South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c13.s1.25.6

c13.s1.25.6

The distance between Trichinopoly and Kaṇṇanūr is only about eight or nine miles at the best, and if anything like a large army of 1,00,000 operated on the side of the Hoysalas, as Ibn Batuta clearly states that that was the strength of the army, this distance between the two camps would be even necessary.¹ The town Trichinopoly is referred to by that name, although not yet found in inscriptional records, in the Tēvāram of Sambandar in the seventh century A.D. and is referred to as the head-quarters of a small division, Tiruchirāppaḷḷi Uśāvaḍi,² under Dēvarāya I in the fifteenth century. There is the probability that the place is referred to by this name in the fourteenth century in a Puḍukoṭṭa Inscription of the eighth year of Tribhuvanachakravartin Parākrama Pāṇḍya which contains a signature Tiruchirāppaḷḷi Uḍaiyān. Hence it is clear that the Cobban of Ibn Batuta is no other than Kaṇṇanūr, and it is in that vicinity that the last battle of Vīra Baḷḷāḷa III was fought.