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Tribes in Ancient India c48: Chapter XLIV. Pāṇḍyas

Tribes in Ancient India c48

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Chapter XLIV. Pāṇḍyas

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The Pāṇḍya kingdom comprised the greater part of the modern Madura and Tinnevelly Districts and in the first century of the Christian era Southern Travancore also. It had its capital originally at Kolkai on the Tāmraparṇi river in Tinnevelly and later at Madura (Dakṣiṇa Mathurā).¹ According to Dr. H. C. Ray Chaudhuri the Pāṇḍya country corresponded to the Madura, Ramnad and Tinnevelly districts and perhaps the southern portion of the Travancore State. It was watered by the rivers Tāmraparṇi and Kṛtamālā or Vaigai. Kātyāyana in his *Vārttika* derives Pāṇḍya from Pāṇḍu. In the *Mahābhārata* and in several Jātakas the Pāṇḍus are spoken of as the ruling race of Indraprastha. In the statement of Kātyāyana regarding the connection of the Pāṇḍyas with the Pāṇḍus who are mentioned in the Epic tale, we find an interesting clue for the name of Madura, the Pāṇḍya capital. Madura or Dakṣiṇa Mathurā is in a sense the same as Mathurā or Muttra, the capital of the Śūrasena kingdom. Now, according to Epic tradition, the Pāṇḍus of Indraprastha were closely connected with the ruling family of the Śūrasena country by ties of friendship and marriage. The geographer Ptolemy (circa 150 A.D.) speaks of the country of the Pandoouoi in the Punjab. The association of the Pāṇḍyas of the south with the Śūrasenas of Mathurā and the Pāṇḍus of Northern India is probably alluded to in the confused statement of Megasthenes regarding Herakles and Pandaia. Megasthenes, who visited the court of Candragupta Maurya towards the end of the fourth century B.C., has left on record some rumours concerning these southern States. He thus notes a legend that Heracles placed the south under the rule of his daughter ‘Pandaia’. The Sanskrit Epics mention them vaguely as foreign lands outside their purview. Thus in the *Mahābhārata*² Sahadeva, the youngest of the Pāṇḍu princes, is represented in his career of conquest to have gone to Dakṣiṇāpatha after having conquered the king of the Pāṇḍyas. In the same way the country of the Pāṇḍyas is mentioned in the *Rāmāyaṇa* where Sugrīva is said to have sent his monkey-soldiers in quest of Sītā, Rāma’s consort.³ In the Purāṇas also as in the case of the *Mārkaṇḍeya*,¹ *Vāyu* ² and *Matsya*,³ we find mention of the Pāṇḍyas. In Rock Edicts II and XIII, Aśoka mentions the Pāṇḍyas whose territory lay outside his empire. The relations between the Damiḷas and the natives of Ceylon form one of the main strands in the narrative of the *Mahāvaṃsa*. Though on several occasions the Chronicle speaks only of Damiḷas in general, still the distinction between the Pāṇḍya and Cōḷa divisions of the Tamil country is well known and clearly observed in it. A careful study of the Buddhist texts shows that the Damiḷas were a fighting people always engaged in constant strifes with the Ceylonese. They are described as *anāriyā* or uncultured. ‘Might is right’ was their policy with the result that they were defeated and mercilessly massacred in almost all their battles with the Sinhalese as we find in the *Mahāvaṃsa Commentary* (p. 482). It is only in connection with a particular Damiḷa general named Āriyacakkavattī that we are told that he returned with all booties to the Pāṇḍu country, the land of the Pāṇḍyas in the south. The literary tradition of Ceylon keeps us entirely in the dark as to whether those Damiḷas were sent with expeditions by the king of Pāṇḍu or they were a race of marauders who undertook those expeditions on their own initiative. The account of Vijaya distinctly brings out that there existed a matrimonial alliance between the ruler of Laṅkā and that of Pāṇḍya. It is also mentioned that there was a very early settlement in Ceylon of skilled craftsmen and families of the eighteen guilds, all from Pāṇḍya.⁴ There existed similarly a close cultural relationship and constant intercourse between South India and Ceylon; the notable centres of Buddhist learning mentioned in Pāli works being Kāveripaṭṭana, Madhurā, and Kāñcipura.⁵

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¹ Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 595.

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² Sabhāparvan, Chap. 31, V. 17.

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³ Rāmāyaṇa, IV, Chap. 41.

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¹ Chap. 57, V. 45.

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² Chap. 45, V. 124.

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³ Chap. 112, V. 46.

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⁴ *Mahāvaṃsa*, Chap. 7.

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⁵ B. C. Law, *Geographical Essays*, Vol. I, pp. 79-80.

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Strabo (XV, 4, 73) makes mention of an embassy sent to Augustus Caesar about the year 22 B.C. by a king ‘Pandion’, possibly a Pāṇḍya of the Tamil country.⁶ In the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea*, the Pandian kingdom is mentioned which was included in Damirica.⁷ From the Hāthigumphā Inscription of the Cheta king Khāravela of Kaliṅga, it appears that in his eleventh year ‘he had had Pithuḍa ploughed with a plough drawn by an ass’, and seems to have pushed his conquest further south and made his power felt even by the king of the Pāṇḍya country.⁸

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⁶ *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I, p. 597.

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⁷ Ray Chaudhuri, *Political History of Ancient India*, 4th Ed., App. E, p. 541.

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⁸ *Ibid.*, 4th Ed., p. 349.

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We have very little information regarding the early history of the Pāṇḍya country. Meagre references in the pages of classical writers like Pliny supplemented by the data collected from ancient Tamil literature are the only materials for a study of their history. From these we can gather that Neḍun-jeliyan II was the first conspicuous Pāṇḍya ruler who made the Pāṇḍyas the leading power of the south. But the supremacy of the south ultimately passed to the Pallavas.

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