South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.s1.103

c13.s1.103

34. Pon-Amarāvati.—This is the head-quarters of the division of Puḍukoṭṭa now about twenty to twenty-two miles from Puḍukoṭṭa and on a not particularly good road. It was the head-quarters of a division which was called Kaḍalaḍaiyādu-Ilankai-koṇḍa Soḷavaḷanāḍu. It was a place of great consequence during the period of Pāṇḍya revival, and is described in the Mahāvamśa as having contained a royal palace of three stories. This is the place to which the Pāṇḍyas advanced whenever they made an effort to march upon the Chola country. There are vestiges of an old high road from Tiruppattūr to Pon-Amarāvati and full reasons are given in the text (104-7) for regarding that the old high road from Madura went by the way of Pon-Amarāvati, perhaps leaving aside the present day road from Puḍukoṭṭa to Trichinopoly. According to the Mahāvamśa Pon-Amarāvati was on the northern most frontier of the Pāṇḍya country, the frontier line being marked by Pon-Amarāvati, Kiḷānilai and Maṇamēlkuḍi, a little to the south of the river southern Veḷḷār. This line marks the limit of the Ceylon invasions according to the Mahāvamśa itself.