The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c18.s1: The Muhammadan Invasion
The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c18.s1
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The Muhammadan Invasion
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difference between the two brothers and was ready to plunder either as opportunity arose, and that the animosity did not abate even after Malik Kafur's invasion. It should, however, be noticed that the same historian mentions that Tira Pandi sent 'an army of horse and foot' to the assistance of the Hoysala king against Malik Kafur, and this was the only ground for Malik Kafur being more inimical to Vīra Pāṇḍya than to Sundara. On the other hand, Ziau-d-din Barni states that 'in Ma'bar there were two Rais, but all the elephants and treasure were taken from both, and the army turned homewards flushed with victory'.¹ Of the campaign in Ma'bar Amir Khusru gives a very detailed account, which, however, is not easy to follow on account of the difficulty in identifying the places mentioned by him. But like Barni, he mentions the sack and plunder of temples, resulting in the capture of great booty. He also adds that Malik Kafur and his army 'arrived at the city of Mathra (Madura), the dwelling place of the brother of the Rai Sundar Pāṇḍya. They found the city empty, for the Rai had fled with the Ranis, but had left two or three elephants in the temple of Jagnar. The elephants were captured and the temple burnt.' Both Amir Khusru who gives a detailed chronology of the campaign stage by stage and Barni seem to place the campaign a few months later than Wassaf. In fact all our authorities are agreed that the differences between Sundara Pāṇḍya and Vīra Pāṇḍya made the Pāṇḍya country an easy prey to foreign aggressors, the Hoysala Ballāla and the Muhammadan Malik Kafur; they do not suggest that Malik Kafur's invasion of Ma'bar was either caused by these differences or undertaken in the interest of one of the parties and on an appeal from him, and they say nothing as to the effects of the invasion on the relative position of the two royal brothers of the Pāndya country. There is thus no reason to suppose that Sundara Pāndya was restored to the throne of Madura and that a Muhammadan garrison was left behind in the city for his protection.¹
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¹ Elliot and Dowson, vol. iii, pp. 90-1 and 204.
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¹ Contra Dr. S. K. Aiyangar, *op. cit.*, p. 123, where Kulaśēkhara is an obvious slip for Sundara and pp. 156-7. Dr. Aiyangar, however, says that if a garrison continued in Madura ' its authority must have been confined very narrowly, not extending in all probability to very much beyond the territory immediately round Madura ' (p. 123). Hultzsch (J.R.A.S., 1909, pp. 668-9), leaves it uncertain when the Muhammadan viceroyalty at Madura began. In the *Cambridge History of India*, vol. iii, p. 116, Sir Wolseley Haig says ' A Muslim governor was left at Madura ' by Malik Kafur ; it is not clear on what authority this statement is based though it is also found in Smith's *Oxford History of India*, p. 233. Likewise it is difficult to follow Sir W. Haig in his statement that Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara of Kērala was one of the two kings of Ma'bar conquered and plundered by Malik Naib. The attempt to extract history from the confused chronicles in the Taylor MSS. (e.g. Heras, *Aravīdu Dynasty*, p. 100) seems a hopeless task.
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In fact, the epigraphical records of Vīra Pāndya and Sundara Pāndya and their successors give the impression of a more or less continuous rule of the Pāndya country by them and we have records of Vīra and Sundara dated a few years after the withdrawal of Malik Kafur.² The only effect of Malik Kafur's inroad was to add to the confusion in the country already distracted by the civil war among the rulers of the land. The real Muhammadan conquest of South India came later, and even then it was short-lived and ineffective. Within ten years of Malik Kafur’s sack of Madura, another Sultan of Delhi sent an army under Khusru Khan to plunder the country again, and it is not easy to see how this was possible if the country had been already subjected to the sway of the Sultan of Delhi, with a regular Muhammadan government established at Madura.¹ The truth seems to be that no ruler of Delhi before Muhammad bin Tughlak ever contemplated the permanent annexation of the extreme south of the peninsula as an administrative province of the Empire of Delhi, though the Sultans had no objection to send out expeditions which returned with a vast amount of plundered wealth. This view gains support from the fact that the coins of no earlier Sultan have been found in the Madura district. We may conclude therefore that there is as yet no evidence of the Muhammadans having established themselves in Madura earlier than the first years of Muhammad bin Tughlak. On this view Jalaluddin Ahsan Shah, who set himself up as the independent Sultan of Madura in or about A.D. 1329-30, was also the first governor of Ma’bar appointed as such by the Sultan of Delhi.² This conquest of South India in the beginning of Muhammad’s reign, which is not so well known as the earlier raids, has been discussed very fully by Dr. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar in his account of the foundation of the Sultanate of Madura.
