Battle of Kudamukku (Kumbakonam)

01The Sinnamanur list

The large Sinnamanur plates of the Pandya Rajasimha III list the victories of his ancestors. For Srimara Srivallabha they name a battle at Kudamukku in which he defeated the Gangas, Pallavas, Cholas, Kalingas and Magadhas who had combined against him. The list of peoples is grand; the core of the enemy was surely the Pallava army of Nandivarman III and its Ganga allies, with the Cholas, then minor chiefs in the delta, among them.

02The temple town

Kudamukku was already a holy town, sung by the Tevaram saints for its temple of Shiva as Adi Kumbeshvara, where the Mahamaham festival is held every twelve years. That it became a battlefield shows how far the Pandyas had pushed into the delta. The victory did not settle the war. Within a few years Nandivarman’s son Nripatunga beat the Pandyas on the Arisil, a few miles away.

Dynasty · c. 275–897 CEPallava dynastyThe Pallavas of Kanchi carried temple building from timber and brick into rock and then into dressed stone. Mahendravarman I cut the first rock temples of the Tamil country, Narasimhavarman I took Vatapi in 642 and filled Mamallapuram with sculpture, and Rajasimha built the Shore Temple and the Kailasanatha at Kanchi.Read →