The Colas c23.36

c23.36

The first of them began at the request of Vikrama Pāṇḍya and led to the deposition of Vīra Pāṇḍya and the appointment of Vikrama to the throne of Madura. It is to be noted that the inscriptions are silent on some important points. How did Vīra Pāṇḍya incur the displeasure of Kulōttunga? This question has been examined above, and an answer has been suggested which must be held to be only tentative, till it is confirmed by direct evidence. Again, what happened to Kulaśēkhara after his expulsion from Madura? How was Vikrama Pāṇḍya related to him? What were the circumstances under which Vikrama Pāṇḍya persuaded Kulōttunga to undertake an expedition for aiding him against Vīra? In the absence of direct testimony, we can only assume what seems most probable, viz., that Kulaśēkhara was dead by the time this war began, that Vikrama Pāṇḍya was some near relative of his, if not his son, who inherited his rights to the Pāṇḍyan throne, and that he used very well the opportunities offered to him by the intrigues of Vīra Pāṇḍya with the natural enemies of the Cōḷa ruler. Though this campaign is not described in detail till after the commencement of the ninth regnal year (June a.d. 1186), it is possible that it was actually fought before a.d. 1182, the time when the title *Maduraiyum Pāṇḍiyan-muḍittalaiyum koṇḍaruḷiya* began to appear regularly in the inscriptions. If that was so, the campaign was fought in the last years of Parākramabāhu I of Ceylon, and the ‘Śiṅgaḷa soldiers’ who fought and suffered with Vīra Pāṇḍya must have been troops furnished by that king. The divergent accounts of the fate of Vīra Pāṇḍya’s son or sons render it difficult to decide what actually happened to them.