The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c12: Chapter VIII. The Chola Conquest
The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c12
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Chapter VIII. The Chola Conquest
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FROM about A.D. 925 to the beginning of the thirteenth century, for some three centuries, the Pāndyan kingdom ceased to exist as an independent state and was part of the empire of the Cholas. There are only a few records that can be referred with certainty to the Pāndya rulers of this period and for the rest we have to depend on the Chola inscriptions themselves. One thing however is clear, namely, that the Pāndyas never reconciled themselves to the rule of the Cholas in their country any more than others were willing to bear the rule of the Pāndyas in the years before. The country seems to have been in a state of chronic revolt and the Chola emperors were fighting repeatedly in the Pāndya country very much as the Pāndya rulers of the first empire did in the Travancore and Kongu countries. The Chola emperors also found it necessary for a time to depute members of the royal family to act as viceroys in the Pāndya country and the records of some of these Chola-Pāndya viceroys have come down to us. But when we piece together all the fragmentary data that can be gathered from our sources, we do not get even the outline of a continuous account. We get the names of only a few of the Pāndyan kings of this period. There is no possibility of tracing the relationship of these rulers and many gaps remain to be filled by future discovery and research.
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After the conquest of Madura by Parāntaka I Chola and the flight of Rājasimha II about A.D. 920, the Pāndya country passed under Chola control and was subject to Parāntaka almost to the end of his reign. This is borne out by the inscriptions of Parāntaka found in the Pāndya country,¹ the latest of these being an inscription from Sucīndram in South Travancore dated in the fortieth year of the king corresponding to A.D. 947. In the thirty-eighth year of Parāntaka, he levied a rather heavy impost (daṇḍam) of 3,000 kalañju of gold on the members of the assembly of Kumbakonam (Tirukkuḍamūkku), and they agreed to pay the amount to the Pāṇḍippaḍai-yār, by which is perhaps meant the forces that distinguished themselves in the conquest of the Pāndya country.²
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¹ These are— No. 446 of 1917 at Kuttālam, twenty-fourth year. ” 63 of 1905 at Ānamalai, thirty-third year. ” 448 of 1917 at Kuttālam, thirty-sixth year. ” 82 of 1896 at Sucīndram, fortieth year.
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² See A.R.E., 1912, p. 56, para 15.
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But towards the close of Parāntaka’s reign, some time before A.D. 949, a disaster overtook the newly established Chola power. The Rāshṭrakūṭa king Krishna III invaded the Chola country in great force and Rājāditya, the eldst son of Parāntaka, lost his life in the battle of Takkōla. Large portions of the Chola territory were occupied by Krishna who advanced as far as Tanjore and seems to have reduced the successors of Parāntaka to an inferior position.³ We have no stone inscriptions in the Pāndya country relating to the Chola monarchs of this period.
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³ See ll. 42-5 of the larger Leiden grant and E.I., vol. iii, pp. 283-4. Also A.R.E., 1892, p. 3; and 1912, pp. 55 and 57. Was the impost on Kumbakonam levied by Parāntaka in his thirty-eighth year an exceptional tax raised in view of the coming war with the Rāshṭrakūṭa king? See also E.I., vol. xix, pp. 82 ff; contra A.R.E., 1926, part ii, para 12.
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During this period of trouble in the Chola kingdom, the Pāndya country seems to have been recovered by a member of the ancient royal family. We have a considerable number of inscriptions in Vaṭṭeḻuttu characters, of a certain Vīra Pāṇḍya ‘who took the head of the Chola’. Only a few of these records (e.g. No. 16 of 1894) dated in his ninth and tenth years come from Kīramāttūr in the Madura Taluq; the others are all found further south in the Ramnad and Tinnevelly districts and in South Travancore, at Nagercoil and Sucindram. The claim of Vīra Pāṇḍya to have cut off the head of the Chola king does not seem to have been an empty boast. The history of the Chola dynasty between the death of Parāntaka I (A.D. 951) and the accession of Rāja Rāja I (A.D. 985) is not altogether free from doubt.¹ But the Chola king who lost his life at the
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¹ The arrangement I follow regarding the Chola kings of this period may be indicated here and some references added:
(1) Parāntaka I—Parakēsari.
(2) Gaṇḍarāditya—Maduraikoṇḍa Rājakēsari (A.R.E., 1912, p. 57). These records may however belong to No. (4) below. (See Ann. Rep. Trav. Arch. Dept., 1919–20, p. 31).
(3) Arinjaya—Parakēsari (Larger Leiden grant, ll. 50–51 and Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, verse 55).
(4) Parāntaka II Sundara } Rājakēsari
(5) Āditya II Karikāla } Parakēsari } contemporary Vīra Pāṇḍya ‘who took the head of the Chola’.
