हिंदीOn this day

The Sinhala sack of Madurai

VictorSinhala army with a Pandya princeSent by Sena II of Anuradhapura
862vs
PandyasSrimara Srivallabha

A Pandya prince at odds with Srimara asked Lanka for help. Sena II sent an army that took Madurai, and the king who had plundered Anuradhapura twenty years earlier died defending his own capital.

Date: c. 862 CE, in the reign of Sena IIWhere: MaduraiType: Campaign
Photo: Paulthy · CC BY 2.0
1 min read WhatsApp
Cite

MLA

“The Sinhala sack of Madurai.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/sena-ii-sack-of-madurai/. Accessed .

APA

Hindu History. (2026). The Sinhala sack of Madurai. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/sena-ii-sack-of-madurai/

Result

The Sinhala army sacked Madurai; Srimara died of his wounds and the prince allied to Lanka was crowned.

01The invasion

The Culavamsa tells that a prince of the Pandya house, wronged by the king, came to Sena II and asked for an army. Sena sent his general with a large force. They landed, laid waste the borderlands, and besieged and stormed Madurai. The Pandya king, wounded in the fighting, fled and died, and his queen with him. The Sinhala general crowned the prince, recovered the golden images and treasures taken from Anuradhapura in Sena I’s time, and returned to the island.

02After Srimara

The prince is usually identified with Varagunavarman II, the next Pandya king, though historians have debated this. He inherited a weakened kingdom. Fighting on the Pallava side, he was defeated at Thirupurambiyam around 880 by the Pallava Aparajita and his Chola ally, and the First Pandya Empire never recovered. The war that began with Srimara’s raid on Anuradhapura thus ended with Madurai in ruins and the Cholas rising.

Kingdom of Anuradhapura
Dynasty · 437 BCE–1017 CE (traditional founding)Kingdom of AnuradhapuraThe first great kingdom of Lanka, ruled from Anuradhapura for some fourteen centuries. Its kings received the Dharma from Ashoka’s son Mahinda and built the great stupas, while the island’s Shaiva shrines stood on its coasts.Read →
Why it matters

It is one of the few times a Lankan army took a South Indian capital, and it broke the power of the First Pandya Empire.

Places 2

Madurai, city of the SangamStanding
Shungas, Satavahanas, Kharavela and the Sangam Kingdoms

Madurai, city of the Sangam

The Pandya capital on the Vaigai, home of the third Tamil Sangam, the assembly of poets whose work became Tamil’s classical canon. Megasthenes heard of its pearl-rich kingdom in Pataliputra.

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, MaduraiRebuilt
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple, Madurai

The temple of the fish-eyed Devi who ruled Madurai as a Pandya princess and married Shiva. Plundered in 1311, it was raised again by the Nayaks into the city of fourteen gopurams that stands today.

Places near the battlefield 8

Appudaiyar Temple, Tiruvappanur (Sellur, Madurai)Standing
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Appudaiyar Temple, Tiruvappanur (Sellur, Madurai)

The Tevaram shrine across the Vaigai from the Meenakshi temple, where the Lord turned river sand into rice. Sambandar sang it.

Koodal Azhagar Temple, MaduraiStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Koodal Azhagar Temple, Madurai

The Divya Desam in the heart of Madurai where Periyalvar sang the first Thiruppallandu, and whose three-storeyed vimana holds Vishnu seated, standing and reclining, one above the other.

ThiruparankundramStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Thiruparankundram

The first of Murugan’s six Padai Veedu, the battle camps, on a granite hill at the edge of Madurai. Here Murugan married Devasena, daughter of Indra, after slaying Surapadman, and the sanctum is cut into the living rock.

Kalamegha Perumal Temple, ThirumohurStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Kalamegha Perumal Temple, Thirumohur

Mohanapuram: the temple says that here Vishnu took the form of Mohini at the churning of the ocean and kept the amrita from the asuras. Its Sudarshana shrine draws devotees from across the south.

Keezhadi excavationsExcavated
Shungas, Satavahanas, Kharavela and the Sangam Kingdoms

Keezhadi excavations

A brick-built town on the Vaigai, 12 km from Madurai, where potsherds scratched with Tamil-Brahmi names have been dated to the 6th century BCE. It moved the start of urban life and writing in the Tamil country back by centuries.

Edaganathar Temple, TiruvedagamStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Edaganathar Temple, Tiruvedagam

The shrine of the palm leaf: at Madurai, Sambandar’s hymn written on a leaf swam upstream against the Vaigai and came to rest here.

Pushpavaneswarar Temple, TiruppoovanamStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Pushpavaneswarar Temple, Tiruppoovanam

The flower-forest shrine on the Vaigai near Madurai, sung by all three Tevaram singers. Its utsava murti is the golden form Shiva made for the devotee Ponnanaiyal, one of his Tiruvilaiyadal leelas.

Kallazhagar Temple, Alagar KovilStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Kallazhagar Temple, Alagar Kovil

The Vishnu temple at the foot of the Alagar hills, 21 km from Madurai, whose deity rides into Madurai every Chithirai on a golden horse for his sister Meenakshi’s wedding and steps into the Vaigai before lakhs of people.