The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c12.44

c12.44

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.