(6) Madhurāntaka Uttama Chola } Rājakēsari title used by both. Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, verses 69 and 70 giving the cause of this exception. This assumption overcomes the difficulty pointed out in A.R.E., 1904, p. 10.
(7) Rāja Rāja }
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It may be noted (re para 53 in the report for 1908, pp. 62–3) that the dates are doubtful in 265 of 1907 which may be a record of Āditya II; and that this and Nos. 13 of 1895 and 357 of 1907 may also be assigned to Rājēndra I who was a Parakēsari and had the name Uttama Chola (Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates, verse 90). The same remark applies to No. 128 in S.I.I., vol. iii—the Madras Museum plates of Uttama Chola. The date A.D. 969–70 for the accession of Parakēsari, even if correct, may be accepted for Āditya II. It must be noted that this arrangement assumes that the explicit statement in the larger Leiden grant (ll. 41–42) that Rājāditya ruled as king after his hands of Vīra Pāndya has been sometimes identified with Parāntaka II Sundara Chola.¹ This Chola king fought at Chēvūr a battle which is referred to in the larger Leiden grant as follows: ‘At the town named Chēvūr, he, completely filling all the directions by the multitude of very sharp arrows sent forth from his own beautiful bow, produced manifold rivers of blood flowing from the great royal elephants of his foes, cut down with his sharp sword.’² It is remarkable that this rather forced account of the battle does not claim a victory for the Chola king; this may mean that the Chola king did not have the best of the battle in spite of his heroism. This inference becomes more certain in the light of other facts. Vīra Pāndya claims to have taken the head of a Chola and his inscriptions mentioning this achievement range from his sixth to his nineteenth year (163 of 1894 and 65 of 1896). It is not possible to identify the prince who was killed by Vīra Pāndya; but it cannot be Parāntaka himself.³ It seems a legitimate inference to make that
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¹ Cf. T. A. Gopinatha Rao in E.I., vol. xv; contra, H. K. Sastri in para 31, part ii, of A.R.E. for 1915. It is rather strange that Mr. Sastri should think that the larger Leiden grant says that a Vīra Pāndya was defeated by Sundara Chola. He also remarks: ‘The boast of Vīra Pāndya that he also took the head of the Chola king may be explained by assuming that before he was beheaded by Āditya II he would probably have killed a Chola.’ See also A.R.E., 1921, p. 109. The number of years (13) covered by the records of Vīra Pāndya ‘who took the head of the Chola’ preclude the supposition that he killed Sundara Chola and was himself killed soon after by Āditya II.
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² Burgess and Natesa Sastri—Tamil and Sanskrit inscriptions, p. 217. The suggestion that Vīra Pāndya ‘who took the head of the Chola’ may have been the son and successor of Rājasimha II based on No. 122 of 1905 (Trav. Arch. Series, iii, p. 68) is not easy to accept as it does not seem to fit in with the chronology of the period.
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³ Messrs. Krishna Sastri and K. V. Subramanya Aiyar come to the conclusion that Parāntaka II was the king who claims to have driven the Pāndya to the forest and who is referred to as the king who died in the Golden Hall. (See *S.I.I.*, vol. iii, p. 255; *E. I.*, vol. xii, pp. 124-5; the only references are those given by Mr. Aiyar and they are not such as to bear his interpretation.) The inscriptions relied on by Messrs. Sastri and Aiyar are all very fragmentary with the possible exception of the vague reference in *verse* 63 of the Kanyākumārī inscription of Virarājendra (*Trav. Arch. Series*, vol. iii, p. 144). Venkayya accepts the identification of Ponmālgait-tunjinadēva with Parāntaka II but says nothing of the other attribute (*S.I.I.*, vol. ii, Introduction, p. 1; see also No. 302 of 1908).
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father's death is a mistake as it seems to contradict the evidence on the battle of Takkōla (A.R.E., 1892, p. 3; contra E.I., vol. xv, p. 52); see also Trav. Arch. Series, vol. iii, pp. 67 ff. The discussion of this subject in A.R.E., 1926, part ii, paras 13 ff. does not seem to carry it much farther.
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Parāntaka II Sundara Chola fought with a Pāndya a battle at Chēvūr and that this fight furnished the occasion of Vīra Pāndya's distinction, and some further support may be found for this assumption in the fact that Chēvūr, not yet satisfactorily identified, was the scene of many fights between the Pāndya rulers and their foes in an earlier age.
