South India and her Muhammadan Invaders c9.s2.1

c9.s2.1

During much of this period, as has already been more or less clearly indicated in the course of the above history of the Pāṇḍyas, the Chola empire had reached a high degree of disintegration. The principal cause of this was the weakness and ineptitude of the Chola emperor Rājarāja III, 1316-1346, and at the end of his reign the civil war between himself and another prince, probably a brother, Rājendra III. The Hoysala intervened to preserve for Rājarāja the Chola Empire, but succeeded only in securing to him the southern most part of the empire—the Chola country proper. This intervention from the north-west naturally provoked less friendly intervention from rising powers from the north, and did not effectually prevent aggression from the south. The history of the rising power of the Pāṇḍyas, as already indicated above, exhibits the results of Pāṇḍya intervention from the south.