Madurai (Kudal)

Who holds it

Name

Jatavarman Kulasekara I Pandya, with the temple managers of Minakshi and Sundaresvara and the town's merchants

Title

see the lord or tenant line below

Born

not known

Confidence

medium

Lord in 1200

Jatavarman Kulasekara I Pandya, with the temple managers of Minakshi and Sundaresvara and the town's merchants

How things stand that morning

The Pandya capital in the tenth year of Kulasekara I. The Chola overlordship is acknowledged; the temple is the centre of the kingdom's religion and revenue. No siege or rising is known for 1199-1200.

Wealth

Royal revenue, temple endowments, the Vaigai tanks' paddy, the horse and pearl trade.

Military

The king's household troops and Maravar-Kallar retinues; no figure.

Threats

• The Chola invasion of about 1205 (later)
• Dry years on the Vaigai

Charter

No charter known; royal city. The Pandya inscriptions show assemblies of merchants and temple managers in the capital; the Madurai bodies are not documented in the pages we read

Council

The king's household officers, the temple managers of Minakshi-Sundaresvara and the merchant bodies (the Ayyavole and Nanadesi guilds trade through the Pandya towns, but no Madurai headman is named)

Communities

Brahmins, temple servants and dancers, weavers, merchants, Maravar and Kallar soldiers, Jain communities in the hills round the city, a small Muslim merchant community

Fairs and markets

The Chittirai festival of Minakshi's wedding and the Vaigai festival of Alagar (spring); the pilgrim fairs at the temple

Militia

The royal guard and the Maravar and Kallar retinues called up in need; no figure

Walls and castle

A wall and ditch round the old city (described in Sangam texts and in later temple records); we cannot date its present line

Trade and crafts

Cloth (weavers), rice, jasmine and garlands, brass, the horse and pearl trade routed through the capital, temple goods

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. About 1205 (outside 1200)Kulottunga III invades and sacks Madurai.Depends on: A Pandya refusal of tribute. Stopped by: No refusal.

Places of note

• Tirupparankunram: The rock-cut Murugan temple south of Madurai.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry madurai (9.925,78.119), madurai-city-wall (9.93,78.126), madurai-vaigai-ford (9.934,78.121) and madurai-minakshi-sundaresvara (9.919,78.119) are four points in one urban cluster; the temple is a religious record.
• The campaign board calls the Pandya king a client of the Chola: agreed.

Evidence: The city and its temple are well known; the 1200 officers and merchants' headmen are not named.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

Primary sources for Pandya kingdom

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Lesser Chronicle (the continuation of the Mahavamsa), Dhammakitti and later monks of the Mahavihara tradition (the first continuation about the 13th century (chapters 37 to 79), carried on in stages to the 18th century). The only narrative source for Lanka in 1200. Read online
• Epigraphia Carnatica: inscriptions of the Mysore country, Various (Hoysala chancery and temple scribes), edited by B. Lewis Rice and R. Narasimhachar (inscriptions of the 4th to 19th centuries; the series ran from 1886 to 1905, revised from 1972). The Hoysala kingdom of Veera Ballala II (reigning 1173 to 1220) is documented almost wholly by the inscriptions in this series, arranged by district and taluk with full English translations. Read online
• Epigraphia Zeylanica: lithic and other inscriptions of Ceylon, Various (the Polonnaruwa kings' chanceries), edited by D. M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, H. W. Codrington and S. Paranavitana (inscriptions of the 3rd century BC to the 18th century; the series ran from 1904). Prints with translation the stone records of the Polonnaruwa kings who held or lost the throne around 1200. Read online
• South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
• Travancore Archaeological Series, Various (Kerala chiefs, temples and merchant guilds), edited by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer and A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar (inscriptions of the 9th to 18th centuries; the series ran from 1910 to 1938). The main corpus for the Kerala coast. Read online