The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13.2

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.