The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13: Chapter IX. The End of Chola Ascendancy: Civil War and Recovery
The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13
- Language
- English
Chapter IX. The End of Chola Ascendancy: Civil War and Recovery
c13.2
THE confusion in the Chola empire that led to the accession of the Eastern Chāḷukya Rājēndra *alias* Kulōttunga I to the Chola throne about A.D. 1070 apparently gave the Pāṇḍyas an opportunity to recover some of their lost power. A Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha seems to have reigned in this period with some real power for a period of at least twenty-three years (No. 555 of 1922). A considerable number of his records are found in various places in the Tinnevelly and Madura districts, in particular at Kuruvitturai and Tirupputtūr. Most of these contain a grandiloquent historical introduction beginning with the words *Tirumandandaiyum Jayamandandaiyum*, but this introduction tells us nothing about the historical details of his reign. There are references to a throne called Pāṇḍyarāyan, to another throne Kalingattaraiyan which seems to have got its name from an important officer called Kalingarājan and to an Aḷagiya Pāṇḍyan hall in which these thrones were placed in the palace at Madura, to the east of Maḍakkulam. There is also reference to a Piḷḷaiyār Sundara Pāṇḍya, probably the son of the king (493 of 1909). We also learn that *drammas* were among coins current in his time. Moreover, ‘references in these inscriptions to canals, sluices, water-bunds, etc., called after Parākrama Pāṇḍya and to the grain measure named *Vīra Pāṇḍya*, prove that Parākrama Pāṇḍya and Vīra Pāṇḍya were two predecessors of Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha or his co-regents who greatly improved the agricultural condition of the Pāṇḍya country.¹ It is not possible to determine precisely the period of his rule although there is some reason to think that he was a contemporary of Kulōttunga I. This is an inference that rests at present only on the slender basis that a certain Vīraśēkharan alias Aḍalaiyūr Nāḍāḷvān refers to the fourth year of Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha in one inscription and the forty-ninth year of Tribhuvanacakravartin Kulōttunga Chola-dēva in another (30 and 32 of 1909).² It has been suggested that Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha must have adopted the surname Chōḷāntaka ‘after subduing the Cholas before he could secure for himself the independent position which is suggested by the eulogistic and poetical historical introduction with which his records begin.’³ But one cannot accept this in the absence of any mention of such an achievement in the introduction itself. It is more likely that the old name of Choḷāntaka Caturvēdimangalam for Kuruvitturai or more probably Śoḷavandān,¹ commemorated the success of Vīra Pāndya, the opponent of Aditya II.
c13.3
¹ *A.R.E.*, 1909, part ii, para 23.
c13.4
² See *A.R.E.*, 1909, part ii, para 23 end. The report for 1917 finds confirmation of the age of Śrīvallabha in 331 of 1916 from Tiruvālīśvaram in which a certain Umai-Ammai of about the end of the tenth century is mentioned. Again, No. 21 of 1927 in the tenth year of this king refers to the thirty-first year of Kulōttunga Chola who took Kollam. It must be noted however that the whole question is far from satisfactorily settled. There is a strange inconsistency in the positions taken up in the epigraphical reports about this king. We learn (1909) that ‘he was perhaps the immediate predecessor of Jaṭāvarman Kulaśēkhara of the earlier Tiruppūvaṇam grant’ at the beginning of a paragraph which ends with the statement that he was of the age of Kulōttunga I and was among the Pāṇḍya sovereigns overthrown by him. Either of these conclusions must be wrong as Kulōttunga I came to the throne about A.D. 1070 and conquered the Pāṇḍyas before A.D. 1085 (*S.I.I.*, vol. ii, No. 58) and Kulaśēkhara of the Tiruppūvaṇam grant came to the throne in A.D. 1190 (Kielhorn *E.I.*, vol. vi). The report for 1917 leans to Kulōttunga’s time but we hear a different story in the report for 1923 which again makes him the predecessor of Jaṭ. Kulaśēkhara (para 46, part i i). The reports for 1918 and 1927 his accession is placed in A.D. 1291. The only fact which seems to help us in deciding this is noted in the text; the rest are impressions and may be ignored for the present. See also K. V. S. Aiyar, *Ancient Dekhan*, pp. 162-3 for a discussion of the matter of this note *re.* Jaṭ. Śrīvallabha.
c13.5
³ *A.R.E.*, 1909, part ii, para 23.
c13.6
¹ Hultzsch, A.R.E., 1894, p. 7, para 12.
