Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/427

 END OF THE PANDYAS 369 Vira. The fact that many names or titles, Sundara, Vira, Kulasekhara, and others, recur over and over again, causes special difficulty in attempts to construct the Pandya dynastic list. The Pandya state, in common with the other king- doms of the south, undoubtedly was reduced to a con- dition of tributary dependence by Rajaraja the Great about the year 1000, and continued to be more or less under Chola control for a century and a half, or a little longer, although, of course, the local administration re- mained in the hands of the native rajas. The Jain religion, which was popular in the days of Hiuen Tsang in the seventh century, and had con- tinued to enjoy the favour of the Pandya kings, was odious to their Chola overlords, who were strict adher- ents of Siva. A credible tradition affirms that, appar- ently at some time in the eleventh century, a Pandya king named Sundara was married to a Chola princess, sister of King Rajendra, and was converted from Jain- ism to the Saiva faith by his consort. King Sundara displayed even more than the proverbial zeal of a con- vert, and persecuted his late co-religionists, who refused to apostatize, with the most savage cruelty inflicting on no less than eight thousand innocent persons a hor- rible death by impalement. Certain unpublished sculp- tures on the walls of a temple at Trivatur in Arcot are believed to record these executions. The long duration of Chola supremacy suffices to explain in large measure the lack of early Pandya inscriptions. The series does not begin until near the