Madhurāvijayam of Gaṅgādevī /11

PREFACE
 
The manuscript discovered in the condition described

above was first brought to light in 1916 by Pandits

G. Harihara Sastri and V. Srinivasa Sastri of Trivan-

drum. The manuscript itself was in the possession of

Pandit N. Ramaswami Sastri and the credit of

preserving and publishing the available portion of the

manuscript must go to these three scholars. The

Trivandrum Edition of the work of which the first two

Pandits are the editors is the only available edition of

the work and contains only the text of the work.
 

 
The present edition of the Madhurāvijayam is

based on the only manuscript available. The editor has

been in search of a second and more perfect copy of the

manuscript these fifteen years and his efforts have not

so far met with any success. Yet in publishing the

present edition of the work with the same imperfections

of the original as are found in the Trivandrum edition,

the editor has at least the satisfaction that he is giving

a translation of the whole work for the first time. The

introduction to the Trivandrum edition by the distin-

guished scholar Sri T. A. Gopinatha Rao throws

welcome light on some of the dark corners of the

history of the "forgotten empire." But many of his

conclusions are now in need of revision in the light of

the information that is now available and that was not

available when Sri Gopinatha Rao wrote the introduc-

tion. Again, Sri Gopinatha Rao has failed to avail fully

of the epigraphical evidence on the two great events

described in the Madhurāvijayam: the destruction of

the Sambuvarāya rule in Tonḍaimandalam and the
ḍalam and the
destruction of the Madhurai Sultanate. He has depend-

ed too much on literary evidence without looking for

epigraphical or other kind of corroboration. The result
 
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