The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c15.s2.t3.85

v2.c15.s2.t3.85

While the expedition under Kōpperuñjiṅga was still in progress in the north, the main Pāṇḍyan army led by at least three of their kings, Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya I, Bhuvanaikavīra Vikrama Pāṇḍya, and Jaṭāvarman Vira Pāṇḍya, advanced along the coast towards Nellore. They swept away all opposition and reached Muttukūr, a village situated near the sea at a distance of thirteen miles to the east of the city. In a fierce engagement which took place here in A.D. 1263 Vira-Gaṇḍagōpāla was killed and his allies sustained a crushing defeat and retreated towards Pērāru (the Kṛishṇā). The Kākatīya and Sēuṇa forces appear to have suffered terribly during the course of their retreat; their dead bodies, according to the contemporary Pāṇḍyan records, lay strewn over the country as far as the banks of the Pērāru, and the Bāṇa sought safety in the jungle.¹ As a result of this victory the Telugu Chōḷa kingdom of Nellore was annexed to the Pāṇḍyan empire, though its administration was entrusted to the brothers of Vira-Gaṇḍagōpāla, who apparently were compelled to rule it as the vassals of the Pāṇḍyas.² In honour of his victory, Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya celebrated *virābhiṣhēka*, or the anointment, as a conquering hero, both at Nellore and at Kāñchī, these being the two alternate capitals of the kingdom of Nellore,³ and struck a coin bearing the Pāṇḍyan emblem of two fishes separated by a sceptre with the legend *Sundara Pāṇḍya* in Tamil on the reverse and the Kākatīya Boar facing right below the symbols of the Sun and the Crescent Moon on the obverse.⁴