For our present purposes it is hardly worth while to attempt to investigate the succession of the dates of the seventy-three kings who are said to have succeeded one another before the accession of the Nayak or Naik dynasty, in 1532, inasmuch as no building is now known to exist in the kingdom that can claim, even on the most shadowy grounds, to have been erected by any of these kings. It may have been that, anterior to the rise of the great Chola dynasty, in the 10th and 11th century, that of Mádura may have had a long period of prosperity and power; but certain it is, that if they did build anything of importance, its existence cannot now be identified. After that, for a while they seem to have been subjected to the Bellala dynasty of the Mysore, and the same Mahomedan invasion that destroyed that power in 1310 spread its baneful influence as far as Ramnad, and for two centuries their raids and oppressions kept the whole of southern India in a state of anarchy and confusion. Their power for evil was first checked by the rise of the great Hindu state of Vijayanagar, in the Tongabhadra, in the 14th century, and by the establishment, under its protection, of the Nayak dynasty by Viswanath Nayak, in the beginning of the 16th. After lasting 210 years, the last sovereign of the race--a queen--was first aided, and then betrayed, by Chanda Sahib the Nawaub of the Carnatic, who plays so important a part in our wars with the French in these parts. It may be--indeed, probably is the case--that there are temples in the provinces that were erected before the rise of the Nayak dynasty, but certain it is that all those in the capital, with the great temple at Seringham, described above, were erected during the two centuries of their supremacy, and of those in the capital nine-tenths at least were erected during the long and prosperous reign of the tenth king of this dynasty, Tirumulla Nayak, or as he is more popularly known, Trimul Naik, who reigned from 1621 to 1657.[388] Of his buildings, the most important, for our purposes[389] at least, is [Illustration: 202. Plan of Tirumulla Nayak’s Choultrie. (From a Drawing in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society.) Scale 100 ft. to 1 in.] [Illustration: 203. Pillar in Tirumulla Nayak’s Choultrie. (From a Drawing in the possession of the Royal Asiatic Society.)]