ruled by a king.  This king is sometimes spoken of as one of ‘the Five Kings’ who reigned in various parts of Tinnevelly, but whether he was independent of the King of Madura, or only a viceroy, the people cannot now say....  The tradition of the people of Kayal is that ... Sur-Raja was the name of the last king of the place.  They state that this last king was a Mahommedan, ... but though Sur-Raja does not sound like the name of a Mahommedan prince, they all agree in asserting that this was his name....  Can this Sur be the person whom Marco calls Asciar?  Probably not, as Asciar seems to have been a Hindu by religion.  I have discovered what appears to be a more probable identification in the name of a prince mentioned in an inscription on the walls of a temple at Sri-Vaikuntham, a town on the Tamraparni R., about 20 miles from Kayal.  In the inscription in question a donation to the temple is recorded as having been given in the time of ’Asadia-deva called also Surya-deva’ This name ‘Asadia’ is neither Sanskrit nor Tamil; and as the hard d is often changed into r, Marco’s Ashar may have been an attempt to render this Asad.  If this Asadia or Surya-deva were really Sundara-pandi-deva’s brother, he must have ruled over a narrow range of country, probably over Kayal alone, whilst his more eminent brother was alive; for there is an inscription on the walls of a temple at Sindamangalam, a place only a few miles from Kayal, which records a donation made to the place ‘in the reign of Sundara-pandi-deva.’"[3]

NOTE 3.—­["O aljofar, e perolas, que me manda que lha enuic, nom as posso auer, que as ha em Ceylao e Caille, que sao as fontes dellas:  compralashia do meu sangue, a do meu dinheiro, que o tenho porque vos me daes.” (Letter of the Viceroy Dom Francisco to the King, Anno de 1508). (G.  Correa, Lendas da India, I. pp. 908-909.)—­Note by Yule.]

NOTE 4.—­Tembul is the Persian name for the betel-leaf or pan, from the Sanskrit Tambula.  The latter is also used in Tamul, though Vettilei is the proper Tamul word, whence Betel (Dr. Caldwell).  Marsden supposes the mention of camphor among the ingredients with which the pan is prepared to be a mistake, and suggests as a possible origin of the error that kapur in the Malay language means not only camphor but quicklime.  This is curious, but in addition to the fact that the lime is mentioned in the text, there seems ample evidence that his doubt about camphor is unfounded.

Garcia de Orta says distinctly:  “In chewing betre ... they mix areca with it and a little lime....  Some add Licio (i.e. catechu), but the rich and grandees add some Borneo camphor, and some also lign-aloes, musk, and ambergris” (31 v. and 32). Abdurrazzak also says:  “The manner of eating it is as follows:  They bruise a portion of faufel (areca), otherwise called sipari, and put it in the mouth.