The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13.46

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.