The Colas c23.6

c23.6

The early stages of the war are vividly described in the *Mahāvaṁsa*.⁶ In A.D. 1169 Parākrama Pāṇḍya of Madura sent an appeal for help against Kulaśēkhara who was investing the city of Madura. Before the Ceylonese army sent under Laṅkāpura in response to this appeal could reach the mainland, events there had moved rather fast. Kulaśēkhara had captured Madura and put an end to the lives of Parākrama, his wife and children at a place called Tirimalakke. On hearing this Parākramabāhu sent word to Laṅkāpura that the war should be continued until the kingdom of Madura was taken from Kulaśēkhara and bestowed on a scion of the house of Parākrama. Laṅkāpura effected a landing on the opposite coast in the face of opposition, and advancing by way of Rāmēśvaram, he strongly fortified himself at Kundukala, on the tongue of land projecting from the mainland into the sea near Rāmēśvaram. The war was marked by savage ill-treatment of the prisoners of war, the Tamils who fell into Laṅkāpura's hands being either impaled or transported to Ceylon to labour at the restoration of the Buddhist Vihāras of the island that had suffered during the Tamil domination. Without entering into the minute details of the marches and counter-marches and the numerous battles of the campaign which are of no direct concern to us, we may note that Laṅkāpura's task proved more difficult than was anticipated. Kulaśēkhara long kept up a brave resistance, and Laṅkāpura had to send for reinforcements to Ceylon and to placate the local chieftains of the Tamil country by means of presents and honours. When he learnt that Parākrama's son Vīra Pāṇḍya who had escaped the massacre of Kulaśēkhara was living in the Malaya (mountain) country, Laṅkāpura sent word to him to come and join him at a place not far from Madura. Kulaśēkhara put into the field army after army and a fierce war raged in the Ramnad and Madura districts, extending on either side to Pudukkottah and Tinnevelly. To judge from the length of the struggle and the way the Tamil chieftains repeatedly changed sides, the cause of Kulaśēkhara was apparently more popular in the Pāṇḍya country, and the support which Kulaśēkhara gained from his uncle in Koṅgu⁷ and from the Cōḷas may be taken also to confirm this estimate. However that may be, the next stage of the war as recorded in the *Mahāvaṁsa* began with the return of Kulaśēkhara from the Cōḷa country with a Cōḷa force commanded by Pallavarāyar and others which he sent to Toṇḍi and Pāśi. In the battle of Kiḷenilaya that followed, victory was with Laṅkāpura 'who dyed the water of the ocean ruddy with the blood of the foe'.⁸ Kiḷenilaya of the *Mahāvaṁsa* is doubtless identical with the modern Kīḻ-nilai in the Tirupattūr taluq of the Ramnad district. After another fight at Ponnamarāvati in which Kulaśēkhara was defeated and put to flight, Laṅkāpura gave over the government of the kingdom to Vīra Pāṇḍya (whose coronation he had already celebrated in accordance with the orders of Parākramabāhu), introduced the *kahāpaṇa*, the coin of Parākramabāhu, everywhere, and sent to Ceylon a vast amount of booty captured from the Pāṇḍya and Cōḷa countries.