c13.7
Several inscriptions of Kulōttunga Chola I have been found in the Pāndya country. One has been discovered at Tinnevelly (145 of 1894) but the regnal year has been lost; and another (31 of 1896) at Kōttāru; several others are found on the site of ancient Korkai (157, 161 and 162-5 of 1903). An inscription of the fifth year of Kulōttunga² seems to record that an unnamed Pāndya king was decapitated by him. Another record of the fourteenth year³ repeats this fact and records a fresh conquest of the Pāndya with several details. It says: ‘Having resolved in (his) royal mind to conquer also the Pāndimandalam with great fame, (he) despatched his great army. . . . He completely destroyed the forest which the five Pancavas had entered as refuge, when they were routed, on a battle-field where (he) fought (with them), and fled cowering with fear. (He) subdued their country, drove them into hot jungles (in) hills where woodmen roamed about, and planted pillars of victory in every region. (He) was pleased to seize the pearl fisheries, the Podiyil (mountain) where the three kinds of Tamil (flourished), the (very) centre of the (mountain) Saiyam where furious rutting elephants were captured, and Kanni, and fixed the boundaries of the southern country . . . (He) was pleased to bestow on the chiefs of his army, who were mounted on horses, settlements on every road, including (that which passed) Kōṭṭāru, in order that the enemies might be scattered.' 'The defeat of the "five Pāṇḍyas" and the burning of Kōṭṭāru are referred to also in an inscription at Chidambaram and the *Kaliṅgattup-paraṇi*'—(Hultzsch).
c13.8
² S.I.I., vol. iii, No. 68.
c13.9
³ No, 69, ibid.
c13.10
What does the reference in these records to the 'five Pāṇḍyas' (பஞ்சவர் ஐவரும், *Pāṇḍyān Panca*) indicate? Mr. L. D. Swamikkannu Pillai once thought that the simultaneous rule of five Pāṇḍyas was a fact established by tradition as well as by the statements of contemporary historians,¹ and proceeded to arrange the Pāṇḍya kings of the thirteenth century known to epigraphy on this basis. Mr. Robert Sewell subjected this position to a searching criticism² and concluded 'that we must hold the evidence to be overwhelmingly in favour of a single monarchy, and that the theory of a co-regency of five kings may be altogether set aside.' There is no doubt that on this general question of the regular and successive rule of five Pāṇḍyan kings through several generations the position of Mr. Sewell is the sounder of the two, and that Mr. Pillai seems on the whole to have had an exaggerated view of the evidence on his side, and that he was misled by a system of chronology, based exclusively on dubious astronomical data contained in the stone inscriptions of the period.
c13.11
¹ *I.A.*, vol. xlii, p. 166; also vol. xliv, pp. 172-6. It must be noted that Mr. Swamikkannu Pillai's discussion of Pāṇḍya dates in his *Ephemeris*, vol. i, part ii, pp. 81ff is much more cautious.
c13.12
² *Ibid.*
c13.13
Mr. Sewell refers to the records of Kulōttunga I and says: 'In two inscriptions of Kulōttunga Chola I the king is lauded for having, shortly before A.D. 1084, completely defeated "the five Pāṇḍyas". But this is poetry.' It is not easy so to brush aside the clear references in the phrases quoted above. On the other hand, it is not necessary that each of these ‘five Pāndyas’ must have been an independent ruler in his own right. It may be recalled that one of Kulōttunga’s predecessors on the Chola throne, Rājādhirāja, had three Pāndyas for his opponents, Manābharaṇa, Vīra Kēraḷa and Sundara, of whom only the last is referred to in the Chola records in terms befitting a reigning king. We do not get any details about the opponents of Kulōttunga. It may be surmised that Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha was among them; if this surmise is correct, there can be little doubt that the account of Kulōttunga who claims to have driven all the five Pāndyas to the forest and then to have burnt that forest is over-drawn; for the chances are that Śrīvallabha survived his defeat by Kulōttunga and continued to rule, though perhaps with diminished power, and this seems to be admitted somewhat later in the same record of Kulōttunga where we are told that he ‘fixed the boundaries of the southern country’.¹
c13.14
¹ This conclusion seems a natural inference from the two records of Aḍalaiyūr Nāḍāḷvān (30 and 32 of 1909) in which he refers to the fourth year of Śrīvallabha and the forty-ninth year of Kulōttunga. We know that Śrīvallabha reigned for at least twenty-three years and we may assume that for the bulk of it his reign overlapped Kulōttunga’s. We shall have, otherwise, to credit Aḍalaiyūr Nāḍāḷvān with a rather unusual length of active life, nineteen *plus* forty-nine years, as there seems to be little doubt that the forty-ninth year of Kulōttunga was later than the fourth of Śrīvallabha.
