Madura, the later capital of the Pāṇḍyas, was captured by ’Alāu-d-dīn in 1311, and an independent Muhammadan dynasty ruled there from 1334 to 1377, after which it was added to the Vijayanagar kingdom. The Choḷas were supreme in Southern India from the accession of Rājarāja the Great in 985 down to 1035, during which period they extended their conquests to the Deccan and subdued Ceylon. After some years of eclipse they rose again under Rājendra Kulottuṅga I (acc. 1074), who was related to the Eastern Chālukyas of Veṅgī. The Choḷa power declined in the thirteenth century. The earlier coins of the dynasty, before 985, are gold and silver pieces, portraying a tiger seated under a canopy along with the Pāṇḍya fish (Pl. VII, 6); the names inscribed on them have not been satisfactorily explained. The later class of Choḷa coins, all copper, have a standing figure on the obverse and a seated figure on the reverse, with the name _Rāja Rāja_ in Nāgarī. This type spread with the Choḷa power, and was slavishly copied by the kings of Ceylon (1153-1296; cf. Pl. VII, 7), and its influence is also noticeable on the earlier issues of the Nāyaka princes of Madura and Tinnevelly. Only one coin has been attributed to a Chera dynasty. A silver piece in the British Museum, with Nāgarī legends on both sides (Pl. VII, 9), belongs to the Keraḷa country, the extreme southern portion of the western coast, and has been assigned to the eleventh or twelfth century. III. COINAGE OF THE EMPIRE OF VIJAYANAGAR AND LATER DYNASTIES The great mediæval kingdom of Vijayanagar was founded in 1336 by five brothers as a bulwark against Muhammadan conquest, and continued to flourish under three successive dynasties until the battle of Tālikota, 1565; the members of a fourth dynasty ruled as minor chiefs at Chandragiri until the end of the seventeenth century.