Battle of Nelveli

01Two kinds of record

The Velvikudi plates list Arikesari Maravarman’s victories, and among them a battle at Nelveli. The Periya Puranam of Sekkizhar, telling the life of the king it calls Ninrasir Nedumaran, says he won at Nelveli against an army from the north. This is the same king whom Tirujnana Sambandar, the child saint of the Tevaram, turned back to Shaiva faith at Madurai; his queen Mangaiyarkkarasi is one of the sixty-three Nayanars, and the king himself is counted among them.

02Who was the enemy

The plates do not name the losing king. Some historians see a Pallava army, others the Chalukya Vikramaditya I, whose own grants show him campaigning on the Kaveri in the same years. The place too is debated, though most accept Tirunelveli. What is clear is that the Pandya kingdom held its ground against the northern powers in this generation, and kept growing. Arikesari’s grandson and great-grandson carried Pandya arms into Kongu and the Kaveri delta, and by the eighth century Madurai was a match for Kanchi.

Dynasty · c. 4th century BCE – late 16th century CEPandya dynastyThe Pandyas ruled from Madurai for close to two thousand years, longer than almost any house in the world. Megasthenes and Ashoka knew them; they broke the Kalabhras in the 6th century, lost Madurai to the Cholas in the 10th, and under Jatavarman Sundara Pandya in the 13th century became the strongest power in the south.Read →