c13.15
Mr. H. Krishna Sastri seems to accept the co-regent theory. He suggests that Māravarman Parākrama Pāndya (of 94, 98 and 131 of 1908), and Tribhuvanacakravartin Vikrama Pāndya Dēva (of 26 of 1909) might have been also among the foes of Kulōttunga (*A.R.E.*, 1909, part ii, paras 29 and 30). But it is well to remember Sewell’s warning—: ‘With some as yet unabridged intervals, hereafter no doubt to be successfully filled in, we are now in possession of the general outlines, and in course of time the whole story will become plain. But it will never become plain if at the present very critical period workers are not particularly cautious in their methods. Deductions put forward or statements confidently made by an author who is recognized as an authority on the subject may, if these are perhaps based Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha appears to have been succeeded by Māravarman Tribhuvanacakravartin Parākrama Pāṇḍya Deva; this may be inferred from the fact that a certain Rājendra Cholan Kēraḷan *alias* Niṣadarājan who made a gift of sheep for a lamp in a temple in the twenty-first year of Śrīvallabha, also made a gift of paddy to the same temple in the eleventh year of Parākrama Pāṇḍya.¹ Parākrama Pāṇḍya’s records begin with a historical introduction commencing with *Tirumagaḷ Puṇara* and mention *drammas* as among the coins current in his time. Nothing more is known at present about this king. He must have reigned as a contemporary of Kulōttunga also.
c13.16
¹ *A.R.E.*, 1909, part ii, para 29. See also 1910, part ii, para 32.
c13.17
The next Pāṇḍya king, perhaps the immediate successor of Māravarman Parākrama Pāṇḍya, seems to have been a Jaṭāvarman Parāntaka Pāṇḍya. He is known to us so far only from one record of his at Kanyākumāri. Fortunately the record is full and gives a clear account of the king’s reign.² The historical introduction commences beautifully thus ‘திருவளரச் செயம்வளர தென்ன
c13.18
² *Trav. Arch. Series*, vol. i, pp. 18ff. Also *Indian Ephemeris* by L. D. Swamikkannu, vol. i, part ii, p. 87.
c13.19
on insufficient evidence, have the unfortunate result of seriously clouding the issue and raising great difficulties for the student in after years. An assertion so made is apt to be accepted as an historic truth.’
c13.20
It seems very likely that, from the period of the recovery of Pāṇḍya power which preceded the expedition of Kulōttunga I, there were appointed in important subordinate capacities princes of the blood royal who recorded their own inscriptions after the manner of the ruling kings—a practice which may have been copied from the contemporary Cholas; if that was so, the imitators must have gone much farther along this road than their models. If this suggestion is borne out by future study, the best way of treating Pāṇḍya history of the middle ages will be to treat the kings in Kielhorn’s list as the main line of rulers. But even so, there will remain much work in the way of properly interpreting the hundreds of epigraphs.
c13.21
It will be seen from the text that I prefer to treat Māravarman Parākrama Pāṇḍya of 94, 98, and 131 of 1908 as the successor of Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha.
c13.22
வாதம் குலம்வளா வருமறைநான் கவைவளா வனைத்துலகந் துயர்நீங்கத் தென்மதுரா புரித்தோன்றி.' The record is dated in the ninth year of the king. Parāntaka is said to have defeated the Chera and levied tribute from him. The king of the Kūpakas (a local ruler in South Travancore) offered his daughter in marriage to Parāntaka Pāndya who married her. The king then fought a battle at Viliñam and took the town. Next came the destruction of Kāndalūr-Śālai-kkalam. Apparently the systems of weights and measures were in an unsatisfactory condition and consequently the king is described as having reformed them by abolishing their old names and ordering the carp (கயல்) to be engraved on the new weights and measures that were introduced. Parāntaka also set up ten golden lamps of rare workmanship for the god at Anantapuram and granted a village for their upkeep. He also dedicated to the goddess Kumārī, called here தென்னவர் தம்குலதெய்வம், a whole nādu as an endowment for the distribution of liberal gifts to all who attended the Taippūsam festival, on the day succeeding it. Lastly, he captured Kulam of the Telinga Bhīma and subdued South Kalinga.
