Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎492r] (108/238)

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THE AGE OF MANIKKA VA^AGAR.
By L. C. Innes.
The determination by the late Professor Sundaram Pillai
of the age of the great Saiva saint and sage Jndna Sam-
bandhar was a long step towards the elucidation of South
Indian history, literary and religious. Very considerable
divergence of opinion still exists as to the age of Manikka
Vd^agar, another great Saiva saint, some holding that his
period was that of the ninth or tenth century of the
Christian Era, and others that he flourished in the first or
second century. The subject has been very diligently
discussed in a little book by Mr. Tirumalai Kolundu
Pillai, b.a., entitled “ The Age of Mdnikka V^agar.” He
arrives at the conclusion entertained by those who would
throw back the date to the first or second century a.d. I
propose to show that this conclusion involves great diffi
culties, and that this Saiva saint and sage in all probability
lived towards the end of the ninth, but not later than the
first half of the tenth, century.
Dr. Pope himself has hesitated as to the period of
Manikka V^agar. In p. xvii of the introduction to his
learned edition of the Tiruv^agam he has given it as the
seventh or eighth century of our era. In a note to p. xviii
the period given is stated to be probably 200 years before
1030 a.d., the time of Sundara Panddram — i.e., 830 a.d.—
and on p. Ixxv as the tenth century or earlier— i.e., in or
prior to the period 901 to 1000 a.d. The close also of Mr.
Sundaram’s “ Some Milestones in the History of Tamil
Literature ” leaves the question in very great doubt,* while
the essay of Mr. Seshagiri Sdstriydr, Professor of Sanscrit
at the Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. College, Madras, on Tamil literature, has
thrown doubt on the period of the last Madura Tamil
Academy, on which, be it observed, the period to be
* See Mr. Tirumalai Kolundu’s book, p. i, Introduction.
THIRD SERIES. VOL. XIII. X