The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c18.s1.19

c18.s1.19

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