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² No. 358 of 1922 of year 14 of Vīra ; No. 104 of 1918 of year 21 ; 305 of 1923 of year 22 and others. Also No. 608 of 1915 giving Śaka 1236 = 12 year of Jatāvarman Sundara Pāndya (*acc.* A.D. 1302-3). Contra Mr. L.D. Swamikannu Pillai (*Indian Ephemeris*, vol. i, part ii, p. 106) who thinks there are no records of Vīra Pāndya between his fourteenth and fortieth years, follows an antiquated system of chronology for the Muhammadan chiefs of Madura and makes needless difficulties over a record in the twenty-first year of Vīra Pāndya (No. 639 of 1916). But he grants that Sundara Pāndya had a continuous rule.
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¹ See Dr. S. K. Aiyangar, *op. cit.*, p. 157 and Barni at p. 219 of *Elliot and Dowson*, vol. iii.
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² *J.R.A.S.*, 1909, pp. 671 and 682. Also Dr. S. K. Aiyangar, *op. cit.*, pp. 157 ff.
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The social and economic effects of the advent of the Muhammadans in South India can, however, by no means be exaggerated. The records of the period bear but meagre testimony to the amount of suffering and he made the best use of his position. His inscriptions are found in Śrīrangam, Kānchīpuram and Poonamallee, which last bears the name *Chera-Pāndya-Caturvēdi-mangalam*. In his Kānchīpuram inscription dated in the fourth year of his reign, A.D. 1315-1316, he claims to have defeated Vīra Pāndya, made the Pāndyas and Cholas subject to the Kēralas and at the age of forty-six (i.e. about A.D. 1312-1313) to have been crowned on the banks of the Vēgavatī.¹ ‘The grantha inscription engraved in Poonamallee (No. 34 of 1911) states that the Chera king conquered Sundara Pāndya and granted the village *Chera-Pāndya-Caturvēdi-mangalam* for the enjoyment of the Brahmins. The figure of a fish surmounted by an *ankuśa*, i.e. ‘the elephant’s goad, which is depicted on the right margin of the record (No. 33 of 1911), also indicates the subjection of the Pāndya king by the Chera.’² Thus both Vīra Pāndya and Sundara Pāndya were conquered by Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara and these kings could have been no other than the two unfortunate sons of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara.³
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¹ Mr. Venkayya’s doubts (*A.R.E.*, 1900, para 15) as to how Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara was able to accomplish so much in the face of the Muham-madans who would have been very strong in Madura at this time have been met by our view of the invasion of Malik Kafur. Kielhorn and Hultzsch identified the Vēgavatī with ‘a small river which flows into the Pālāru near Kānchīpuram’ (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 146). But there seems to be no great difficulty in taking it to be the better known river in the Madura district. Another inscription seems to imply that A.D. 1313 fell in the fourth year of the king’s reign (*E.I.*, vol. viii, p. 8).
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² If this is correct, Garudadhvaja in l. 5 of the Arulālaperumāl inscription (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 147) must perhaps be rendered ‘Garuda-column’ rather than ‘Garuda-banner’ as Kielhorn does. (See *A.R.E.*, 1911, part ii, para 40.)
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³ There may be some doubt as to the identity of Vīra Pāndya but none as to that of Sundara. There seem to have been two Vīra Pāndyas among the foes of Ravivarman. One of them was the Pāndya king whose accession was in A.D. 1296-7; the other possibly a ruler of Vēnād who seems to have sought refuge in Konkan (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 148 and note 4 on p. 146).
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The Kēraḷa ruler, however, was not for long left in the enjoyment of the fruits of his victory. For very soon after, he seems to have been ousted from Kāñchīpura by the advance of Muppiḍi Nāyaka the lord of Vikramasiṃhapaṭṭaṇa, that is, probably the governor of Nellore, and the general of the Kākatīya king Pratāparudradēva. He is said to have conquered a Pāndya king and levied a tribute of elephants from him. This king might have been Sundara Pāndya as a record in his fourteenth year states that he instituted a service called after Muppiḍi Nāyaka in the temple at Vriddhācalam (South Arcot). Muppiḍi is said to have installed a governor at Kāñchīpura by name Mānavīra. This expedition of the Kākatīya general seems therefore to have brought the northern part of the Pāndya empire for a time under the control, more or less effective, of the Telugu rulers of Orangal.¹
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¹ See A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 73 and 1918, part ii, para 50.
