A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.42

c12.42

This sketch of the political conditions of the Śaṅgam age may be closed with the mention of two other Chola rulers, both opponents of the Cheras in war. Iḷañjēṭcenni of Neydalaṅgānal captured two fortresses from the Cheras known by the names of Śeruppāḷi and Pāmaḷūr. Śeṅgaṇān, the Chola monarch famed in legend for his devotion to Śiva, figures as the victor in the battle of Pōr against the Chera Kaṇaikkāl Irumporai. The Chera was taken prisoner, asked for drinking water when he was in prison, got it rather late, and then, without drinking it, confessed the shame of his position in a song. Subsequently, Poygaiyār, a friend of the Chera monarch, is said to have secured his release from the Chola prison by celebrating the victory of Śeṅgaṇān in a poem of forty stanzas—the Kaḷavaḷi. According to this poem, the battle was fought at Kaḷumalam, near Karuvūr, the Chera capital. Śeṅgaṇān became the subject of many pious legends in later times. It is possible that this monarch who, according to Tirumaṅgai, built 70 fine temples of Śiva, lived somewhat later, say in the fourth or fifth century A.D.