Pandya

The Pandyas were one of the three ancient crowned kingdoms of the Tamil country, ruling from Madurai from at least the third century BCE. After a long eclipse under the Kalabhras the dynasty revived in the sixth century under Kadungon.

Jatavarman Sundara Pandya I, crowned around 1251, carried Pandya arms to Nellore, Kerala and northern Sri Lanka. Maravarman Kulasekhara I defeated a Hoysala-Chola alliance in 1279 and seized the Buddha's Tooth Relic on Ceylon. After his death, his sons Sundara Pandya and Vira Pandya fought a civil war; Sundara called in the Delhi Khaljis, whose general Malik Kafur sacked the Tamil south in 1311.

In 1335 the governor of Ma'bar founded the independent Madurai Sultanate, seizing Madurai. The surviving Pandyas withdrew to Tenkasi, ruling at times as tributaries until the last known king perished around the middle of the seventeenth century.