The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c14.2

c14.2

AFTER the close of the civil wars and the secure restoration by Kulōttunga III of Vikrama Pāndya to the throne of Madura, the Pāndya kingdom recovered rapidly much of the power and glory that characterized it in the days before the sack of Madura by Parāntaka I. We have at present no means of judging how far Vikrama Pāndya himself profited by his opportunity. He seems to have had on the whole a troubled time, and he was apparently a weak ruler who depended more on Kulōttunga’s support than on his own strength for defending himself against the attacks of his enemies. Even when he had occupied the throne for seven or eight years, it needed Kulōttunga’s intercession to maintain his power, when Vīra Pāndya attacked him in some force about A.D. 1187. After the campaign which ended in the defeat of Vīra Pāndya at Nettūr, Kulōttunga held a great durbar in the Pāndya capital at which Vīra Pāndya and his Chera contemporary did him obeisance and Kulōttunga placed his foot on the head of the former.¹ Thus, almost throughout his reign—Vikrama does not seem to have long survived the events just mentioned—Vikrama Pāndya was a feudatory of Kulōttunga III whose hold on the country was apparently real and effective. There comes, however, a decisive change in this relation between the Chola and the Pāndya rulers even during the life-time of Kulōttunga III with the accession of Jatāvarman Kulaśēkhara (A.D. 1190). From this time on, almost to the end of the thirteenth century, the power of the Pāndyas attained great strength and expanded as far north as Nellore and Cuddapah; a succession of able and truly distinguished rulers in the main line made this Second Empire a real power in the politics of South India in their age. Their successes in war, their patronage of literature and the arts, and the methods of their rule are amply borne out by the numerous records they have left behind. On the other hand, the power of the Cholas after Kulōttunga III declined to a very low ebb and dwindled into insignificance; and this was, no doubt, one of the factors that favoured the rise of the Second Empire of the Pāndyas.