A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c15.19

c15.19

During this period the rule of the Pāṇḍya kingdom was shared among several princes of the royal family, one of them enjoying primacy over the rest. Such an arrangement seems to have been of long standing in that country; even Kulottunga I is said to have subjugated five Pāṇḍya princes together. Kulaśekhara pressed the war against Hoysala Rāmanātha, who had allied himself closely with Chola Rājendra III, and defeated both in 1279. That is the last we hear of Rājendra III and the Cholas. Kulaśekhara became unquestioned master both of the Chola country and of those Tamil districts of the Hoysala empire over which Rāmanātha had ruled. He also fought in Kerala (Travancore) where, perhaps, he suppressed a local rising. Sometime later he took advantage of a famine in Ceylon to send his minister Āryachakravarti to invade the island where he ‘laid waste the country on every side’, entered the fortress of Śubhagiri (Yāpahu), and carried away to the Pāṇḍya country ‘the venerable Tooth Relic and all the solid wealth that was there’. This was at the close of the reign of Bhuvanaikabāhu I, and there followed a period of some twenty years during which the island formed part of the Pāndya empire. The next ruler of Ceylon Parākramabāhu III (1303) adopted peaceful methods with Kulaśekhara, went on a personal embassy to the Pāndya court, and persuaded Kulaśekhara to surrender the Tooth Relic. Ceylon regained her independence only during the civil war and the Muslim invasion that followed Kulaśekhara’s death (1308-9). His last years were embittered by quarrels between his sons. He wanted his younger son by a favourite mistress, Vira Pāndya, to succeed him. The result was that the elder son, Sundara Pāndya started a war after the death of his father, for which, according to some writers, Sundara was himself responsible. The war went in favour of Vira Pāndya, and Sundara had to invoke the aid of the Muslim invader Malik Kafur (1310).