempt and finally
rebellion on the part of his feudatories.
Tirumala
Nayakkan, 1623-59
Muttu Virappa
mentioned above was succeeded by the great Tirumala Nayakkan,
the most powerful and the best known of his dynasty, who ruled
for thirty-six eventful years. He was called upon to play
his part in much more stirring times than his predecessors.
The peace imposed upon the south by the sway of Vijayanagar
had been dissolved by the downfall of that power, and the
pandya country was torn by the mutual quarrels of the once
feudatory governors (‘Nayakkans’) of Madura, Tanjore,
Gingee and Mysore;by the unavailing attempts of the last rulers
of the dying empire to reassert their failing authority; and
finally by the incursions of the Muhammadan kings of the Deccan,
who now began to press southwards to reap the real fruits
of their victory at Talikota. An added trouble lay in the
insubordination of the Setupatis of Ramnad, who took advantage
of the embarrassments of the rulers of Madura to disobey their
commands and finally to assume independence. The last-named
danger was not experienced by Tirumaia himself, but was reserved
to perplex his successors.
He
defies Vijayanagar
Almost the first act of his reign
was to withhold the tribute due to the king of Vijayanagar.
The letters of the Jesuit priests already mentioned showed
that he anticipated trouble in consequence, and accordingly
massed large bodies of troops in Trichinopoly and strengthened
its fortifications. He none the less still sent annual complimentary
messages and presents to his suzerain, and this sufficed for
some time to appease the resentment of the incapable representatives
of that ancient line. But about 1638 king Ranga, a more resolute
prince, succeeded to the throne of Chandragiri; and he soon
resolved to put an end to the contumacy of Tirumala and prepared
to march south with a large and formidable force. Tirumala
had meanwhile persuaded the Vijayanagar governors of Tanjore
and Gingee (in south Arcot) to join him in his defiance of
their mutual suzerain, and thus Ranga was left with only Mysore,
of all his tributaries, to support him. He however continued
his preparations, with the result that the governor of Tanjore
eventually grew alarmed, sent in his submission, and betrayed
the designs of the confederates.
Calls
the Muhammadans to his aid
Ranga advanced upon Gingee, but his
plans were firustrated by a desperate move on the part of
Tirumala, who, reckless of the claims of a larger relief of
Gingee, but hardly had they arrived there when the Bijapaur
troops went over to the enemy, and joined in the Siege of
the fort they had been sent to deliver. The Golconda king,
however, was soon recalled by trouble in other parts of his
new conquests, and Tirumala threw himself into the Gingee
fortress. Owing to dissensions between his troops and those
of the former garrison, however the gates were opened not
long afterwards to the troops of Bijapur and the town fell
into the possession of the Musalmans.
and becomes
their feudatory
Tirumala retreated in dismay of Madura,
and the Muhammadans advanced triumphantly southwards, exacted
submission from the governor of Tanjore, and proceeded to
lay waste the Madura country. Tirumala then submitted, apparently
with out striking a blow, paid a large sum to the invaders,
and agreed to send an annual tribute to the Sultan of Bijapur.
Thus, after an interval of nearly 300 years, the Muhammadans
were once again recognised as supreme in the district.
His
wars with Mysore
Tirumala’s next conflict was
with Mysore. In the early years of his regin, before his troubles
with the king of Vijayanagar and the Muhammadans, he had been
involved in a short war with that kingdom. His territories
had been invaded by the Mysore troops and Dindigul had been
besieged, but the enemy had been eventually driven out and
their country successfully invaded in revenge by a general
of Tirumala’s. Since then, as already noted, the Vijayanagar
ruler had taken refuge with the king of Mysore, and now these
two monarchs combined to endeavour to recover those portions
of the former’s territories which had recently been captured
by Golconda. They were at first successful;but, whether actuated
by jealousy or fear, Tirumala intervenced and invited the
Muhammadans to attack Mysore from the south, throwing open
the passes in his own country for the purpose.
His proposal was accepted,
Mysore was invaded, and a general was ensured which resulted
in the final extinction of the power of Vijayanagar and the
humbling of Mysore. But when returning in triumph from that
country,the victorious Muhammadans came down to Madura and
levied and enormous tribute from their humble friend Tirumala;
and moving on to Tanjore, treated its Nayakkan in a like manner.
