The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c20.38

c20.38

Arikēsari Parākrama who had also the titles Mānakavaca and Mānabhūṣaṇa is known to have ruled for forty years from A.D. 1422.¹ His inscriptions are numerous and some of them contain a long historical introduction in Tamil beginning Pū-miśai-vanitai. He claims to have won several victories over his enemies at various small places mostly in the Tinnevelly district and to have defeated the kings of Kēraḷa. If he is identical with the Pāṇḍya king of Madura vanquished by Narasa Nāyaka,² as perhaps he is, he must be taken to have been in possession of Madura for the best part of his reign, as the campaign of Narasa cannot be placed much earlier than the closing years of Parākrama's reign. He is also called Koṟkaivēndan, an indication that the sea-board of Tinnevelly was still in his control. But the greatest event of his reign was undoubtedly the building of the Viśvanātha temple at Tenkāśi. The erection of this fine structure was undertaken by the king after the Lord appeared before him in a dream and asked him to make a new habitation for him at Southern Kāśi as his original abode in the Kāśi of the north had become dilapidated. The construction took seventeen years and the towers (gōpurams) were still unfinished at the time of the king's death. The king's unbounded piety and his great love of art are evident from a number of verses in which he makes a moving appeal to his successors to safeguard and extend the temple he raised in his day. Arikēsari also made a large tank called Viśvanāthappērēri and erected maṇḍapas in Śiva temples in several places. Arikēsari Parākrama had two brothers Kulaśēkhara alias Śrīvallabha who completed the construction of the towers in the Tenkāśi temple and an Arikēśvara.¹ It is not clear what led to the succession passing to the nephews of Arikēsari; nor is it possible to determine whether these nephews are identical with Abhirāma Parākrama and Āhavarāma with whom the regular genealogy begins in the copper-plates.