A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.16

c12.16

We may now set forth the salient facts of the politics of the period before proceeding to give an account of its social life. The monarchies of the Cheras, Cholas and Pāndyas were believed, at least in subsequent ages, to be of immemorial antiquity; and the poems of the Śangam attest the anxiety of all of them to connect themselves with the events of the Great War between the Kauravas and the Pāndavas. The first Chera monarch we hear of, Udiyan-jēral (c. A.D. 130) is said to have fed sumptuously both the armies of Kurukshetra, and thereby earned for himself the title ‘ Udiyan-jēral of the great feeding ’. Perhaps it is best to look upon this as a conventional attribution to him of an achievement of some remote ancestor. The same honour is also claimed in other poems for the Pāndyas and Cholas.