Pandya dynasty

The Pandyas were a Tamil dynasty of the far south of India, ruling from Madurai and counted, with the Cholas and the Cheras, among the "three crowned kings" of the ancient Tamil country. Attested from at least the fourth or third century BCE, the dynasty survived in some form until the early seventeenth century, making it one of the longest-lived royal lines in the world. It had two great periods of power, from the late sixth to the tenth century and again in the thirteenth century, when it dominated much of south India and northern Sri Lanka.

The meaning of the name is uncertain; one theory links it to the old Tamil word for "old", another to the Pandavas of the Sanskrit epics. A Tamil legend tells of three brothers, Cheran, Cholan and Pandyan, who ruled together at the port of Korkai before two of them left to found kingdoms of their own. The Pandya emblem was the fish. The early Pandyas are celebrated in Sangam poetry, mentioned in the edicts of the Maurya emperor Ashoka and in Greek and Latin accounts, and known from coins and inscriptions in Tamil-Brahmi script. Their country, centred on Madurai and the port of Korkai, was famous for the pearl fisheries of the Gulf of Mannar, which drew merchants from the Graeco-Roman world. In the following centuries the early Pandyas, like the other Tamil dynasties, were pushed aside by the Kalabhras.

King Kadungon restored Pandya power towards the end of the sixth century. For the next three centuries the Pandyas competed with the Chalukyas of Badami and the Pallavas of Kanchi for dominance in the south. Rulers such as Maravarman Rajasimha I and Varagunavarman I pushed against the Pallavas and took the Kongu country and southern Kerala, and Srimara Srivallabha, in the ninth century, sacked the Sri Lankan capital of Anuradhapura.

The rise of the Cholas from the Kaveri delta in the ninth century ended this first revival. Around 880 a Pandya army was crushed near Kumbakonam, and in 910 the Chola king Parantaka I captured Madurai. The Pandyas often allied with Sri Lanka and the Cheras against the Cholas, but under Rajaraja I and Rajendra I the Chola emperors ruled the Pandya lands through viceroys.

Pandya fortunes revived in the thirteenth century. Maravarman Sundara I, who came to the throne in 1216, sacked the Chola cities of Uraiyur and Thanjavur. Jatavarman Sundara I extended Pandya rule north into Telugu country as far as Nellore, made Kanchi a second capital and invaded Sri Lanka in 1258; the Hoysala king Somesvara was killed fighting the Pandyas in 1262. Around 1279 Maravarman Kulasekara I defeated a combined Hoysala and Chola force, and the Chola line came to an end. He also invaded Sri Lanka, carrying off the Buddha's Tooth Relic, and the island remained under Pandya control until around 1308.

After Maravarman Kulasekara I died in 1310, his sons fought over the succession just as the armies of Alauddin Khalji of the Delhi Sultanate arrived in the south in 1311. Further sultanate expeditions in 1314 and 1323 shattered the kingdom, and the former Pandya lands became the sultanate's province of Ma'bar, which soon broke away as the Madurai Sultanate.

Pandya princes survived in the far south, ruling from Tenkasi and Tirunelveli while Madurai passed to the Vijayanagara Empire and then the Nayaks. Their line, recorded in the temple inscriptions of Tenkasi and other towns, continued into the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century.

Tradition holds that the Sangam poetry academies met in Madurai under Pandya patronage. The early kings are associated with Jainism as well as Shaivism, and later rulers supported the Hindu devotional movement of the Nayanars and Alvars. Great temples such as the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai were major landowners and employers, and served as banks, schools and almshouses.

Our 800, 900, 1279, 1300 and 1400 maps draw the dynasty's lands under the label "Pandya state", at the southern tip of India.