The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c13.51

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