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But if Vīra Pāndya succeeded in repelling what was perhaps the first attempt to recover Chola power in the south at the end of the Rāshtrakūta occupation, his success did not leave any permanent results. The son and successor of Parāntaka II on the Chola throne seems to have avenged his father's defeat by proceeding against Vīra Pāndya in sufficient strength to inflict a crushing defeat on him and then to capture and decapitate him. And this victory of Āditya is referred to in an inscription (No. 472 of 1908) of the second year of his reign so that it seems quite possible that this success was won even in his father's life time.¹ Vīra Pāndya then did not reap the benefits of his victory over Sundara for more than fifteen to twenty years at the most. But he seems to have made good use of this brief respite secured by him. His inscriptions contain references to a Cholāntaka Brahmarāya, a Cholāntaka Pallavarayan and a Cholāntakan nāḷi (grain-measure). Cholāntaka was probably a surname assumed by Vīra Pāndya after his successful fight with the Cholas¹ and the reference to the nāḷi may imply that the king found time to regulate the weights and measures used in the land. Six inscriptions of this king from the Ramnad district refer to a Sundara Pāndya Īśvaram Uḍaiyār temple in Tiruccuḷi Paḷḷimaḍam, a village in the district; it is not possible to say who this Sundara Pāndya was though it seems certain that he must have been closely connected with Vīra Pāndya.
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¹ See Leiden grant, ll. 58-60 and Tiruvālangādu plates, verse 67. On a Pārthivēndravarman who has the same title as Āditya II, (see *A.R.E.*, 1900, p. 7; 1910, p. 76; 1911, p. 88; 1921, p. 109).
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¹ See A.R.E., 1910, p. 86; 1915, part ii, para 31.
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It is not known if Madhurāntaka Uttama Chola undertook any expedition against Madura as his biruda may imply, or as seems more likely, if he only inherited his title from his father Gaṇḍarāditya who has been identified with Maduraikoṇḍa Rājakēsari of the inscriptions.² At any rate, there is no reason to doubt that the Chola power was not fully restored in the Pāndya country by the success of Aditya II and that later, it became more firmly established in the time of the great Rāja Rāja I who came to the Chola throne in A.D. 985. That Rāja Rāja took great credit for his conquest of the Pāndya country is clear from his inscriptions. A record of the twenty-ninth year of Rāja Rāja says, for instance, ‘that he deprived the Śeliyas (i.e. the Pāndyas) of (their) splendour at the very moment when (they were) resplendent (to such a degree) that (they were) worthy to be worshipped everywhere.’³ But we know little of the details. ‘It is in inscriptions of the eighth year A.D. 994) of the king's reign that the usual historical introduction, beginning with the words *Tirumakaḷpōla*, which was evidently composed after the conquest of the Pāṇdyas, occurs for the first time' (Venkayya) and the conquest of the south may be taken to have far advanced by that time.
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The little that is known of the campaigns of this conquest has been summarised by Venkayya¹ as follows: 'In his first campaign the king is said to have destroyed a fleet in the port of Kāṇḍaḷūr, which appears to have been situated in the dominions of the Chera king. The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates which furnish a lengthy account of Rāja Rāja's campaigns do not mention this item at all. They begin with the war against the Pāṇdyas and report that Rāja Rāja seized the Pāṇdya king, Amarabhujanga, and that the Chola general captured the port of Viḷiñam. Perhaps, Kāṇḍaḷūr or Kāṇḍaḷūr Śālai was near Viḷiñam. It is not unlikely that the Chola king fought on more than one occasion against the Pāṇdyas. The Cheras and the Pāṇdyas appear to have been allied together in their war against the Chola king, for in the Tanjore inscriptions reference is frequently made to the conquest of the Chera king and the Pāndyas in Malainādu, i.e. the west coast. Kāndalūr Śālai which is stated to belong to the Chera king in later inscriptions was probably held by the Pāndyas when it was attacked by Rāja Rāja.¹ Many inscriptions of Rāja Rāja have been found in various places in the Pāndya country and these range from the ninth to the twentieth years of his reign. Other facts also show that the Chola suzerainty in the Pāndya country was firmly established by Rāja Rāja.
