The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13.30

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: