The Javaka invasions of Chandrabhanu

01A king from across the sea

Chandrabhanu is known from his own Sanskrit inscription of 1230 at Chaiya in southern Thailand, where he is called Shri Dharmaraja, lord of Tambralinga. The Culavamsa says that in the eleventh year of Parakramabahu II a king named Chandabhanu landed with an army of Javakas armed with poisoned arrows, and tried to take the country. Prince Virabahu, the king’s nephew, met them and drove them back to their ships.

02The second invasion

Some years later Chandrabhanu returned with a larger force that included soldiers from the Pandya and Chola countries, and for a time held part of the north. The Pandyas then intervened. Inscriptions of Jatavarman Vira Pandya at Kudumiyamalai and elsewhere claim that he defeated the Savaka, the Javaka king, in Lanka, and that he received tribute and set up a Pandya flag there. Chandrabhanu disappears from the record after this.

Dynasty · c. 671–13th century CESrivijayaThe sea power of the Straits, a Buddhist kingdom that controlled the trade between India and China for five centuries. It is a Dharmic sibling in Hindu history, linked to Bharat by Nalanda, Nagapattinam and, in 1025, a Chola fleet.Read →