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Even the name of the Pāndya country undergoes a change and becomes Rāja-rāja-Mandalam or Raja-rāja-Pāndinādu in the Chola records;¹ and we come to hear of a sub-division Pāndya-kulāśani-valanādu for the first time in the age of Rāja Rāja or possibly a little earlier.² Among the queens of Rāja Rāja is one Pancavanmahādēvi referred to in inscriptions from the tenth year of Rāja Rāja (No. 254 of 1907); and in the twenty-eighth year of the king a grant is made by one of his queens Vēmban Śīrudaiyār alias Mīnavan Mahādēviyār.³ Rāja Rāja apparently also used the Pāndya country as a base for a successful raid on Ceylon between the seventeenth and twentieth years of his reign.⁴ A Tanjore inscription of the twenty-fourth year of Rāja Rāja⁵ contains an order dealing with defaulters in land-revenue in Pāndinādu alias Rāja-rāja-valanādu, among others. Above all, Rāja Rāja's son and successor Rājēndra inherited the Pāndya country from his father. His Inscriptions are found in places like Tinnevelly and Cape Comorin in the Pāndya country which he does not claim to have conquered.¹ Rājēndra’s relations with the Pāndya kingdom can be traced clearly from the records of his time. The Pāndyas of the old line seem to have continued their rule in a subordinate capacity; an inscription in the third year of Rājēndra (No. 46 of 1907) from Tiruvīsalūr in the Tanjore district, records a gift of ornaments by the queen of the Pāndya king, Śrīval-luvar. In the sixth year of his reign, A.D.
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1017, or a little earlier, Rājēndra undertook his famous expedition against Ceylon in which he seized ‘the crown of the king of Īlam (on) the tempestuous ocean; the exceeding-ly fine crowns of the queens of that (king); the beautiful crown and the necklace of Indra which the king of the South (i.e. the Pāndya) had previously deposited with that (king of Īlam); the whole Īla-mandala (on) the transparent sea.’² Rājēndra was also called Madhu-rāntaka and Uttamachola; these names were perhaps given him by his father Rāja Rāja who had a great regard for his father’s cousin Madhurāntaka Uttama-chola. It seems more likely that two coins, one of gold and the other of impure silver, bearing the legend Uttamachola in grantha characters and the tiger and fish designs were issued by Rājēndra rather than by the earlier Uttamachola who was the contemporary of Rāja Rāja.³ In the tenth year of his reign or very soon after, surely before the twelfth, Rājendra had to undertake an expedition against the Madura country in order to reassert his authority which seems to have been challenged in some way or other. The early inscriptions of the king dated before his tenth year make no mention of any conquest of Maduramaṇḍalam; and we hear of it for the first time in a record of his twelfth year from Tirumalai.¹ It is possible that this reconquest is referred to in verses 91-93 of the Sanskrit portion of the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates.² ‘The daṇḍanātha of this crest jewel of the solar race (i.e.
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Madhurāntaka), struck the Pāndya king who had a powerful army. (And) the Pāndya, leaving his own country from fear of Madhurāntaka, sought refuge in the Malaya hill which was the residence of (the sage) Agastya. (Then) the politic son of Rāja Rāja took possession of the lustrous pure pearls which looked like the seeds (out of which grew) the
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² See A.R.E. 1912, p. 57. Gaṇḍarāditya himself seems to have got the title Madhurāntaka from the part he took in his father's conquest of Madura or by mere heredity.
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³ S.I.I., vol. ii, p. 250.
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¹ See *S.I.I.*, vol. ii, Intro., pp. 2-3. Venkayya also says: 'A place named Udagai (உதகை) is mentioned in connection with the conquest of the Pāṇdyas (p. 250, n. 3). The *Kalingattup-paraṇi* refers to the "storming of Udagai" in the verse which alludes to the reign of Rāja Rāja. The *Kulōttunga-Śōḷan-Ulā* also mentions the burning of Udagai. This was probably an important stronghold in the Pāṇdya country which the Chola king captured.' But the *Kalingattup-paraṇi*, verse viii. 22, clearly implies that Udagai was not in the Pāṇdya country but outside the traditional limits of that kingdom; therefore Mr. Venkayya's note to the passage quoted above is more to the point: 'The Kiḷūr inscription of Rāja Rāja's twenty-seventh year (No. 236 of 1902) which is partly mutilated, supplies a historical introduction of the king in Tamil poetry, different from the usual திருமகள் போல etc., and mentions the king's conquest of Udagai in his campaign against Malaināḍu. As already stated the Pāṇdya country must have also included Malaināḍu at the time of Rāja Rāja's conquest.' On Kāṇḍaḷūr Śālai, see *Trav. Arch. Series*, vol. ii, pp. 2-5 for a more likely interpretation. Pandit M. Raghava Aiyangar is inclined to interpret all references to காந்தளூர்ச்சாலைக் கலமறுத்தல் as suppressions of local risings. But there are difficulties in accepting this view also.
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¹ A.R.E., 1917, pp. 106-7.
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² See No. 455 of 1908 and 672 of 1909 which are Nos. 691 and 538 respectively under Trichinopoly district in Mr. V. Rangacharya's *Inscriptions of the Madras Presidency*.
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³ A.R.E., 1909, p. 91.
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⁴ J.R.A.S., 1913, pp. 523-24.
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⁵ S.I.I., vol. iii, No. 9.
