The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c29.161

v3.c29.161

Kulottunga III was succeeded by his son Rājarāja III who reigned till 1246. Almost simultaneously with him came to the Pāṇḍya throne an enterprising prince Māravarman Sundara Pāṇḍya I whose period of reign extended from 1216 to 1239. Almost the first act of this Pāṇḍya’s reign seems to be the organisation of an advance upon the Chola territory with a view to taking vengeance for the disgrace to which Kulottunga had subjected his predecessors. Records of his ninth year claim for him the credit of having captured and burnt the towns of Tanjore and Uraiyūr in the course of a successful invasion of the Chola territory. This invasion must have taken place therefore before the year 1225. From the inscriptional records of Rājarāja III himself it is clear that the first few years of his reign were peaceful. The Pāṇḍya invasion therefore must have taken place somewhere about the year 1220. For the next half-century the feature of the history of the Tamil country is the effort of the Pāṇḍyas not merely to regain their independence, but to extend their authority over the Chola kingdom. This Chola-Pāṇḍya struggle provided the occasion for Hoysala intervention in the Tamil country, and resulted in bringing about the dominance of the Hoysala power in the south under their greatest ruler Vīra Sōmēsvara. He fortified a permanent capital for himself at Kaṇṇanūr-Vikramapura, five miles north of the island of Srīrangam in the Chola country, and his authority was acknowledged from Pāndharpur in the Southern Marātha country to the extreme limit of the Tinnevelli district.