The Pandyan Kingdom from the Earliest Times to the Sixteenth Century c9.39

c9.39

The Museum plates also mention that Neḍunjaḍayan conquered the king of Veṇād (South Travancore) and captured large numbers of his elephants and horses along with his treasures and his country. In the campaign that led to this annexation, the strongly fortified port of Viḷiñam was attacked and destroyed by the Pāndyan forces. Viḷiñam seems to have been a great and flourishing emporium which often roused the cupidity of the foreign invaders of Travancore; it would appear to have recovered rapidly after each disaster that befell it, for we find it still forming the subject of attack by the Chola emperors three centuries after the days of Neḍunjaḍayan. The first conquest of Veṇād thus referred to in the Museum plates must have taken place before the seventeenth year of the king's rule. It was soon after this conquest that the king undertook the task of strongly fortifying Karavandapuram (which has been identified with the village of Kaḷakkād in the Tinnevelly district) perhaps because it was on the frontier of the newly conquered country. At any rate Veṇād does not seem to have accepted this conquest as final, and we have evidence in the Trivandrum Museum stone inscription (277 of 1895) that the king was still fighting in the neighbourhood of Viḷiñam more than ten years after his first invasion. It may also be noted that another