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¹ Cf. A.R.E., 1917, p. 107; contra Mr. K. V. S. Aiyar, p. 151 of Ancient Dekhan; but Mr. Aiyar gives no references and seems to base his account on the Sanskrit portion (verses 90-93) of the Tiruvālangādu plates, which are dealt with later in the text.
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² See J.R.A.S., 1913, pp. 522-23.
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³ Contra A.R.E., 1904, p. 10. Things seem to have been still unsettled in the Pāndya country in the time of the earlier Madhurāntaka; no records of the Cholas between Parāntaka and Rāja Rāja are seen in the
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¹ See *E. I.*, vol. ix, p. 232. Hultzsch’s remark at p. 230 *E.I.* ix. ‘Maduramaṇḍala need not be connected with Madura, the capital of the Pāndya king, who has been already accounted for, but may be meant for the district of the northern Mathura on the Yamuna’—will be plausible if the identification of Sakkarakkōṭṭam rests on a secure basis; but this is very doubtful and it is possible to adopt the usual meaning of Maduramaṇḍalam and explain the new conquest as in the text. The Pāndya king moreover has not been ‘already accounted for’ but only ‘two other trinkets which the Pāndya king had previously deposited with the king of Ceylon’.
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² The Sanskrit part of the plates dates only from the sixteenth year of Rājendra at the earliest (see *S.I.I.*, vol. iii, p. 384) and cannot compare in accuracy with the Tamil stone inscriptions of Rājendra; hence no violence is done to the authority of these verses when the campaign they refer to is placed about the tenth regnal year according to indications in the lithic records. I have adopted Mr. Krishna Sastri’s translation with a correction which appears necessary.
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Pāndya country and it is not likely that these coins were issued in that period. I have already said that the Madras Museum plates of Parakēsari Uttamachola may be ascribed to Rājendra also. (n. 1, p. 101) And Dr. Hultzsch remarks ‘The close resemblance of the devices on the coins (referred to in this note) to those on the seal of the inscription leaves little doubt that both the coins and the inscription have to be attributed to the same king Uttamachola’ (*A.R.E.*, 1891, p. 5).
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Spotless fame of the Pāndya king. Having placed there his own son, the glorious Chola-Pāndya, for the protection of his (i.e. the Pāndya's country), the light of the solar race started for the conquest of the western region.' We have no means of knowing who the Pāndya king was, whether he was Śrīvallabha or a successor of his, that was forced to seek refuge in the mountain of Agastya. The appointment of the king's son, the glorious Chola-Pāndya, as viceroy of the Pāndya country is confirmed by an inscription (363 of 1917) of the tenth year of Rājendra, which also 'furnishes the very interesting information that Rājendra Chola I constructed at Madura a huge palace (Māligai) by whose weight even the earth became unsteady'; this inscription also implies that the campaign undertaken by Rājendra in the south extended up to Śālai (Kāndalūr Śālai) whose destruction is mentioned.¹ For a period of about half a century, after this campaign of Rājendra in the Pāndya country, which may be placed about A.D. 1020, the administration of this part of the Chola empire seems to have been regularly vested in a prince of the Chola royal family who bore the title Chola-Pāndya. Rājendra's son who figures in the inscriptions of this period as Jatāvarman Sundara Chola-Pāndya was the first of these Chola-Pāndya viceroys, and he may have continued in this capacity for some years in the beginning of the reign of the Chola emperor Rājādhirāja I who succeeded Rājendra.² It is possible that the Chola-Pāndya viceroys had some control over the Chera country also. The inscriptions of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Chola-Pāndya are found all over Madura and Tinnevelly and portions of Pudukkottah and S. Travancore. Some inscriptions (Nos. 111, 113 and 114 of 1905) of the sixteenth year of this prince from Mannārkōvil near Ambāsamudram mention the Chera kings Rāja Rāja and Rājasimha and another record from the same place (No. 112 of 1905) dated in the twenty-fourth year of Rājēndra himself says that Rājasimha built in Mannārkōvil the Viṣṇu temple called Rajēndracholaviṇṇagar.¹ Besides Jaṭāvarman Sundara Chola-Pāndya, two other Chola princes are known from Chola inscriptions to have been appointed to the viceroyalty of the Pāndyan kingdom. In the historical introductions of Rājēndradēva (c. A.D. 1052-1064), he is stated to have conferred on one of his younger brothers, the victorious Mummaḍi Solaṇ, the title Chola-Pāndyan.² Again some years later Vīrarājēndra I conferred on his son Gangaikoṇḍachola the Pāṇḍimaṇḍalam and the title Chola-Pāndya.³ It is not possible to identify these princes in the Chola-Pāndya records very clearly; and it is not unlikely there were two or three princes similarly deputed to rule the Pāndyan kingdom. But this system does not seem to have been continued after the accession of Kulōttunga I about A.D. 1070.⁴
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¹ A.R.E., 1918, p. 144 and Appendix B.