c13.23
These last references to Telinga Bhīma and Kulam and South Kalinga remind us strongly of the historical introduction of Kulōttunga's son and successor Vikrama Chola, whose expedition into the Kalinga country takes the first place in his Tamil inscriptions. 'On this occasion he defeated the Telinga Bhīma of Kulam who was apparently one of the Nāyakas of Ellore. . . . As Vikrama Chola's inscriptions place the Kalinga war not only before his coronation in A.D. 1118, but before his stay in Vengi, it must have taken place before the end of the reign of his father Kulōttunga I'—(Hultzsch). But in all probability this war was different from the famous Kalinga war of Kulōttunga celebrated in the *Kalingattuparani* and must be dated some years later.¹ It is likely that, as a feudatory of the Chola empire, Parāntaka Pāndya either accompanied Vikrama Chola in person or effectively assisted him in some manner in this expedition against the Telugu chieftain and the Kalinga Kingdom. His conquest of S. Travancore and the imposition of a tribute on that country and his attacks on Śālai and Viliñam should, however, have constituted a clear reversal of the arrangements made by Kulōttunga I in the early years of his reign, when he fortified Kōttāru and demarcated the boundary of the southern kingdom. It may be, however, that these achievements were undertaken with the knowledge of the Chola emperor and under his orders. It may be noted that we have references to a Parāntaka Valanādu as a sub-division of Rāja-rāja Pāndi-nādu in the inscriptions of Kulōttunga which come from Māramangalam (near Korkai) and are dated in the forty-fourth and forty-seventh years of Kulōttunga I (Nos. 161 and 164 of 1903).
c13.24
¹ *A.R.E.*, 1903, page 4, para 8. Also 1905, part ii, para 8.
c13.25
The next Pāndya king of whom we have some definite knowledge is Māravarman Śrīvallabha who is known to have been reigning in A.D. 1160-1 and to whom king Vīra Ravivarman of Travancore was tributary.² There are a considerable number of inscriptions mostly from the Tinnevelly district that may be ascribed to this king. A record from Kōttāru (49 of 1896) mentions prince Kulaśēkhara who can be identified with good reason with the prince who had a prominent part in the war of succession that seems to have followed the death of this king, Śrīvallabha. In another (No. 50 of 1896) from the same place ‘the king is said to have been ruling from his throne Munaiyadaraiyan in the palace at Tirunelvēli in Kiḷ-vēmbanāḍu.’¹ A Sucīndram inscription of this king dated in his tenth year refers to Āṇḍapillai Bhaṭṭa Atirātrayāji at whose instance the king made a grant of land to the Sucīndram temple. It is probable that this Āṇḍapillai who performed the Atirātra sacrifice was the same as the author of a well-known work on Hindu domestic ritual (*Gṛhyaprayōgavṛtti*) which is still used in Southern India.² The records of this king generally begin with the introduction பூமகள் ஜயமகள் etc. But one in his thirty-seventh year (No. 426 of 1916) begins with an introduction ஜயமடந்தையும், etc. almost similar to that of Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha. The astronomical details furnished by this record are said to yield the date A.D. 1169 for the inscription; the date is not quite regular but may be accepted in the light of other evidence relating to the king. This would mean that Māravarman Śrīvallabha came to the throne in A.D. 1132 and that this record is among the last ones of his reign.³ But it is doubtful if Śrīvallabha ruled as late as A.D. 1169 and it may after all turn out that this record belongs to some other king.
c13.26
² *A.R.S.*, 1896, para 15.
c13.27
¹ A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 29. Mr. Krishna Sastri says: ‘As Jaṭāvarman Kulaśēkhara was also occupying the throne at Madura called Munaiyadaraiyan we may perhaps suppose that Māravarman Śrīvallabha was his immediate predecessor.’ I do not see how we can make any such supposition. Frankly, we do not know yet how these thrones were named. For a similar reason I have refrained from accepting the proposal to treat Māravarman Kulaśēkhara of Nos. 465 and 466 of 1909 as a contemporary or successor of Jaṭāvarman Śrīvallabha on the strength of the mention of Kalingarāyan both as the name of a seat and as an officer (see A.R.E., 1910, part ii, para 36). I may notice incidentally that Mr. Sastri does not seem to be quite correct when he considers that historical introductions are a ‘special characteristic feature of the Pāndya records prior to the time of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya I’ (A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 29).
c13.28
² Trav. Arch. Series, vol. iv, p. 124.
c13.29
³ A.R.E., 1917, pp. 94 and 109. The tithi according to calculation ought to be 2 but the inscription gives prathamai.
c13.30
It has been mentioned that there is reference to a Pillaiyār Kulaśēkhara in the records of Śrīvallabha and that this prince is most probably identical with Kulaśēkhara who figures in a civil war in the Pāṇḍyan kingdom in the second half of the twelfth century.¹ This war is recorded in considerable detail ‘in true epic fashion’ in the *Mahāvaṃśa*.² The account of the *Mahāvaṃśa* is confirmed in important particulars by the Chola inscriptions of the period; these inscriptions also leave no room for doubt that both the Ceylonese and the Chola versions of this war are partisan accounts from which it is difficult to sift the truth. The *Mahāvaṃśa* gives the story in chapters 76 and 77. The Chola inscriptions mentioning the civil war and the events in it are:
c13.31
¹ A record (101 of 1908) from Tirupputtūr in the fifth year of Tribhuvanacakravartin Kulaśēkharadēva which gives details which yield July 23, A.D. 1166, seems to belong to Mar. Śrīvallabha’s son and successor—the Kulaśēkhara of the civil war; his accession would then count from A.D. 1161-62. See Sewell, *I.A.*, vol. xliv, p. 255, following Mr. L. D. Swamikkannu Pillai.
