Pandyas and Cheras

Detail

Who the Pandyas were

• The Pandyas rose again as a power by the 6th century CE in the far south of the Indian peninsula.
• They are a very old line, not a new one. Greek writers already knew of them in the 4th century BCE. [2]
• Their later revival is linked to the king Kadungon in the early 7th century CE. From then they ruled from Madurai (Madura) or from places further south, right down to the 16th century. [2]
• They were one of the three great kingdoms of Tamilakam (the old Tamil country), along with Cheras and Cholas. [2][3]

Note: The scaffold dates the Pandya rise to the 6th century; Britannica dates the revival to Kadungon in the early 7th century CE. Keep the NCERT date for the exam. [2]

Politics — friends today, rivals tomorrow

• Shifting alliances. The Pandyas did not fight everyone all the time.
• At times they joined hands with the Chalukyas of the Deccan.
• At other times they allied with the Pallavas of Kanchipuram.

• The pattern is normal for the period: three or four big powers, each using the others against the strongest of the day.

• Land held. Most of southern Tamil Nadu was theirs. For a short while they also held northern Sri Lanka.

• The Chola blow. In the 10th century the Cholas swept the Pandyas aside. The Pandya kingdom did not vanish, but it stopped being an independent great power.
• The comeback. They re-emerged three centuries later. In the 13th century they took over the shrunken Chola empire — the ones who were beaten absorbed the ones who had beaten them.

Trade and the port of Korkai

• Coins and inscriptions show sea trade with Southeast Asia. Ports such as Korkai handled this traffic.
• Korkai is not a late port. The Periplus Maris Erythraei — an unnamed Greek sailing handbook of the 1st century CE — lists it as "Colchi" among the ports along the Indian coast, next to Muziris, Poduca and Sopatma. [4]
• What India sold, by the Periplus list: pepper, precious stones, pearls, tortoise shell, ivory, spikenard and malabathrum (two scented plants), plus silk and other textiles. [4]
• Pearls matter here. The Gulf of Mannar coast near Korkai was pearl country, and pearls sit on that export list.

Madurai — the culture capital

• Madurai was the Pandya capital and a busy cultural centre. It has been tied to Pandya kings for a very long time. [2][5]
• A copper plate records that the Pandyas had a Tamil translation of the Mahabharata made. That translation is now lost — we know of it only from the plate.
• Useful exam point: a record can survive even when the text it records does not.

Who the Cheras were

• The Cheras, later called the Chera Perumals, held the Kerala coast (the Malabar Coast and the land behind it). [3]
• They kept their independence even though strong neighbours — Pallavas, Cholas, Pandyas — sat around them.
• Like the Pandyas, they were one of the three kingdoms of Tamilakam. [3]

Kerala as a world market

• Trade stayed brisk under the Cheras. The Kerala coast was a meeting point, not an end point.
• A set of copper-plate inscriptions names Christian, Muslim and Jewish traders from West Asia. Foreign merchant groups were given rights and were settled locally — they were not passing strangers.
• The Jewish link is old and independently recorded:
• Jewish immigrants reached the Kerala region in the 1st century CE. [6]

• Documents from the genizah (store-room of old papers) of a Cairo synagogue, dated to the 8th and 9th centuries, mention Jewish traders of the Cochin region. [6]

• Muziris, the famous early Kerala port of the Periplus list, sat on this same coast. [4]

• Chera coins survive in Indian museum collections and are catalogued on the government's culture portal. [7]
• Big picture: India was a hub of international commerce, not a far corner of it.

Prelims Hooks

• Korkai — chief Pandya port; appears as "Colchi" in the 1st-century CE Greek Periplus Maris Erythraei. [4]
• Madurai — Pandya capital and cultural centre.
• Pandyas briefly held northern Sri Lanka.
• Pandyas were swept aside by the Cholas in the 10th century; they returned after three centuries and absorbed the Chola empire in the 13th century.
• A Pandya copper plate records a Tamil translation of the Mahabharata, which is lost.
• Kadungon — king linked to the Pandya revival in the early 7th century CE; Pandya rule from Madurai ran to the 16th century. [2]
• Cheras / Chera Perumals — ruled the Kerala coast; stayed independent.
• Chera copper-plate inscriptions record Christian, Muslim and Jewish West Asian traders.
• Cochin Jews — Jewish arrival in Kerala dated to the 1st century CE; Cairo genizah papers of the 8th-9th centuries mention Jewish traders of the Cochin region. [6]
• Tamilakam — the old Tamil region made up of Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms. [2][3]

Mains Points

• Trade, not conquest, was the Chera survival strategy. The Cheras had no large army empire and still kept freedom beside Chola and Pandya power. Control of the spice coast and of foreign merchant communities gave them wealth and outside contacts that made them useful to keep, not cheap to crush. Good example for "economic base of political power" in GS-I.
• South India was plugged into world trade for over a thousand years without a break. The same coastline appears in the Greek Periplus in the 1st century CE [4], in Cairo genizah letters of the 8th-9th centuries [6], and in the Chera copper plates. Use this against the idea of an "isolated" or "self-sufficient village" India.
• Religious plurality came from commerce. Christian, Muslim and Jewish traders were given written rights on copper plates by a Hindu dynasty. Accommodation of outsiders was a practical trade policy, not only a matter of belief. Strong material for questions on Indian pluralism and cultural exchange.
• Dynastic decline is rarely final. The Pandyas were destroyed as a power in the 10th century and came back in the 13th to swallow the Cholas. Useful to argue that south Indian political history is a cycle of overlapping powers, not a straight line of one empire after another.