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² On Chola-Pāndyas, see A.R.E., 1905, pp. 48-9 and later reports, esp. 1917, pp. 107-8 and 1924, pp. 105-6; also E. I., vol. xi, pp. 292 ff. It is not easy to identify the particular princes mentioned in the several Chola-Pāndya records. The Chola inscriptions themselves mention three such cases of Chola-Pāndya viceroys appointed by different rulers; there is little
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¹ *A.R.E.*, 1905; Appendix B and *E.I.*, vol. xi, p. 294. Also No. 392 of 1916 mentions a gift by the queen of Chera Rāsingadēvar to the temple.
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² *A.R.E.*, 1917, pp. 107-8.
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³ *S.I.I.*, vol. iii, p. 33.
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⁴ Mr. K. V. Subramanya Aiyar says: 'The Pāndyas seem to have asserted their independence already during the reign of Kulōttunga I. At any rate we have no reason to suppose that the Chola-Pāndya kings continued very long. In fact their rule could not have lasted more than half a century which was probably occupied by the rule of the few princes known from inscriptions' (E.I., vol. xi, p. 293 n.). Mr. H. Krishna Sastri (A.R.E., 1917) identifies Mummadi Chola with Māravarman Vikrama Chola-Pāṇdya of the epigraphs and Gangaikonda with Jaṭāvarman Chola-Pāṇdya of No. 642 of 1916. See also Trav. Arch. Series, vol. vi, pp. 6-7 where four viceroys are distinguished.
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room for doubt that this arrangement did not continue after the accession of Kulōttunga I.
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These Chola-Pāṇdya viceroys were subject to the Chola emperors and the control from the centre seems to have been both vigorous and regular. This is clear from the existence of inscriptions of the Chola emperors of the period in the Pāṇdya country by the side of the records of their viceroys. At the same time, the Pāṇdya kings of the old line seem to have survived in sufficient strength to give much trouble to their conquerors; and they seem to have made common cause with the rulers of Ceylon who had undergone a degradation similar to that of the Pāṇdya rulers in consequence of the Chola conquest of Ceylon. It is very remarkable that we hear of several princes of the Ceylonese and Pāṇdya royal families of this period bearing identical names; this shows the existence of rather close dynastic relations between the aggrieved families that made common cause against the Chola emperors; but it also adds considerably to the difficulty of giving a correct account of the intricate military and political transactions that are referred to alike in the Mahāvaṃśa and in the inscriptions of the imperial Cholas.¹ Our concern however is only with the Pāṇdyas and their relation to the Cholas and this in itself is a fairly simple story. The chief reason for the adoption, in the period, of a system of government by viceroys is perhaps found in this political alliance between the dispossessed families of the Pāṇdyas and the Ceylon kings; the wide extent of the Chola empire after the conquests of Rājēndra was no doubt a contributory factor.¹
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¹ See the remarks of Hultzsch in J.R.A.S., 1913, pp. 519-21.
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¹ Mr. Venkayya remarks that though the Pāndya country was conquered early in Rāja Rāja I’s reign, Chola-Pāndya viceroys come in only with Rājēndra Chola I whose extensive scheme of foreign conquests made them necessary and that ‘the name Pāndya was perhaps added at the end of the Chola prince’s name partly to reconcile the people to their new ruler’ (*A.R.E.*, 1905, pp. 48-9). Mr. K. V. S. Aiyar says on the other hand, ‘The necessity for their appointment arose from the fact that the Pāndyas could never be completely subdued. They continued in a state of chronic revolt against the Chola yoke during the whole period of Chola supremacy in South India.’ (*E.I.*, vol xi, p. 293.) Our view is that Rājēndra made the discovery only about the tenth year of his reign that some special steps were necessary for keeping a tight hold on the Pāndya country; and that the Pāndyas derived a great part of their strength from the traditional sway they had secured in the hearts of their people, and the rest from their political alliance with Ceylon. It is remarkable that all the sternness of the Chola emperors was not able to root out the Pāndyas; and that the latter should have ultimately got the better of their conquerors, and in the end even contributed largely to their downfall.
