Madura

Madura, a maritime district of India, in the south of the Presidency of Madras, is bounded on the E. by the Gulf of Manaar, which separates Hindustan from Ceylon; it has an area of 8808 sq. m., and a pop. of 2,608,404. Chief town, Madura, third largest in the presidency; pop. (1881) 73,807; (1891) 87,428. For nearly 2300 years Madura was the political and religious capital of the southernmost part of India. Its Pandyan kings are mentioned by the ancient Greek geographers. In the 17th century the Nayak rulers, chiefly Tirumala (1623–59), built here a magnificent pagoda to Sundareswara (Siva), with a hall having one thousand (997) pillars, a fine palace, now ruined, a summer palace for the god, and a great tank. The Jesuits have been active in Madura since the time of Tirumala; there were 67,554 Roman Catholics in the district in 1881.