following him, constitutes the period of the first Chola ascendancy in the south. In the reign of his successor a great catastrophe befell Puhār, and the city and port were both destroyed. This was a hard blow to the ascendancy of the Cholas. But Karikāla had, after defeating his contemporary Chera, given probably one of his daughters (it is just possible a sister) in marriage to the son of his vanquished rival. This alliance stood the Cholas in good stead. Kārikala's successor began his reign with a victory, which his heirapparent won for him, against the Chera and Pānḍya combined at Kāriyār, probably in the Salem District.1 When Puhār .was destroyed, at least in part, there was a Civil war owing perhaps to the untimely death of the young Chola prince; and the Chera ruler for the time being advanced through the central region. He intervened in favour of his cousins with effect, as against the rival claimants of royal blood, and restored the Chola dynasty to some power; but the ascendancy surely enough passed from them to the Chera. The Chera ascendancy under the 'Red Chera' (śehguṭṭuvan) lasted only one generation. In the reign of his successor the Pāṇḍyas rose to '; greater importance, and the Chera suffered defeat and imprisonment at his hands. This Pāṇḍya ascendancy probably lasted on somewhat longer till about the rise of the Pallavas in Kāñchī. This course of the political centre of gravity in southern India is borne out in very important particulars by the Ceylon Chronicle called the Mahāvarhśa. According to this work, the Cholas were naturally the greatest enemies of the Singalese rulers. There were usurpers from the Chola country in Ceylon in the first century B.C.; and there were invasons and counter-invasions as well. On one occasion the Chola invaders carried away 12,000 inhabitants of Ceylon and set them to work at 'the Kaveri' as the Chronicle has it.2 This looks very much like an exploit of Karikāla seeing that it was he who either built the city of Puhār, or greatly extended it. King Gajabāhu of Ceylon3 was present at the invitation of the Red-Chera, to witness the celebration ... of a sacrifice and the consecration of the term plie to the 'Chaste Lady' (Pattini Devī) at Vanji on the west coast. The ascendancy of the Chera, however, passed away' as already mentioned, to the Pānḍyas in the course of one single generation. The Red-Chera was succeeded by his son or successor;'"the Chera of the elephant look," who was ,his predecessor's viceroy at Tonḍi, and figured prominently in his wars in the middle region. He was defeated and taken prisoner in a battle, which he had to fight with ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1 It is shown to be the river Kāleṛn which falls into the Svarnamukhi near Kāḷahasti. See the authors' work Maṇimékhalai in its Historical Setting. 2 Upham's Māhavaṁśa, Vol.i. p. 228. 3Śilappadhikāram, canto 30, 1. 160, apart from the prologue. |