The Sultan’s surprise attack broke the Hoysala army; the old king was captured and killed, and his flayed body was hung on the walls of Madurai.
01The old king’s last war
Veera Ballala III had seen his capital Dwarasamudra plundered by Malik Kafur in 1311 and had spent thirty years rebuilding his kingdom from Tiruvannamalai. When the governor of Ma’bar threw off Delhi’s rule and founded the Sultanate of Madurai, Ballala set out to destroy it. In 1342 he laid siege to Kannanur Koppam, the Sultanate’s northern fort near Srirangam. Ibn Battuta, who reached Madurai soon after, says the garrison was close to surrender when Sultan Ghiyasuddin came up with a small force and fell on the Hoysala camp at an unguarded hour.
02What came after
The king was taken, his wealth seized, and he was put to death. Ibn Battuta writes that his skin was stuffed with straw and hung on the wall of Madurai, where he saw it. Ballala’s son ruled briefly, and the Hoysala kingdom passed within a few years to the brothers Harihara and Bukka, the founders of Vijayanagara. It was Bukka’s son Kumara Kampana who ended the Madurai Sultanate in 1371 and restored worship at Srirangam and Madurai. Kannanur, now Samayapuram, is better known today for its Mariamman temple.
Kannanur ended the Hoysala dynasty and left Vijayanagara as the heir to the war against the Madurai Sultanate.