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Almost every one of the kings who reigned between Rājēndra I Gaṅgaikoṇḍa and Rājēndra II *alias* Kulōttuṅga I—he ought properly to be numbered third among Rājēndras—claims to have conquered the Pāndya country and some add also an attack on Udagai in the Kērala country to the list of their achievements. But we are not yet in a position to trace in detail any of these expeditions, the circumstances that led to them or their results. But a record of the twenty-ninth year of Rājādhirāja I corresponding to A.D. 1046 contains the names of three Pāndya kings who opposed him and suffered terribly for doing so. Their fates are recorded in an inscription in the following terms:² ‘Among the three allied kings of the south (i.e. Pāndyas), Rājādhirāja cut off on a battlefield the beautiful head of Mānabharaṇan (which was adorned with) large jewels (and) which was inseparable from the golden crown;
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² *S.I.I.*, vol. iii, p. 56.
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seized in a battle Vīra Kēraḷan whose ankle-rings were wide, and was pleased to get him trampled down by his furious elephant Attivāraṇa; and drove to the ancient Mullaiyūr Sundara Pāṇḍyan of endless great fame, who lost in a hot battle the royal white parasol, the bunches (of hairs) of the white yak, and the throne, and who ran away—his crown dropping down, (his) hair being dishevelled, and (his) feet getting tired.’ Nothing more is known of the three Pāṇḍyas mentioned here. Māṇābharaṇan and Vīra Kēraḷan appear to have occupied somewhat subordinate positions and Sundara Pāṇḍya seems to have been the chief of the trio. This is evident from the laudatory reference to Sundara and also from the fact that he escaped capital punishment. We read later on in the same inscription that Rājādhirāja invaded Ceylon and in this expedition he dethroned four rulers of the country. One of them was ‘Vikrama Pāṇḍyan, who, having lost the whole of the southern Tamil country which had previously belonged to him, had entered Īḷam (surrounded by) the seven oceans’. We do not know at present what this means exactly; but it illustrates the close connection, political and dynastic, between the Pāṇḍyas and the Ceylon kings in this period.
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The accession of Kulōttunga I marks a turning-point in the history of the Chola empire. This king was not of the direct Chola imperial line; he was an Eastern Chāḷukya prince; and many troubles seem to have attended the accession of a comparative stranger like him to the Chola throne. Whether as a result of his intrigues or not, the empire was reduced to a state of great confusion bordering on anarchy¹ and from these troubles it seems never to have completely recovered under Kulōttunga and his successors. At any rate, we do not find under Kulōttunga and his successors the same vigour in the administration of the empire that characterized the Vijayālaya line; and the Pāndya kingdom, now apparently freed from the presence of the Chola-Pāndya viceroys, slowly began to pass more and more under the domination of the descendants of its ancient rulers until at last it not only secured its own independence but helped a good deal to pull down the power of its erstwhile dominant foe. But before we take up this part of the story, something remains to be said about the administration of the Pāndya country under the imperial Cholas of the Vijayālaya line.
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¹ See remarks at p. 14 of A.R.E., 1899 and also at p. 7 of same for 1901; also S.I.I., vol. iii, p. 129.
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There is a general order of Rāja Rāja I recorded in an inscription of the twenty-fourth year of his reign, i.e., about A.D. 1009¹ which ‘deals with defaulters of land revenue in villages held by Brahmins, Vaikhānasas and Jainas in the Chola, Tondai and Pāndya countries.’² The default in the payment of revenue seems to have been on the part of a special class of tenants who are referred to as ‘காணி உடையார்’ and who seem to have in some manner abused their privileged position; the penalty that is laid down by the royal order is drastic, but it must be noticed that it applied to other territories besides the Pāndya country. The king orders that all ‘காணி உடையார்’ who between the sixteenth and twenty-third years of his reign had failed to pay the dues paid by others in the village (ஊரிடுவரிப்பாடு) and whose default continued after more than two complete years into a third year—all such ‘காணி உடையார்’ shall forfeit their ‘காணி’ lands to the village; and the villagers shall arrange to sell the lands among themselves, but the old defaulters shall not be allowed to buy up these lands again. The same rule was to be observed in all similar cases of default after the twenty-fourth year of the king's reign. The whole record looks like an attempt to regulate the administration of charitable endowments made on behalf of several religious orders and to secure that they did not escape public dues that were laid on them by the terms of the original endowment or the custom of the country. Inscriptions Nos. 327 and 619 of 1916, which are Chola-Pāndya records from Tiruvālīśvaram and Sērmādēvi in the Tinnevelly district, seem to contain interesting particulars of land revenue administration. But the text of these records is not yet available and this is how the official epigraphist summarizes them: ‘This record (No. 327) refers to a gift of land by him (Sundara Chola-Pāndya) after purchasing it from the sabha of Rāja Rāja Caturvēdimangalam i.e., Ambāsamudram. (It should rather be Brahmadēśam). The income from the land included paddy given by the cultivator (vellan) as owner's share and money called uruvukōl-nilan-kāśu and kākshi-erudu-kāśu. No. 619 of the seventeenth year of the same king's reign refers to similar items of income under the heads of alagerudu-katchi-kāśu, katchi-erudu-kāśu and urkkalanju. The order sanctioning the transfer of the land from the Brahmadēya register to the Devadāna register in No. 327, was communicated to the viceroy, the document being signed by not less than twenty-two officers of the emperor.¹ The collection of the dues partly in kind and partly in money and the mention of sundry pecuniary levies under different names deserve special attention. Further study may lead to a clear understanding of the nature of these cesses. Another Chola-Pāndya record which registers a sale of land to the Visnu temple Rājendra Chola Vinnagaram at Mannār-kōvil may also be briefly referred to. The sale in this case was ordered by the members of the sabha of Rāja Rāja Caturvēdimangalam, already referred to; several of these members who ordered the sale were learned men bearing titles like *Bhatta*, *Sōmayājin* and *Kramavit* and they seem to have been resident in the different suburbs (*sēri*) of the village; and some at least among them appear to have been immigrants from other parts of the Chola empire.² The sale deed (விலை ஓலை) is written by the Karanattān (கரணத்தான்) of the village and the sale is referred to by the members of the assembly in the phrase ‘விலை ஓலைசெய்து நீரோட்டிக்கொடுத்தோம்’ (l. 4).