So Tirumals profited little from this new treachery to the
cause of Hinduism.
It is not clear exactly
when these events happened, but they appear to constitute
the last interference of the Muhammadans in Madura affairs.
Tirumala’s only other external war occurred towards the
close of his reign and was with Mysore. In this he is represented
to have been altogether successful.
The campaign began with
an invasion of Coimbatore by the Mysore king-apparently in
revenge for Tirumala’s contribution to his recent humiliation
at the hands of the Muhammadans. That district was occupied
by the enemy with ease, and then Madura itself was threatened.
The Mysore troops were howeverbeaten off from the town (Chiefly
by the loyal assistance of the Setupati of Ramnad) defeated
again in the open, and driven in disorder up the ghats into
Mysore. The campaign was known as the ‘hunt for noses’
owing to the fact that under the orders of the Mysore king
the invaders cut off the noses of all their prisoners (men,women
and children) and sent them in sacks to Seringapatam as glorious
trophies.
A counter invasion of
Mysore was undertaken shortly afterwards under the command
of Kumara Muttu, the younger brother of Tirumala, and was
crowned with complete success. The king of Mysore was captured
and his nose was cut off and sent to Madura.
His
death
Tirumala died before his victorious
brother’s return. He was between sixty-five and seventy
years of age at the time and had reigned for thirty-six eventful
years.
His territories at his
death comprised the present districts of Madura (including
the zamindaris of Ramnad and Sivaganga), Tinnevelly, Coimbatore,
Salem and Trichinopoly, with pudukkotai and part of Travancore.
Native tradition is persistent in declaring that he met his
death by violence. Several stories are current, but two of
them are more widely repeated than the others. The first of
these says that he so nearly became converted to Christianity
that he stopped his expenditure on the temples of the Hindu
gods. This roused the Brahmans, and some of them, headed by
a bhattan (officiating priest of the great temple), enticed
him to the temple under the pretence that they had found a
great hidden treasure in a vault there, induced him to enter
the vault and then shut down its stone trap-door upon him,
and gave out that the goddess Minakshi had translated her
favourite to heaven. The second story avers that he had an
intrigue with the wife of a Bhattan and that as he was returning
from visiting her one dark night he fell into a well and was
killed. The Bhattan was so scared when he found what had happened
that he at once filled in the well, but afterwards told the
Brahmans what he had done.
Tirumala’s character
is summed up, probably with justice, in a letter written by
one of the Jesuit priests just after his death and dated Trichinopoly,1659—
It is impossible to refuse him credit for great qualities,
but he tarnished his glory at the end of his life by follies
and vices which nothing could justify. He was called to render
account to God for the evils which his political treachery
had brought upon his own people and the neighbouring kingdoms.
His reign was rendered illustrious by works of really royal
magnificence. Among these are the pagoda of Madura, several
public buildings, and above all the royal palace the colossal
proportions and astonishing boldness of which recall the ancient
monuments of Thebes. He loved and protected the Christian
religion, the excellence of which he recongnised; but he never
had the courage to accept the consequences of his conviction.
The chief obstacle to his conversion came from his zoo wives,
of whom the most distinguished were burnt on his pyre.
Rebellions
among his vassals
During his regin, two rebellions,
occurred among his vassals. The first was raised by the Setupati
of Ramnad. It was due to an unjust order of Tirumala’s
regarding the succession to the chiefship of that country
in 1635, which was resisted bythe rightful claimant and by
the Maravans themselves. Tirumala was successful in placing
his nominee on the throne and in imprisoning the rival aspirant,
but he was ultimately compelled to allow the latter to succed.
He was rewarded by the loyalty of Ramnad in his last war with
Mysore.
The other rebellion was
raised by a confederacy of poligars headed by the powerful
chief of Ettaiyapuram in the Tinnevelly district. Its cause
is not clear. The Setupati of Ramnad, as chief of all the
poligars, was entrusted with the duty of quelling it, and
performed this undertaking satisfactorily. The leader was
put to death and the others suitably punished; and peace was
restored in a few months.
