The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c9.32

c9.32

To return to the military transactions of the reign; before the seventeenth year of his reign this king appears to have extended his conquests considerably to the north and it would appear that much of the fighting was undertaken against the same old foes as had opposed his father in his northern wars. There is some reason to believe, however, that the victory of Neḍunjaḍayan was at many points more complete than that of his father and that his campaigns had, speaking relatively, somewhat more permanent results. He fought at Veḷḷūr, Viṇṇam and Śeliyakkuḍi against foes about whose identity nothing is known. He put to flight Adigan of the bright lance in the two battles of Āyiravēli Ayirūr and Pugaḷiyūr on the north banks of the Kāvēri and captured his chariot together with several of his war horses. In his war against the Pāndya king, Adigan was aided by the Pallava and the Kēraḷa whose forces advanced from the east and the west and were repulsed with great loss by the opposing Pāndyan forces. Evidently as a result of these campaigns, the king of Western Kongu was captured with his elephants and sent into confinement within the walls of the Pāndyan capital Madura and the whole of the Kongu country came under Pāndyan rule. It is well known that a family of chieftains named Adigans or Adigamāns ruled from Tagaḍūr (Dharmapuri)¹ in the Kongu country. We may take it that the Adigan who was repulsed at Ayirūr and Pugaḷiyūr was a feudatory of the Western Kongu chief who fought against the Pāndya on behalf of his master and the appearance of the Kēraḷa and Pallava forces in the campaigns may be explained as the result of a combined effort of the other three chief powers of the Tamil land to set some limit to the growing aggression of the Pāndyas.² The coalition apparently failed and as a result there was a considerable extension of the territories under Pāṇḍyan rule. This extension seems to have been sufficiently permanent to allow the king to undertake the construction of a temple of considerable size (குன்ற மன்னதோர் கோயில்) to Viṣṇu in a place called Kānjivāyppērūr which seems to have been in the Kongu country.¹ Perhaps the inscriptions at Trichinopoly (414 of 1904) and Ambāsamudram (105 of 1905), dated in the eleventh and the sixteenth years of the king may be taken as records connected with the wars we have just described. The Trichinopoly inscription refers to the destruction of Vēmbil and the king's encampment at Niyamam in the eleventh year. The Ambāsamudram record contains a gift made five years later from the king's camp at Araśūr on the banks of the Peṇṇai in the Toṇḍainād. It may be mentioned, by the way, that though this king is called *paramavaiṣṇavan* in the Museum plates and builds a temple to Viṣṇu in Kānjivāyppērūr, he does appear to have been quite ready to encourage Śaivite temples and endow them richly.² The Trichinopoly