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These defeats at the hands of foreign invaders following so quickly upon one another must have shaken the hold of the Pāndya rulers on the territories they subjugated and held during the thirteenth century outside the Pāndya country proper. It is not possible to trace fully the steps by which this disintegration was brought about, but we see, about this time, signs of the growing feeling among the feudatories of the kingdom that they might ignore the central power with impunity. One of the Śāmbuvarāyas of North Arcot, who were at first subject to the Cholas and later became the dependants of the Pāndya rulers, Kulaśēkhara Śāmbuvarāya, set up as an independent ruler at this time and began to date his inscriptions in his own regnal years. This Śāmbuvarāya apparently acknowledged the authority of Vīra Pāndya till the twenty-second year of his reign, privation that must have been the lot of the common people at this time. The loss in wealth was real. The country was drained of its treasure by the trade of the Arabs from across the sea and the plunder of the armies of the Sultans of Delhi. Wassaf tells us that a certain ‘eminent prince’ Takiuddin occupied high positions of power and prestige in the administration of the country under the Sundara Pāndya, who died about A.D. 1292, and for sometime afterwards.¹ Barni laments the rapacity and villainy of Khusru Khan which did not spare even a Muhammadan merchant Taki Khan whose great wealth was taken from him by force, himself being afterwards put to death.² The desecration of temples by the invading hosts and the horror with which their acts of vandalism filled the minds of the people who had till then been strangers to such sights, are occasionally evidenced by the inscriptions. Two of these come from Tirupputtūr (Ramnad district)³ and are dated in the forty-fourth and forty-sixth years of Jatāvarman Vīra Pāndya, that is, about A.D. 1339-41. These records give an account of the reconsecration of a Śiva temple and the gratitude of the villagers to the magnate who undertook the task and completed it. ‘The temple of Tiruttaḷiyāṇḍa-Nāyaṇār at Tirupputtūr is stated to have been occupied by the encamped Muhammadans (Tulukkar), “whose time it was”, and to have been ruined. In consequence of this the inhabitants of Tirupputtūr became unsettled. At this juncture a certain Viśayālayadēvar of Kūraikkuḍi (Śūraikkuḍi?), surnamed Avaiyan Periyanāyaṇār, reconsecrated the temple and saved the people apparently from an imminent moral and religious degradation. The villagers of Tirupputtūr, of their free will, agreed among themselves to show their gratitude to Viśayālayadēva by assigning to him a specified quantity of corn from the harvest reaped by each individual, and to confer on him certain privileges in the temple of Tiruttāḷiyāṇḍa-Nāyaṉār.’
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¹ Elliot and Dowson, vol. iii, pp. 32 and 35.
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² Ibid., p. 219.
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³ Nos. 119 and 120 of 1908 and A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 27. Also Dr. S. K. Aiyangar, op. cit., pp. 117 and 183.
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Malik Kafur’s inroad into the Madura country, though it did not bring the Pāṇḍya territories into subjection to the Sultanate of Delhi, nevertheless marked the beginning of the end of the Second Empire of the Pāṇḍyas. The effects of the disputed succession and the Muhammadan invasion are seen in the subjection, however temporary, of the Pāṇḍyas to their Kēraḷa contemporary, Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara, followed by the permanent loss of the northern districts of the Tamil land to the Kākatīya ruler of the Telugu country and the growing independence of the feudatories of the Pāṇḍya kingdom. From this time on, the history of the Pāṇḍyas becomes the story of a progressive decline which ends in the restriction of their sway to portions of the Tinnevelly district and, towards the close of the sixteenth century, in their final disappearance from the pages of history.
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Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara¹—also called Saṅgrāmadhīra ‘firm in battle’—ruled in Travancore with Quilon as his capital. He came to power about A.D. 1311-1312 and was almost the only South Indian monarch who was left untouched by the storm of Malik Kafur’s raid. This immunity left him at an advantage over his neighbours when Malik Kafur turned his back on South India, and he made the best use of his position. His inscriptions are found in Śrīrangam, Kānchīpuram and Poonamallee, which last bears the name *Chera-Pāndya-Caturvēdimangalam*. In his Kānchīpuram inscription dated in the fourth year of his reign, A.D. 1315-1316, he claims to have defeated Vīra Pāndya, made the Pāndyas and Cholas subject to the Kēralas and at the age of forty-six (i.e. about A.D. 1312-1313) to have been crowned on the banks of the Vēgavatī.¹ The grantha inscription engraved in Poonamallee (No. 34 of 1911) states that the Chera king conquered Sundara Pāndya and granted the village *Chera-Pāndya-Caturvēdi-mangalam* for the enjoyment of the Brahmins. The figure of a fish surmounted by an *ankuśa*, i.e. ‘the elephant’s goad, which is depicted on the right margin of the record (No. 33 of 1911), also indicates the subjection of the Pāndya king by the Chera.’² Thus both Vīra Pāndya and Sundara Pāndya were conquered by Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara and these kings could have been no other than the two unfortunate sons of Māravarman Kulaśēkhara.³
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¹ On Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara see *E.I.*, vol. iv, pp. 145 ff; vol. viii, p. 8; *A.R.E.* 1900, para 15; 1911, part ii, para 40; 1914, part ii, para 24, etc., and *Trav. Arch. Series*, vol. ii, pp. 53 ff; also Dr. S. K. Aiyaṅgar, *op. cit.*, p. 124.
