06. SATTAN MARAN RELATED INSCRIPTIONS :

06. SATTAN MARAN RELATED INSCRIPTIONS : South Indian Inscriptions - Inscriptions collected during the year 1906 An inscription (No. 402) on a stone set up in the Satyagirinatha temple at Tirumaiyam engraved in characters of about the 9 th century A.D. belongs to a Muttraiyar chief. It registers a grant probably of some land and village Andakaudi with the Karanmai- miyatchchi for the renovation of Paudukkuppuram and for the maintenance of the central shrine and as unnaligaippuram, respectively, by perumbiduguperundevi the mother of Videlvidugu Vilupperadiaraisan alias Sattan Maran. He was member of the Mutturaiyear family, who got the title Videlvidugu after Pallava Nandivaraman, probably as a subordinate. Shri K.G. Krishnan has identified Perumbidugu Perundevi as the queen of Cattan, the earliest known member of this Muttaraiyar family and has said that these chiefs had added to their official or dynastic designations the titles like Videlvidugu and Perdumbiduga (studies in South Indian History and Epigraphy, Vol. I, pp- 133 ff). An eighth century inscription at Pallikonda Perumal shrine speaks of Perumbidugu Perundevi, mother of local chieftain Chattan Maran, renovating the temple and giving the town of Andangudi for the temple. Other renovations have not been recorded. The carving was similar to those in Mahabalipuram and inscriptions confirm that this part of the temple was built by the Pallavas and later developed by the Pandyas, Nayaks and the Nagarathar Chettiars.Rock-cut Vishnu temple (Satyamurthi Perumal temple) :This cave temple dedicated to Vishnu is a Muttaraiyar excavation as attested by an inscription recording the renovation of the temple and an endowment by Perumbidugu Perumdevi, mother of Sattan Maran also called Videlvidugu Viluperadiaraiyan , a contemporary and vassal of Pallava king Nandivarman II Pallavamalla (AD 731-796). Nevertheless, the temple is slightly older and dated to closing decades of seventh century. The temple consists of an ardha-mandapa in front of a rectangular sanctum. In the sanctum there is beautiful and vibrant depictions of Anantasayi Vishnu recumbent on the serpent Adisesha with Lakshmi seated on his breast. He is being shown surrounded by other deities like Garuda, Chitragupta, Markandeya, Brahma, the Devas, the Vasus, and the Kinnaras. There are two demons near the feet of the gods and sheltered there is Bhudevi. Tirumangai Alvar, a Vaishnava saint of 8 th cenutury AD had sung about this deity. There are number of other structures in the complex of later periods. Some of the bronzes, now preserved in the temple, dates back to 8 th-9 th century AD.