113992242-Dravidian-Settlements-in-Ceylon-and-the-Beginnings-of-the-Kingdom-of-Jaffna-By-Karthigesu-Indrapala-Complete-Phd-Thesis-University-of-London-1965

a place of that name ia mentioned in some South Indian epigraphs
It is stated in our inscription that the money for the purpose
of burning a street lamp was deposited with the cakara-piy'r,
the ri1ai-viyar and the aikkf-viyar, all of )ttam.
Cakara-ptiyr is a term that occurs in the contemporary South
Indian inscriptions as well An examination of these occurrences
shows that the cafkara-p tiy r were a group of people who had
'duties connected with the maintenance of lamps and in prticular
the supply of oil' in a temple Two records imply, moreover,
that they were a corporation of oil-niongers! It appears that
sometimes families of cakara-piyir were settled in special
quarters close to the temples in order to maintain the burning
of the temple lamps. For instance, an inacriptio4 of the second
year of Ku]Zttuiiga I (1071) from Tiruvlafigu, refers to the
settlement of twenty-five families of cañkara-piyr on land
belonging to the TiruvIlagu temple The settlement was named
103
1. LE.R. for 1912, Nos. 160 and 236 of 1912. The South Indian
village was in Poyyi-kLam, in Te-karai-nu in Camaalam.
2. M.E.R. for 1897, No.80 of 1897 ; M.E.R. for 1898, No.78 of 1898;
)LE.L for 1921/22, No. 5k7 of 1920; M.E.R. for 1925, No. 395 of
1925 ; K.LNilakanta Lastri, The pp. k89, 516.
3. K.A.Nilakanta Sastri, The Cas, p. 516, tn. 12.
4. Ibid.
5. S.I.I., III, p. 136.