Of the three, the most southern was called the Pandyan kingdom; it was the earliest civilized, and seems to have attained sufficient importance about the time of the Christian Era to have attracted the special attention of the Greek and Roman geographers. How much earlier it became a state, or had a regular succession of rulers, we know not,[350] but it seems certainly to have attained to some consistency as early as five or six centuries before the Christian Era, and maintained itself within its original boundaries till in the middle of the last century, when it was swallowed up in our all-devouring aggression. During this long period the Pandyas had several epochs of great brilliancy and power, followed by long intervening periods of depression and obscurity. The 1st century, and afterwards the 5th or 6th, seem to have been those in which they especially distinguished themselves. If buildings of either of these epochs still exist, which is by no means improbable, they are utterly unknown to us as yet, nor have we any knowledge of buildings of the intervening periods down to the reign of Tirumulla Nayak, A.D. 1624. This prince adorned the capital city of Mádura with many splendid edifices, some of which have been drawn by Daniell and others. What more ancient remains there may be will not be known till the place has been carefully and scientifically explored. The Chola kingdom extended northwards from the valley of the Cauvery and Coleroon rivers, whose banks seem always to have been its principal seat, nearly to Madras, all along the eastern coast, called after them Cholomandalam or Coromandel. The date of the origin of their kingdom is not known, but their political relations with Kashmir can be traced as early as the 6th century, and probably earlier.[351] Their epoch of greatest glory, however, was between the 10th and 12th centuries, when they seem to have conquered not only their neighbours the Pandyas and Cheras, but even to have surpassed the bounds of the triarchy, and carried their arms into Ceylon, and to have maintained an equal struggle with the Chalukyas in the north. After this period they had no great revival like that of the Pandyas under Tirumulla Nayak, but sank step by step under the Mahomedans, Mahrattas, and English, to their present state of utter political annihilation.