[449] For a list of kings of Madura, of the Pandyan and Naik dynasties, see a paper in the Asiatic Society's Journals, by H. H. Wilson; from MS. collections of the late Colonel Mackenzie.
[450] Tanjore was seized by the Mahrattas in 1675. The last Naik sovereign of Madura was installed as a tributary of the Nawab of the Carnatic.
[451] Namely the Michelia Champacca, a golden-coloured flower with a strong aromatic smell, also dedicated to Krishna; the mango-flower-called amra; the Pavonia odorata with a sweet flower, called bulla; the Strychnos potatorum; and the Mesua ferea, a guttiferous plant, with a flower white outside, and yellow inside the tube, with a smell like sweet-briar.
[452] While on the subject of sacred Hindu plants, I may also mention the soma juice, so often alluded to in the Vedas, which comes from a leafless asclepiad (Sarcostemma viminale) with white flowers in terminal umbels, which appear during the rains, in the Deccan: the holy kusa-grass (Poa cynosuroides), made into ropes in the N.W. provinces: the peepul-tree, the banyan, the neem (Melia Azadyraclita): the Cratæva religiosa, specially sacred to Siva: the Nerium odorum, sacred to Vishnu and Siva: the Cæsalpinia pulcherrima, sacred to Siva: the Guettarda speciosa, sacred to Siva and Vishnu: the Origanum marjoranum, a labiate plant sacred to Vishnu and Siva: the Caryophyllum inophyllum, sacred to Vishnu and Siva: the Pandanus odoratissimus, sacred to Vishnu and Mariama, but offensive to Siva: the Artemisia astriaka, sacred to Vishnu and Siva: the Ocimum sanctum or toolsu, a labiate plant with a white flower, specially sacred to Vishnu and Krishna: and the Chrisanthemum Indicum, a yellow flower, sacred to Vishnu and Siva.
[453] Mr. Caldwell considers that these lines do not allude to any of the avaturs of the Hindu Deities, but that they are borrowed, in some unexplained way, from Christianity.
[454] In Fergusson's Architecture, i. p. 105, the hall is represented with an arched roof, in a sketch from Daniell's Views of Hindostan.
[455] There was a Portuguese Jesuit mission, with two Christian churches, established at Madura during the reign of Tirumalla Naik. It was founded by Robert de Nobilibus, a nephew of Cardinal Bellarmin, and the missionaries wore the sacred thread, declaring themselves to be Brahmins from the West.
[456] The Brahmins of course are of mixed blood, through intercourse with Tamil women. Children are therefore Sudras, and are not Brahmins until they are invested with the sacred thread.
[457] From Parei, a drum, as they act as drummers at funerals.
[458] Caldwell's Comparative Dravidian Grammar, Appendix, p. 491.