The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c18.13

c18.13

Sundara Pāndya is said to have suffered defeat in the end and taken refuge with Ala-ud-din. This has led practically all historians to suppose that Sundara Pāndya's appeal against Vīra furnished the occasion for Malik Kafur's invasion of the Pāndya country. Col. Yule stated: ‘Sundar Bandi went to Ala-ud-din, Sultan of Delhi, and sought help. The Sultan eventually sent his general Hazardinari (*alias* Malik Kafur) to conquer Ma'bar’¹ and he has been generally followed by all writers who came after him and it has been sometimes assumed that Malik Kafur's invasion of the Pāndya kingdom was undertaken partly in furtherance of Sundara Pāndya's claims to the throne.² There seems to be little reason furnished by our sources for the view that the Muhammadan was interested in helping Sundara Pāndya back to his throne or that his invasion was caused by the quarrels between the brothers. Wassaf, the only writer who gives a full account of the disputed succession in the Pāndya country, does not connect Malik Kafur's invasion with the flight of Sundara Pāndya to Ala-ud-din's court. In fact his account of the invasion of Ma'bar precedes his narrative of the fraternal war in the Pāndya kingdom and his scheme of chronology is likewise against the usual view. He places the invasion of Ma'bar in the month of Rajab of the year 710 H. (December, A.D. 1310) and the flight of Sundara to Ala-ud-din was after the middle of the year 710, that is about the same time. It is possible to suggest that Sundara fled not to Ala-ud-din himself but to his general in the south, Malik Kafur, and sought his aid¹. This does seem a satisfactory solution of the chronological difficulty. But if Wassaf's account is to be followed faithfully, it must be held that Sundara Pāndya did not gain much by his appeal to Malik Kafur. For he leaves no room for doubt that Malik Kafur's invasion of the Pāndya country had no other results than the plunder of some cities, and that the attack on the Pāndya ruler who actually held sway at the time was substantially a failure. 'Some of the towns were obtained through the animosity *which has lately arisen* between the two brothers; when at last a large army, attended by numerous elephants of war, was sent out to oppose the Muhammadans. Malik Nabu, who thought himself a very Saturn, was obliged to retreat, and bring back his army.'² In fact the expressions used by Wassaf in this passage, specially the words 'the animosity which has lately arisen between the two brothers', seem to indicate that so far as Malik Kafur was concerned he made no