South India. However, it appears there was a change in approach of the, Cholas, who from the times of Kulothunga Chola I, adopted a policy of letting the defeated kings to rule without there being a Chola representative to administer those provinces despite subjugating the Pandyas and Cheras in South India. This policy reversed the practice followed mainly from the times of Raja Raja Chola I and his son Rajendra Chola I who, after defeating the Pandyas and conquering Madurai, sent a Chola prince to directly rule the Pandya country with the royal titles Chola-Pandyan. 'After the conquest of the Pandya country by Kulothunga Chola I, the princes of the local royal family were allowed to rule as they liked, subject to the vague suzerainty of the Cholas'. An important reason for this was the involvement of the Chola kings in the periodic but many a times fierce succession disputes that arose among the Pandya princes leading 'to the intervention of the Chola and Sinhalese rulers on opposite sides, which brought no good to either' kingdom. One such prominent war in the Pandyan country took place 'soon after the installation of Rajadhiraja Chola II (1163–1178 CE)', and 'out of the ashes of this civil war arose the Pandya power which in its renewed strength soon swallowed both the Chola and Ceylonese kingdoms'. Some political setbacks although not in terms of loss of territory in wars, adversely affected the Cholas during the reign of Kulothunga Chola III itself. While he recovered Vengi with ease in 1208 CE from the Velanadu Chodas, their power in any case had disappeared after 1186 CE and their territories had been divided among five chieftains. Ultimately Ganapatideva, the powerful Kakatiya monarch, had made their country subordinate to his rule by 1214 CE. The subsequent defeat of the Telugu Cholas by the Kakatiya Ganapatideva in 1216 also immensely handicapped Kulothunga Chola III, for the services of his erstwhile subordinates and feudatories were no longer available to him. As a consequence, 'towards the close of reign, the Pandya reprisal overwhelmed him' and heralded the decline of the Cholas which continued till the demise of the Chola empire in 1280 CE. In 1216 CE, 'Jatavarman Kulasekhara, whom Kulothunga Chola III had humiliated in a signal manner in 1205, was followed on the throne, more than ten years later, by his younger brother, Maravarman Sundara Pandya, who wanted to avenge