Battle of Pennagadam

01The Velvikudi record

The Velvikudi copper plates, issued in Nedunjadaiyan’s third year, list his victories before they come to the grant itself. Among them is a battle at Pennagadam, where he defeated the Kadava, the name the Tamil records give the Pallava kings, and made him flee. Nandivarman II was a seasoned king by then, with decades on the throne, and the Pallava records claim their own successes against the Pandyas in the same years, so neither side broke the other.

02The delta as frontier

The rich rice lands of the Kaveri delta, the old Chola country, lay between Madurai and Kanchi. The Cholas of this time were minor chiefs at Uraiyur, and the two great powers fought over their land. Pennagadam shows the Pandyas pressing north of the river. The contest went on for a century, until a Chola chief named Vijayalaya took Thanjavur around 850 and the delta found a master of its own.

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 →