The Colas c23.52

c23.52

Towards the end of Kulōttunga's reign, the Pāṇḍyan throne passed to Māṟavarman Sundara Pāṇḍya (1216), possibly after the demise of his brother Jaṭāvarman Kulaśēkhara, and the new ruler lost no time in starting a war against the old Cōḷa monarch who had, more than ten years before, deeply humiliated him and his elder brother in their own capital and perhaps also demolished their coronation-hall in Madura. For the successes of Sundara Pāṇḍya against Kulōttunga III, we have to depend solely on the inscriptions of the former. The Cōḷa inscriptions of the period observe a total silence which will cause no surprise when it is recollected how the inscriptions of the reign of Sōmēśvara I, W. Cāḷukya, omit all reference to the battle of Koppam. But the records of Sundara Pāṇḍya are quite specific and full. And their account of the misfortunes of the Cōḷas is by no means less trustworthy than the record of Pāṇḍyan defeats in the inscriptions of Kulōttunga himself.