The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13.41

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.