Mapappalam (Papphāla, Ligor coast)

The 11th-century place-name 'Mapappalam' named in Rajendra Chola I's 1025 CE Tanjore inscription as one of the Southeast Asian cities taken in his naval raid — one of fifteen Chola conquest targets listed. Modern identification is uncertain and contested: candidates include Papphala on the Ligor coast of southern Thailand, the Pahang region of the Malay peninsula, or an unidentified Mon settlement in the Isthmus of Kra. The name does not appear in Southeast Asian epigraphic records independent of the Tanjore inscription, which is standard for a Chola military target that may have been a brief encounter. The Chola campaign of 1025 is the only recorded Indian naval expedition to Southeast Asia and the one that broke Shrivijayan maritime hegemony across the Malacca Strait.