The Colas c11.45

c11.45

The poems of the *Puranānūṟu* are silent on the relations between Kiḷḷivaḷavan and his southern neighbour the Pāṇḍya; but a poem of Nakkīrar⁵⁹ in the *Ahanānūṟu* makes pointed reference to a defeat sustained by the forces of a Kiḷḷivaḷavan under the walls of Madura at the hands of the Pāṇḍya commander-in-chief, Paḻaiyan Māṟan. In the absence of any indication to the contrary, we may assume that the king whose defeat is alluded to by Nakkīrar was the one that died at Kuḷamuṟṟam.⁶⁰ Kiḷḷivaḷavan evidently waged war in another direction against the Malaiyamān chieftain of Malāḍu, a district on the banks of the Peṇṇār which had Tirukkōyilūr for its centre. Though we cannot be quite certain of it, the Malaiyamān against whom this expedition was directed seems to have been Malaiyamān Tirumuḍik-kāri, who is celebrated in several poems of the *Puṟam* by Kapilar and Mārōkkattu Nappaśalaiyār for the liberal patronage he extended to the minstrels, a trait which is emphasised also by Kōvūr-Kiḻār in the following poem by which he succeeded in releasing the children of the Malaiyamān from a cruel death to which the victorious Cōḷa monarch had condemned them:⁶¹