The Colas c24.54

c24.54

The reason for this close alliance between the Cōḷa and Hoysaḷa is doubtless to be found in the new danger from the south that threatened both. The accession of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya I, a.d. 1251 to the Pāṇḍyan throne brought on the stage one of the most famous warriors and conquerors of Southern India. Under him the second empire of the Pāṇḍyas attained its greatest splendour, and all the other powers of South India, up to the river Kṛṣṇa and even beyond, felt the weight of his arm, the Hoysaḷas and the Cōḷas being the first to do so.⁸⁷ The Pāṇḍyan ruler had achieved signal success against the Cōḷa and the Hoysaḷa before the seventh year of his reign, a.d. 1258; he had laid the Cōḷa under tribute and compelled the Hoysaḷa to seek safety by retiring to the Mysore plateau; and when Sōmēśvara renewed the war, he was defeated and killed in a battle fought near Kaṇṇanūr, a.d. 1264. Very soon after, he carried his arms across the territory of the Kāḍavas and Telugu-Cōḍas, up to Nellore where he held a *Vīrābhiṣēka*. When the tide of Pāṇḍyan power was thus rising to its full height, Rājēndra III and Vīra Rāmanātha had to carry on anyhow without provoking the mighty conqueror and they must have been drawn more closely together by their common adversity. They were both defeated in battle about 1279 by Māṟavarman Kulaśēkhara, the successor of Sundara Pāṇḍya.