A
curious rumour
The letters of the Jesuits relate
a curious event which took place in the Madura country about
1653. The whole territory was thrown into a state of great
nervous excitement by the spreading in every direction of
one of those mysterious and extraordinary numours which spring
up now and again in India, no one knows where or how. An infant
emperor of divine birth, it was declared, would shortly appear
from the north and usher in a millennium of peace and plenty.
The story obtained universal credence, and large sums of money
were collected for the use of the deliverer when he should
arrive. But he never did arrive. A woman and child were brought
to Bangalore by the perpetrators of the rumour, and vast multitudes
flocked thither to pay their respects and offer presents to
the supposed emperor; but after squeezing all that was possible
out of the pretenders, the Musalman rulers of that town cut
off their heads and ordered their followers to disperse immediately.
Tirumala’s Capital
Tirumala’s capital was Madura.
The royal residence had been removed thence to Trichinopoly
by his predecessor, but Tirumala moved it back again, notwithstanding
the fact that Trichinoploy, with its almost impregnable rock,
its never failing Cauvery river and its healthy climate, was
by nature far superior to Madura, where the fort was on level
ground, the Vaigai was usually dry and fever was almost endemic.
The reason given in the old manuscripts for the change is
that Tirumala was afficted with a grievous long-standing catarrh
which none of the vaishnavite gods of Trichinoploy could (or
would) cure. One day when he was halting at Dindigul on his
way to Madura, Sundareswara and Minakshi, the Saivite deities
of the latter place, appeared to him in a dream and promised
him that if he would reside permanently in their town they
would cure him. He vowed that he would do so and would spend
five lakhs of pons on sacred works. Immediately afterwards,
as he was cleaning his teeth in the early morning, the disease
left him; and thenceforth he devoted himself to the cult of
Saivism and the improvement of Madura. None the less, he resided
a good deal at Trichinopoly, and successors (though they went
to Madura to be crowned) generally dwelt there permanently.
His Public buildings
It is, however, by his many splendid
public buildings in Madura that he is best remebered at the
present time. They are referred to in some detail in the account
of the place given below. The largest and most magnifient
of them was the great palace which still goes by his name.
Much of this was removed to Trichinopoly in later years by
his grandson chokkanatha, but none the less the portions of
it which survive were thoughts by Bishop Caldwell to constitute
the grandest building of its kind in Southern India.
The
beautiful Teppakulam at Madura, the pudumantapam and the unfinished
tower called the Raja gopuram belonging to the Great temple
there (and doubtless other additions to that buildings), and
(perhaps) the Tamakam, the curious buildings in which the
Collector now resides, were also due to his taste for the
magnificent.
Muttu Alakkadri, 1659-62
Tirumala was
succeeded by his son Muttu Alakadri. It is perhaps Surprising
that Tirumala’s brother — who, as has been seen,
had just returned to Madura from Mysore at the head of a victorious
army-should not have attempted to seize the crown; but he
was prevailed upon to accept the governorship of Sivakasi
in Tinnevelly district.
Almost the first act of the new king was
an attempt to shake off the hated Muhammadan yoke. He tried
to induce the Nayakkan of Tanjore to join the enterprise,
but only succeeded in involving him in the punishment which
the Musalmans meted out when his efforts ended in failure.
For though the Tanjore ruler disclaimed all connection with
his neighbour’s aspirations and attempted to conciliate
with his Musalmans, the latter none the less marched into
his country, took Tanjore and Vallam and drove the Nayakkan
to fly into the jungle. The invaders then moved against Trichinopoly
and Madura, spreading havoc far and wide, while Muthu Alakadri
remained inactive behind the walls of the former of these
forts. Fortunately for him, enemy soon had to retire, for
their cruel devastations produced a local famine and pestilence
from which they themselves suffered terribly. They accordingly
made ahalf-hearted attempt on Trichinopoly and then permitted
themselves to be bought off for a very moderate sum. Muttu
Alakadri did not long survice their departure, but gave himself
to debauchery with an abandon which soon brought him to a
dishonoured grave.
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