The Pandya kingdom of Madurai

Who rules

Name

Jatavarman Kulasekara I (also written Sadayavarman Kulasekara, Maravarman Kulasekara; Jatavarman is the Sanskrit form of Sadayavarman, and the Pandya kings alternate the two throne names Maravarman and Jatavarman)

Title

King of the Pandyas (Pandya raja, 'Kulasekara')

Since

1190 (the English Wikipedia gives his reign as 1190 to 1216)

Born

not known

Family

Son of Vikrama Pandya, the king Kulottunga III set on the Madurai throne before 1182. Younger brothers include Maravarman Sundara (king from 1216); the others are not named in the pages we reached. A wife and a young son are mentioned only at his surrender of about 1205 (a later event). The English Wikipedia says he was a brother-in-law of the Venad prince Kothai Ravivarman.

Confidence

medium

Dated by his own regnal years while he acknowledges Kulottunga III. His 10th/11th regnal year runs through 1200 (counting year 1 from 1190, which is a round figure, not a dated inscription).

Overlord

Kulottunga III Chola, acknowledged but not obeyed in everything: the king keeps his own regnal years and his own tribute accounts

What the realm holds

• Madurai (Kudal) with its wall and ditch, the Vaigai crossing and the Minakshi-Sundaresvara temple
• The Vaigai tank plain (Pandimandalam) and the Cumbum valley at the head of the river
• Tirunelveli and the Tamraparni country with its anicuts, the nine Vishnu shrines and the cotton country
• The pearl coast: Korkai (silted inland), Kayal, Punnaikayal, Kulasekarapattinam, Tiruchendur, Manapad; the Gulf of Mannar fishery
• The Ramnad coast: Periyapattinam, Kilakarai, Devipattinam, Tondi, Rameswaram and the crossing to Lanka
• Tributary and service chiefs: Maravar of the Sivaganga and Ramnad country, Kallar of the Melur and Tirumayam side, hill headmen of the Cumbum and Podigai edge

How it was acquired

By the Pandya succession as the Chola and the Sinhalese kings arranged it. A Pandya civil war between Parakrama Pandya and Kulasekara (from about 1166) drew in Parakramabahu I of Lanka and the Chola king Rajadhiraja II; the Chola forces beat the Sinhalese and installed Vira Pandya. Kulottunga III then put Vikrama Pandya on the throne before 1182 and drove Vira Pandya out. Vikrama's son Jatavarman Kulasekara I succeeded him in 1190.

Allies and rivals

Chola: overlord and, later in the reign, enemy. Lanka: ties through Queen Lilavati of Polonnaruwa, whom the English Wikipedia calls the daughter of 'Sirivallabha Pandya' (the Culavamsa makes her father Sirivallabha of the Ruhuna line; we could not reconcile the two); in 1200 the Sinhalese state is in disorder and no friend to count on. Venad (Kerala, sik's sheet): a marriage link through the prince Kothai Ravivarman; the Aramboly gap and the Shencottah gap are the doors to Venad.

Rivals inside the family: the brothers, among them the future Maravarman Sundara, are the danger that grows after 1205 (a later event).

The realm that morning

In January 1200 Jatavarman Kulasekara I is in about his tenth year on the throne, rich, under the Chola king's overlordship but dating his inscriptions by his own regnal years, and not at war. Kulottunga III is absorbed with temple-building and the northern dependencies, and the Pandya king has not yet refused tribute. The pearl fishery of March and April 1200 is the year's main income and the horse landings of November to March are in progress.

Wealth

Pearls (the March-April fishery on the banks off Kayal, taxed in oysters before they are opened; the Paravar boatmen and divers), chank, horses landed at Kayal, Kulasekarapattinam and the Ramnad ports from the Gulf (the Deccan kings cannot breed cavalry), coarse cotton cloth and rice from the Tamraparni, palmyra produce of the dry belt, tolls at the Vaigai and Manamadurai crossings, the pilgrim traffic to Rameswaram, Tiruchendur, Alagarkovil and Madurai, and temple endowments. Coinage: the Pandya fish-seal coins (copper and gold) alongside Chola kasu.

Military

No figure is given by any source we reached. Retinues of Maravar and Kallar chiefs who serve for land, royal elephants, imported horses (a cavalry arm that the Pandya can keep supplied better than any inland king), a navy of coasting craft. Record: beaten by the Chola before 1182 and again in 1185-86; a client since 1190 (tribute is an inference from that); the great defeat comes about 1205 (a later event).

Threats

• A Chola invasion if tribute stops (about 1205)
• The brothers of the king and the exiled line of Vira Pandya
• Lankan mercenaries and Sinhalese claimants, who sometimes cross the Mannar strait
• Kallar and Maravar raiders on the Chola march
• A failed north-east monsoon (the Vaigai tanks are the kingdom's farm)

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. March and April 1200The pearl fishery on the Mannar banks: boats assemble off Kayal and Tiruchendur, a camp and market rise on the empty beach, and the crown takes its share in oysters.Depends on: The season and a flat sea; the banks fluctuate and one may be barren. Stopped by: A barren bank or a storm; the king can also close or farm the fishery to a merchant house.
2. November 1200 to March 1201Horse landings on the pearl coast and the Ramnad ports.Depends on: The season and the northern monsoon ending. Stopped by: A Gulf shipping failure.
3. About 1205 and after (outside 1200)Kulottunga III's third Pandya expedition sacks Madurai, demolishes the coronation hall and restores the defeated Pandya king (English Wikipedia, which gives no cause); Maravarman Sundara Pandya takes the throne in 1216.Depends on: A Pandya refusal of tribute while the Chola king is busy in the north (our inference). Stopped by: Continued payment.

Places of note

• Madurai, the capital: Walled and ditched city on the Vaigai; Minakshi and Sundaresvara.
• Kayal, pearl and horse port: The busiest port of the pearl coast.
• Tirunelveli, the second city: Head of the Tamraparni irrigation.

Where the sources disagree

• Brief and assignment name Jatavarman Kulasekara I; the English Wikipedia article is titled Sadayavarman Kulasekaran I (acceded 1190) and says he was Vikrama Pandya's son and that Maravarman Sundara I was his younger brother. The assignment's phrase 'Vikrama Pandya, the future Maravarman Sundara' conflates the father and the brother; we keep them as two people.
• The campaign board entry madurai says Sadayavarman Kulasekaran I 'acknowledges Kulottunga III': agreed.
• The campaign board entry kayal-kayalpattinam says the Marakkayar merchant houses hold a royal charter over the pearl fisheries by the twelfth century; we found nothing that dates a charter or the Marakkayar name to 1200 and mark it unproven.
• The March and April pearl fishery and the November to March horse landings are the brief's seasonal round (and the campaign board calendar's); no page we read dates a fishery or a landing to 1200, and the travellers' accounts of the 1290s and about 1300 are later and are not carried back. They are kept as a seasonal round with conditions, not as dated events.

Evidence: Thick for Pandya geography and economy, thin for the king's court, family and ministers on 1 January 1200 (the English Wikipedia page names no minister, capital detail or port).

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

On the map: The northern edge toward Pudukkottai is the conventional Vellar march, not a defended line; the south-west (Nanjinad) is left to the Kerala sheet's anchors.

Primary sources for this realm

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