The Pandyas end the Chola dynasty

01The last campaign

Rajendra III had tried for thirty years to revive Chola power, at times with success against the Hoysalas and the Kadava. But the Pandyas under Jatavarman Sundara had already made him their vassal in the 1250s. Inscriptions of Maravarman Kulasekhara I claim victory over both Rajendra and the Hoysala Ramanatha, who held territory around Kannanur near Srirangam. The last dated Chola inscription belongs to Rajendra’s thirty-third year, which is 1279.

02What the Cholas left

The Cholas left the Brihadeeswara at Thanjavur and the temple at Gangaikondacholapuram, the bronzes of Nataraja, the village assemblies recorded at Uttaramerur, and the memory of fleets that reached Srivijaya. The Pandyas who replaced them enjoyed their own brief summit; Marco Polo visited their coast in the 1290s. Then, in 1311, Malik Kafur’s army arrived in the south, and the old order of the Tamil kingdoms ended.

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 →