A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c13.37

c13.37

Nandivarman III was undoubtedly too great a monarch to suffer by this defeat. Not only did he restore the Pallava power to its former glory, but he was also a liberal patron of literature and the arts in general. He is also said to have maintained a powerful fleet: a Tamil inscription at Takua-pa in Siam, on the opposite coast of the Bay, attests to his overseas connexions by mentioning a Vishnu temple and a tank called Avanināraṇam after one of his titles. Nandivarman was succeeded by his son Nripatunga who had become yuvarāja about 860, and whose mother was a Rāṣṭrakūṭa princess. Soon after his accession, the young Pallava ruler avenged the defeat of his father at Kumbakonam by a decisive victory against the Pāṇdyas in a battle on the banks of the river Ariśil, a branch of the Kaveri which enters the sea at Kāraikkāl.