The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c20.6
The Pāṇḍyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c20.6
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c20.6.1
The failure of the Hoysalas in the war against the Madura Sultanate secured for it a respite of a little over two decades. During this period the country seems to have suffered from the effects of terrible misrule, but the Pāndyan rulers who had lost all capacity for resistance were permitted to lead an obscure and unhonoured existence. It must be noticed, however, that their inscriptions are found in the districts of Ramnad, Madura, Tanjore and South Arcot and the Pudukottah state almost up to A.D. 1370.² The state of the country under its Muhammadan rulers can be inferred from the observations of the African traveller, Ibn Batuta, who spent some time in the Sultan's court in the early years of the Sultanate. It also forms the subject of a poetic description in the *Madhurāvijayam* of Gaṅgā Dēvī.¹ The *Madhurāvijayam* is an almost contemporary poem in the conventional epic style in Sanskrit dealing with the conquest of the Madura Sultanate by Kumāra Kampana alias Vīrakamparāya. It is a composition of considerable literary merit by the wife of Kampana, and even in its present mutilated condition, the poem throws much welcome light on the political conditions of the time.
c20.6.2
We learn from the poem that some time after Kampana conquered the Śāmbuvarāya of the Rājagambhīrarājya and established his rule over Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam (Tundīra) with his capital at Marakatanagarī (another name for Kāñchī?), a mysterious lady appeared before Kamparāya and narrated to him in detail the wicked deeds of the Yavanas (Muham-madans) in the southern country. She said: ‘The temples in the land have fallen into neglect as worship in them has been stopped. Within their walls the frightful howls of jackals have taken the place of the sweet reverberations of the *mridanga*. Like the Turushkas who know no limits, the Kāvēri has forgotten her ancient boundaries and brings frequent destruction with her floods. The sweet odour of the sacrificial smoke and the chant of the Vedas have deserted the villages (*agrahāras*) which are now filled with the foul smell of roasted flesh and the fierce noises of the ruffianly Turushkas. The suburban gardens of Madura present a most painful sight; many of their beautiful cocoanut palms have been cut down; and on every side are seen rows of stakes from which swing strings of human skulls strung together. The Tāmraparṇī is flowing red with the blood of slaughtered cows. The Veda is forgotten and justice has gone into hiding;
c20.6.3
there is not left any trace of virtue or nobility in the land and despair is writ large on the faces of the unfortunate Drāvidas.' At the end of her speech, the lady produced a mighty sword, the symbol of Pāndya sovereignty and spoke again: 'This sword, O! King!, was wrought of yore by Viśvakarma from the essences of all the heavenly instruments of war for the use of Lord Śiva in his fight against the Asuras. He then gave it to the Pāndyan king who pleased him by his penances, and with its aid successive rulers of his dynasty held unrivalled sway for a long time. And now finding that, by dint of fate, the kings of the Pāndya line have lost their prowess, (the sage) Agastya has despatched this sword to be placed in your strong hands.' The rest of the speech is an exhortation and a prophecy foretelling Kampana's successes in the south. This account in the *Madhurāvijayam* is valuable in two respects. It gives a fairly reliable account from the Hindu point of view of the state of feeling in the country towards its Muhammadan rulers, and in a matter like this, contemporary literary evidence is of inestimable value in supplementing the evidence from epigraphs. What is equally valuable to the student of Pāndyan history is the account of the transference of the ancient sword from the Pāndyan kings to Kampana. Agastya, the custodian of Tamil culture, is said to have made the transfer, as the Pāndyan line did not any more produce kings worth the name.
c20.6.4
The meaning behind the poetic conception is clear. The failure of the Pāndyan kings to recover Madura is the historic justification for Kampana's conquest of the Madura country; moreover, in the Pāndyan kingdom, the task of the Vijayanagar rulers was the continuance of the work of the ancient rulers of the land.