The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c14.32

c14.32

Pāndya (*Pāndya disāpattanum*), and establisher of the Chola kingdom’. Another of the same date (Cn. 203) says—‘why describe his forcible capture of Adiyama, Chera, Pāndya, Magara and the powerful Kādavas? Rather describe how he lifted up Chola, brought under his orders all the land as far as Sētu.’ Narasimha is called ‘Indra to the mountain, the pride of the Pāndya champion’. (Ak. 82 of A.D. 1234). There is also a reference in a record of A.D. 1237 (Ak. 123)¹ to a victorious expedition (*digvijaya*) against the Pāndya and to ‘the sea roaring out with the sounds of great fish, sharks and alligators, saying to Pāndya kings, give up all, and live in peace as his servants.’ A much later record of one of his successors (Bl. 74) dated in A.D. 1261 says that Narasimha ‘setting up the Chola, who was covered up by the dust from the feet of the hosts of enemies, acquired fame as the establisher of the Chola and the destroyer of the Pāndya.’ Now, the vague reference to the sea advising the Pāndyas to surrender (Ak. 123) may be dismissed as poetic and also the reference to Narasimha’s fame as ‘destroyer of the Pāndya’ may be discounted as a late account not entitled to the same weight as the strictly contemporary references in the earlier records. The phrase ‘displacer of the Pāndya’ may be taken to furnish the clue to a correct estimate of the nature of Narasimha’s intervention on behalf of the Chola ruler. He did not want the Chola power to disappear altogether to the great aggrandizement of the Pāndya; he therefore made up his mind to help the Chola to regain his kingdom; this meant that the Pāndya ruler had to agree to restore the Chola country in the manner described already, and to that extent it was a setback to the Pāndya power. It is however quite possible that in the final settlement, the Pāndya and the Hoysala monarchs took each something for himself from the Chola empire. Such an end to this intervention may explain the conquests of Narasimha near Śrīrangam at this time, and the claim of tribute which Sundara Pāndya seems to have enforced successfully against the Chola for some years. In other words, Narasimha's intervention was as much diplomatic as it was military, as much in his own as it was in the Chola interest. We have no means of deciding whether the dynastic connection between the Hoysalas and the Pāndyas is to be dated before or after the events or was part of the settlement on this occasion.¹