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¹ S.I.I., vol. iii, No. 9.
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² Dr. Hultzsch's translation of this record does not seem to bring out the fact that it is significant, though its exact import is far from clear. The operative part of the text is ‘காணி உடையார் யாண்டு 16 வது முதல் 23 ஆவது வரையில் ஈராண்டு நிரம்பி மூவாண்டு தந்தகாணியான நிலங்களுக்கு அவ்வவ் ஊர்களிலாரொடும் ஊரிடு வரிப்பாடு இறை இருது போனார் காணி உடையாரைத் தவிர ஊர் சிலமாய் அவ்வவ் ஊர்களிலா ரெவிற்றுக்கொள்ளப் பெறுவார்களாகவும்.’
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¹ A.R.E., 1917, p. 108; part ii, para 4.
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² Cf. *E.I.*, vol. xi, pp. 292 ff. Mr. K. V. S. Aiyar remarks in a note at p. 292, ‘It is worthy of note that two of the signatures at the end of the inscription are in Sanskrit. Such admixture of Sanskrit words in a Tamil record of this period may be accounted for, to a certain extent, by the revival of learning brought about by the immigration to the southern country of a large number of Brahmins from the north as a result of the conquests of Rājendra Chola I, which extended as far as the Ganges.’ But the admixture of Sanskrit in Tamil records is very common even in the age of the First Empire as we have seen and even then the immigration of Brahmins from the north was not unknown.
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One reference to a *matha* of the sect of Mahāvratins that occurs in a Vatteluttu inscription from Tirucculi in the Ramnad district is sufficiently important to deserve special mention. It occurs in a record of the eleventh year of Vīra Pāndya ‘who took the head of the Chola’ (No. 423 of 1914). This reference is confirmed by another record of Vikramakēsari, a Koḍumbāḷūr chieftain, who claims to have conquered Vīra Pāṇḍya in battle. This chieftain was the son of a Chola princess and probably took the side of the Cholas against Vīra Pāṇḍya in the wars mentioned at the beginning of this chapter.¹ Vikramakēsari presented a big maṭha (brihan-maṭham) to a certain Mallikārjuna of Madura, who was the chief ascetic of the Kālāmukha sect, with eleven villages for feeding fifty ascetics of the same sect (called asita-vaktra). Mallikārjuna belonged to the Ātrēya gotra and was the disciple of two teachers Vidyārāśi and Tapōrāśi. These references reveal the presence in the Madura and Ramnad districts and in the Pudukkottah state—the Vikramakēsari record comes from Mūvarkōil in that state—of a considerable number of the ascetics of the Mahāvrata or Kālāmukha sect of the Śaivas. Dr. Bhandarkar says of this sect: ‘It will be seen how terrible and demoniacal this sect was . . . . Mahāvrata means the great vow, and the greatness of the vow consists in its extraordinary nature, such as eating food placed in a human skull, besmearing the body with the ashes of human carcasses and others which are attributed to Kālāmukhas by Rāmānuja.’²
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¹ See Venkayya in A.R.E., 1908, part ii, paras 85-6, and for a brief discussion of No. 423 of 1914, A.R.E., 1915, p. 101. Mr. Krishna Sastri’s suspicion that Mahāvratins may refer to Jains may be taken to be set at rest by the use of the term asita-vaktra (= Kālāmukha) in the record of Vikramakēsari.
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² Vaiṣṇavism and Śaivism, p. 128.