________________
xiii enged by a mason to construot a well. Our author accepted the oballenge and constructed a well which is to be seen even now at Tiruvahindrapuram. He paid a visit to Tirukkoilur and then returned to Kanchi and spent some years there. Then he started on a tour of pilgrimage to the North. He visited Tirupati and composed his famous Dayasataka. He then went to Benares and other Holy places and returned to Kanchi. On an invitation from the learned men of Srirangam to help them in a controversy with an Advaiti, he proceeded to Srirangam and since he liked the place be resolved to spend the rest of his life there. In the 13th century, Srirangam was subject either to Hoysalas or to the Pandyans. Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan I (1251-1261) covered the canopy of the shrine with gold. In the beginning of the 14th century, Ala-ud-din, Emperor of Delhi, sent his general Malik Kafur to invade the South. In 1310, Madura was sacked. On their way to Madura, the invaders entered Srirangam, and ruthlessly massacred every one that they came across. Sudarsana Bhatta, the famous author of the Srutaprakasika, was one of the poor victms. Before he was killed, he entrusted his works written in cadjan and his two sons to the care of our author with the request that they must somehow be saved. Desika concealed himself and the two children among the corpses of the numerous men killed. After the enemy retired, be went with the children to Satyakalam in the Mysore state. He lived there for some years and per