c13.32
² Still the best discussion of the war is Mr. Venkayya’s in *A.R.E.* 1899. Secondary accounts are found in Mr. K. V. S. Aiyar, *Ancient Dekhan*, pp. 154-61 and Dr. S. Aiyangar, *S. India and Her Muhamadan Invaders*, pp. 1-11.
c13.33
20 of 1899—Ārpākkam stone inscription of fifth year of Parakēsarivarman Rājādhirājadēva.
c13.34
besides No. 1 of 1899—Tirukkoḷambūdūr stone inscription in the fourth year of Kulōttunga III, acording to Mr. Venkayya.
c13.35
According to the *Mahāvamśa* the war was undertaken after the sixteenth year of Parākramabāhu I, i.e. after A.D. 1168-9. But the Ārpākkam inscription of Rājādhirāja is dated in his fifth year which began in A.D. 1167 and shows that the war must have begun before that date. It is not easy to say whether the discrepancy is due to an error in the *Mahāvamśa* chronology or in that of the Arpākkam record. Attention may be drawn however to the fact that in the Arpākkam record and in some others¹ the Chola king is called Parakēsarivarman whereas the usual epithet of Rājādhirāja II (*acc.* A.D. 1163) is Rājākēsarivarman. It must also be noticed that if Śrīvallabha reigned till A.D. 1169 the war commenced more probably after A.D. 1168-9. In any case, the error is not much and the exact manner of adjusting it will have to be decided after further study.²
c13.36
¹ *S.I.I.*, vol. iii, p. 207.
c13.37
² See Hultzsch, *J.R.A.S.*, 1913, pp. 518-9. Dr. S. K. Aiyangar starts his account of the war with the statement 'In A.D. 1170 or 1171 there were two rival claimants to the throne of Madura,' (p. 2, *op. cit.*) and in a note at pp. 41-2 proposes A.D. 1171-2 for the accession of Rājādhirāja II referring to *A.R.E.*, 1904, para 21. But the matter is not simple and seems to deserve further investigation.
c13.38
The *Mahāvamśa* account opens with the siege of Madura, which was in the occupation of Parākrama Pāndya, by Kulaśēkhara. Kulaśēkhara was probably the son of Śrīvallabha and the legitimate claimant to the throne. We do not know who Parākrama was and how he got to be in Madura. It will be remembered, however, that Māravarman Śrīvallabha is said to have ruled from Tinnevelly and this would mean that Kulaśēkhara on his accession must have done so too; and in this we may have some explanation of the occupation of the northern part of the Pāndya country by a rival prince.
c13.39
A tempting suggestion offers itself and may be stated here with the reservation that it cannot be taken as proved until further evidence confirms it. A very interesting record (35 of 1913) in the fourth year of a Parākrama Pāndya incidentally refers to the fourth year of Vikrama Chola and to Perumāl Kulōttungadēva, which must be taken to mean Kulōttunga II, the successor of Vikrama Chola. The object of the inscription is to record the renewal of a charter of privileges granted to certain Pallis in the Aduturai temple several years before, when they rescued some images of the Aduturai temple which were being removed to Halēbīd, apparently as a result of a military raid into the Chola country by the Hoysala king Visnuvardhana I who claims to have marched right up to Rāmēsvaram. The privileges were renewed in the fourth year of Parākrama Pāndya, as stated above, and if this Parākrama was the same as the opponent of Kulaśēkhara, then it would mean that Parākrama had been ruling from Madura for some time as a separate ruler independent of Kulaśēkhara when the latter attacked him; or it may be that he started as a subordinate ruler at first and that Kulaśēkhara attacked him when he sought to make himself independent.¹
c13.40
¹ A.R.E., 1913, part ii, paras 46-7.
