The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c12.19.4

c12.19.4

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.