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¹ Mr. Venkayya’s doubts (*A.R.E.*, 1900, para 15) as to how Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara was able to accomplish so much in the face of the Muham-madans who would have been very strong in Madura at this time have been met by our view of the invasion of Malik Kafur. Kielhorn and Hultzsch identified the Vēgavatī with ‘a small river which flows into the Pālāru near Kānchīpuram’ (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 146). But there seems to be no great diffi-culty in taking it to be the better known river in the Madura district. Another inscription seems to imply that A.D. 1313 fell in the fourth year of the king’s reign (*E.I.*, vol. viii, p. 8).
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² If this is correct, *Garudadhvaja* in l. 5 of the Arulālaperumāl inscrip-tion (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 147) must perhaps be rendered ‘Garuda-column’ rather than ‘Garuda-banner’ as Kielhorn does. (See *A.R.E.*, 1911, part ii, para 40.)
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³ There may be some doubt as to the identity of Vīra Pāndya but none as to that of Sundara. There seem to have been two Vīra Pāndyas among the foes of Ravivarman. One of them was the Pāndya king whose accession was in A.D. 1296-7; the other possibly a ruler of Vēnād who seems to have sought refuge in Konkan (*E.I.*, vol. iv, p. 148 and note 4 on p. 146).
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The Kēraḷa ruler, however, was not for long left in the enjoyment of the fruits of his victory. For very soon after, he seems to have been ousted from Kāñchīpura by the advance of Muppiḍi Nāyaka the lord of Vikrama-siṃhapaṭṭaṇa, that is, probably the governor of Nellore, and the general of the Kākatīya king Pratāparudradēva. He is said to have conquered a Pāṇḍya king and levied a tribute of elephants from him. This king might have been Sundara Pāṇḍya as a record in his fourteenth year states that he instituted a service called after Muppiḍi Nāyaka in the temple at Vriddhācalam (South Arcot). Muppiḍi is said to have installed a governor at Kāñchīpura by name Mānavīra. This expedition of the Kākatīya general seems therefore to have brought the northern part of the Pāṇḍya empire for a time under the control, more or less effective, of the Telugu rulers of Orangal.¹
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¹ See A.R.E., 1909, part ii, para 73 and 1918, part ii, para 50.
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These defeats at the hands of foreign invaders following so quickly upon one another must have shaken the hold of the Pāṇḍya rulers on the territories they subjugated and held during the thirteenth century outside the Pāṇḍya country proper. It is not possible to trace fully the steps by which this disintegration was brought about, but we see, about this time, signs of the growing feeling among the feudatories of the kingdom that they might ignore the central power with impunity. One of the Śāmbuvarāyas of North Arcot, who were at first subject to the Cholas and later became the dependants of the Pāṇḍya rulers, Kulaśēkhara Śāmbuvarāya, set up as an independent ruler at this time and began to date his inscriptions in his own regnal years. This Śāmbuvarāya apparently acknowledged the authority of Vīra Pāṇḍya till the twenty-second year of his reign, that is, till about A.D. 1317-18 and subsequently declared himself independent. We are not, however, in a position to fix the exact date from which he counted his regnal years and began to issue orders in his own name showing the attainment of an independent or quasi-independent status by him.¹ It may be mentioned in passing that another feudatory of the Pāndya rulers of this period was Śēmāpiḷḷai, the son of Rājēndra III and almost the last representative of the Chola line. His inscriptions come largely from the region of the modern Pudukottah state.²
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¹ A.R.E., 1926, part ii, para 34, where Vīra Pāndya is taken to be the king of A.D. 1253. There is no reason to do this as Nos. 92 of 1900 and 195 of 1923 on which the identification rests mention only Vīra Pāndya and do not refer to the conquest of Iḷam, Kongu, etc.
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² A.R.E., 1915, part ii, para 37 and 1923, part ii, para 45.
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A few remarks on Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāndya (acc. A.D. 1302-1303) remain to be offered. The latest regnal year mentioned in his records seems to be 17, corresponding to A.D. 1319. He had the surname Kōdaṇḍarāman, and the coin with the legend Kōdaṇḍarāman on one side and the double fish on the other most probably belongs to him.³ This king, unlike Vīra Pāndya, did not evidently long survive the defeats at the hands of Ravivarman Kulaśēkhara and Muppiḍi Nāyaka.
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³ A.R.E., 1918, part ii, para 50. Contra K. V. S. Aiyar who (op. cit., p. 167) ascribes the title and the coin to the earlier king of the same name. But almost all the inscriptions mentioning the Kōdaṇḍarāman sandi are Kōnērinmaikoṇḍān records and do not give the characteristic titles of the earlier ruler. The astronomical details given in some of them seem to imply that Kōdaṇḍarāman was the later king.