c13.41
However that might have been, when Kulaśēkhara attacked him, Parākrama appealed for aid to Parākramabāhu of Ceylon, who sent an army under the general Lankāpura. But before the Singhalese forces came to the mainland, Kulaśēkhara succeeded in capturing and putting to death Parākrama with his queen and children and in occupying the city of Madura. But the king of Ceylon wanted his general to proceed against Kulaśēkhara and, after driving him out, to bestow the Pāndyan kingdom on one of the surviving children of the murdered Pāndyan king. And thus began the war which, as it is narrated in the Mahāvamśa, was nothing but a triumphant progress of victory upon victory against Kulaśēkhara, won at first by Lankāpura and later by Lankāpura and Jagad Vijaya who had joined him with reinforcements, until in the end Kulaśēkhara was expelled from the Pāndyan kingdom and Vīra Pāndya, the son of Parākrama Pāndya, was crowned at Madura.¹ It is not necessary to trace these skirmishes in detail as the Mahāvamśa account is not yet corroborated in material particulars and as it is not easy now to identify many small places whose names have been more or less distorted in the chronicle. It may be noticed, however, that Kulaśēkhara found it possible after successive defeats to place fresh armies in the field and it was not till sometime after Vīra Pāndya’s coronation that he turned to the Cholas for help against the Singhalese troops. The intervention of the Cholas made no difference to the fortunes of Kulaśēkhara, who sustained still further defeats and at last the Singhalese general was satisfied that he had rid the country of the enemy and, before going back to Ceylon, made over the kingdom to Vīra Pāndya, and ordered that the Kahāpana coin bearing the superscription of king Parakkama, i.e. Parākramabāhū should be used throughout the country.' So far the Mahāvamśa.
c13.42
¹ It is just likely that the Sucīndram record beginning பூமடந்தையும் ஜயமடந்தையும் (Trav. Arch. Series, vol. ii, pp. 18ff.) is an inscription of this Vīra Pāndya. If that is so, Vīra Pāndya must have married a Kērala princess after his campaign mentioned in l. 3 of the record and this will explain his flight to Travancore after his final defeat. It may be noted that this record registers a gift almost immediately after the coronation. Mr. Gopinatha Rao in editing this record mixes up this Vīra Pāndya with the conqueror of Ilam and Kongu (acc. A.D. 1253) and the Kulaśēkhara of this civil war with Mar. Kulaśēkhara (acc. A.D. 1268).
c13.43
There need be little doubt that this account is very one-sided. The Ceylon generals are said to have given presents to several chiefs in the Pāndya country and these 'look like bribes offered to win them over from their allegiance to Kulaśēkhara'. Thus the success against Kulaśēkhara was not always won on the field of battle. And after the Chola intervention, it would seem that the Ceylon troops actually lost ground and sustained defeats and it may be suspected that the evacuation of the Pāndya country by Lankāpura was not an entirely voluntary retirement after the successful completion of the task laid on him by his master.
c13.44
Till recently almost the only epigraphical record which gave a hint as to the fortunes of the Ceylon troops was the Arpākkam inscription which contains a quaint account of a miracle wrought in connection with the war. 'The army of Ceylon having taken possession of the Pāndya country, drove away king Kulaśēkhara, who was in Madura and then began to fight in battle the feudatories of the great king Śrī Rājādhirājadēvā. The danger consequent upon the war spreading to the districts of Tondi and Pāśi combined with the (easy) way in which the army of Ceylon gained victories, struck terror into (the hearts of) people both in the Chola country and in other districts.' At this juncture, a certain Edirili Sōla Sāmbuvarāyan felt great anxiety for his son, who had gone to fight at the head of the Chola forces and approached a holy man Svāmidēva with the request that he should pray for divine intercession against the Ceylonese. Thereupon, His Holiness was pleased to declare: 'This, the army of Ceylon, which consists of very vicious and wicked men, removed the sacred door of the temple of the god at the holy Rāmēśvaram, obstructed the worship and carried away all the treasures of the temple. We also learn that they are all sinners against Siva. We shall make the necessary attempts for their flight and disappearance (?) after being completely defeated in battle and after being chased.' ‘ Accordingly, he was pleased to worship (Śiva) for twenty-eight days continually. Subsequently, messengers arrived from my (Śāmbuvarāyan's) son Pallavarāyar bringing a letter (to me) reporting that Jayadratha Daṇḍanāyaka and Laṅkāpura Daṇḍanāyaka and the other generals and the troops fled having been defeated.’ This is the account that is dated in the fifth year of Parakēsari Rājādhirāja and that causes some difficulty, as we have seen, in the chronology of the war. Another record in the eighth year of Rājādhirāja wherein he is given his usual title Rājakēsari (No. 433 of 1924) is more historical in that it contains nothing supernatural ; it is also more direct in its reference to the war. ‘ When the king of Ceylon (ஈழத்தரையன்) sent his army and generals to conquer and annex the Pāndya country, the Pāndya king Kulaśēkhara fled from his kingdom and sought refuge with the Chola and entreated him to recover his kingdom for him. Thereupon the latter was pleased to direct that Kulaśēkhara be reinstalled on his throne after killing the Ceylonese commander and his lieutenants who had entered the Pāndya country and nailing up their heads over the gates of Madura. In accordance with the direction of the Chola king, Kulaśēkharadēva, during his stay in the Chola country, was entertained with deserving liberality. With enough forces, funds and zeal the Pāndya country was reconquered by the Cholas, Laṅkāpuri Daṇḍanāyaka and his generals being put to death and their heads nailed on to the gateway of Madura. Arrangements were then made for the entry of Kulaśēkharadēva into Madura after taking necessary precautions against the future annexation of the Pāṇḍya country to Īlam.' It was the minister Pallavarāyar who did all this.¹
c13.45
¹ A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 21. ² Referring to No. 3 of 1899 of the eleventh year of Rājakēsari Rājādhirāja in which he bears the title 'who had conquered Madura and Ceylon', Mr. Venkayya says (A.R.E., 1899, para 38 :- 'If this king is identical with Parakēsarivarman alias Rājādhirāja Dēvan, who was an ally of the Pāṇḍya king Kulaśēkhara, the attribute prefixed to his name in the Ālaṅguḍi inscription, which would be six years later than the Ārpākkam one, was probably based on the victories achieved by the Cholas during his reign in
c13.46
It will be readily seen that these two inscriptions agree with the Mahāvaṃśa in important particulars. The names of Daṇḍanāyaka Laṅkāpuri and the Madura king Kulaśēkhara and the intervention of the Cholas in favour of Kulaśēkhara are common to them all. But both the epigraphs refer to defeats sustained by the Ceylon forces about which the Mahāvaṃśa is silent; and there is a rather grave disagreement in detail between the two inscriptions as to the fate of the Ceylon generals: the Arpākkam record states that they returned to Ceylon after their defeat by Pallavarāyar, while the other inscription says that their heads were nailed to the gates of Madura by order of the Chola king. And if we recall that a still later record of the twelfth year of Rājakēsari Rājādhirāja (465 of 1905) refers to this same war and to the part played in it by a traitor named Śrīvallabha, it becomes clear that many gaps still remain to be filled in our account of the war.
c13.47
That this war did not end with the retreat of Laṅkāpura and the restoration of Kulaśēkhara by the Cholas becomes clear from the Chola records of the succeeding years,² specially those of Kulōttunga III, the successor of Rājādhirāja II. We do not know how long Kulaśēkhara lived after the restoration; it may have been at most for about a decade from the eighth year of Rājādhirāja to the second or third of Kulōttunga III—A.D. 1170-80 roughly. Thereupon he seems to have been succeeded by a Vikrama Pāndya¹ and on the accession of Vikrama Pāndya, Vīra Pāndya appears to have made another attempt, again with Ceylonese help, to dislodge the Kulaśēkhara line; once more the Cholas came to the aid of the latter and the war was renewed. An undated inscription, later than the fourth year of Kulōttunga (1 of 1899), i.e., A.D. 1182, records that ‘the son or sons of Vīra Pāndya were defeated by the Chola army. The Singhalese soldiers had their noses cut off and rushed into the sea to escape from the Chola troops. Vīra Pāndya himself was attacked by the Cholas and compelled to retreat. The town of Madura was captured and the Chola army took possession of the Pāndya throne and planted a pillar of victory (at Madura). The town of Madura, the Pāndya throne and the kingdom
c13.48
¹ We hear of a Sundara Pāndya co-operating with Kulaśēkhara in a subordinate capacity in the Mahāvamśa account of the war and do not know how he was related to Kulaśēkhara or what happened to him,
c13.49
a later campaign against Vīra Pāndya and his Singhalese allies in which Kulōttunga III distinguished himself, and in consequence, assumed a surname similar to that of Rājādhirājadēva’ (see S.I.I., vol. iii, part i, No. 36). But may it not be that Rājādhirāja assumed the surname merely as a result of Pallavarāyar’s campaigns against Lankāpuri? Mr. Venkayya himself noticed in the same place No. 1 of 1899 and found subsequently other records of Kulōttunga III which give reasons for Kulōttunga’s surname (A.R.E., 1907, p. 62, para 40 and 1908, p. 67 para 64). Moreover, further research has shown that Kulōttunga III could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years of age in the eleventh year of Rājādhirāja’s reign. (A.R.E., 1924, part ii, para 20).
c13.50
It may also be noticed that No. 1 of 1899 is not dated in the fourth year of Kulōttunga III, but appears to be of some date later than his fourth year. (S.I.I. Texts, vol. vi.—No. 436, esp. 1. 15.)
