The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c10.40

c10.40

This was the ruin of Rājasimha and the empire that had been reared by generations of his ancestors. Madura was lost and Rājasimha had to flee to Ceylon. There he made pitiful efforts to regain his fortune and, if we may follow the *Mahāvamśa* account, which is confirmed by the later Chola inscriptions of Rājendra I, Rājasimha after some fruitless waiting despaired of gaining anything by his stay in Ceylon, left behind his crown and other regalia (*thāpetvā makuṭādīni*) and betook himself to the Kērala country, the home of his mother Vānavanmahādēvi (*gato Kēraḷasantikam*). Such was the end of the First Empire of the Pāndyas, whose political fortunes we have traced through these two chapters. These last scenes may be placed about A.D. 920.