c13.51
were then made over to Vikrama Pāṇḍya, who was an ally of the Cholas.¹ The same incidents are recorded in later inscriptions of Kulōttunga III with small variations.¹ The title ‘capturer of the Pāṇḍya country’ assumed by Ammaiyappan Rājarāja Śāmbuvarāya, as early as the fourth year of the king (A.D. 1182) shows that he rendered valuable help to his Chola overlord, by whom he must have been so honoured.² Kulōttunga himself assumed the title Pāṇḍyāri and performed the *Virābhiṣeka* after the capture of Madura.³ This was apparently after a second rebellion by Vīra Pāṇḍya and a battle at Neṭṭūr in which he was beaten and captured with his queen as recorded in an inscription of the eleventh year of Kulōttunga (A.D. 1188–89). Two records of the sixteenth year (42 and 43 of 1906) mention the flight of Vīra Pāṇḍya and his relatives seeking refuge in Travancore.⁴ And an inscription in the nineteenth year furnishes the comment on the phrase பாண்டியனை முடித்தலை கொண்டருளிய employed in the record of the eleventh year and states that Kulōttunga placed his foot on Vīra Pāṇḍya’s crown (அவன் முடிமேல் அடி வைத்து) and then gave him some presents and dismissed him.⁵ It must have been after this that Vīra Pāṇḍya proceeded to Travancore as recorded in the sixteenth year. We do not know anything as to what happened to him afterwards. Whatever happened to Vīra Pāndya and his relatives, it seems clear that Kulōttunga succeeded in establishing Vikrama Pāndya on the Pāndya throne and thus putting an end to all disputes about the succession in which the Cholas and the Ceylon kings had taken sides for over a decade. But it is not yet possible to ascribe any inscriptions with confidence to this Vikrama Pāndya and we cannot say if he was the immediate predecessor or not of Jatāvarman Kulasēkhara who came to the throne of the Pāndyas in A.D. 1190; the allusion to the time of Periyanāyanār Srīvallabha in a record of Kulasēkhara (No. 110 of 1907) must however be borne in mind in coming to a conclusion on this question.¹
c13.52
¹ A.R.E., 1899, para 38 ; Ins. Nos. 66 of 1892 ; 42 and 43 of 1906 ; 190–192 of 1907 ; and 94 of 1918. Also S.I.I., vol. iii, pp. 205–6 ; No. 86, pp. 210–11 and No. 88, p. 217.
c13.53
² A.R.E., 1918, part ii, para 39.
c13.54
³ A.R.E., 1908, part ii, para 64. Also S.I.I., vol. iii, p. 214, inscription No. 87 (ll. 2–4).
c13.55
⁴ Ref. in the preceding note and A.R.E., 1907, part ii, para 40.
c13.56
⁵ Dr. S. K. Aiyangar thinks that the explanation of Hultzsch, which I have followed in the text, is not supported by the phrases employed in the inscription, p. 13 and n. 2 of p. 14 of S. India and Her Muhammadan Invaders. It is not possible to reconcile the view that his head was cut off in the eleventh year of Kulōttunga after the battle of Neṭṭūr, with Vīra Pāṇḍya’s escape to Travancore recorded in the sixteenth year. Hultzsch’s explanation may, for this reason, be preferred.
c13.57
¹ Dr. S. K. Aiyangar thinks: ‘It is just possible that this Kulasēkhara (acc. A.D. 1190) was the son of Vikrama and the grandson of the Kulasēkhara whose cause the Cholas supported in the war of succession.’—Op. cit. p. 44. Contra Rangacharya under Tj. 918=539 of 1904.
c13.58
The intervention of Kulōttunga III in favour of Vikrama was apparently the last occasion on which the Cholas were able to interfere effectively in the affairs of the southern kingdom. ‘Either during the latter portion of his reign or on his death, the power of the Cholas seems to have declined, though the causes cannot now be easily ascertained. He was succeeded about the year A.D. 1216 by his son Tribhuvanacakravartin Rājarājadēva III whose capacity for military organization does not appear to have been very high. He has no exploits to boast of. . . . It was evidently the weakness of the Cholas that led to the occupation of the Chola country by the Hoysalas under Vīra Sōmēśvara and to the conquest of Kānchi by the Kākatīya king Ganapati.’² After the close of the civil dissensions in the Pāndya country brought about by Kulōttunga’s intervention, the Pāndya kings appear to have recovered remarkably and it turned out that Kulōttunga had thus only increased the difficulties of his successor and forced him to seek the help of the Hoysalas—a step which only added still further to his troubles and those of the Chola empire. But we are touching on the political conditions out of which was to grow the Second Empire of the Pāndyas which lasted in great power throughout the thirteenth century A.D.
c13.59
² A.R.E., 1900, paras 29 and 30.
Linked texts (3)
- Kaliṅkattupparaṇi — Ceyaṅkoṇṭār, Tamil
- Mahāvaṃsa — Pāli
- South Indian Inscriptions