Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s13.4

c8.s13.4

Of their early history little or nothing has been recovered, but a few details for the first and second centuries appear in a recent publication.¹ It is not till the tenth century that anything definite is known about them, and even then their practice of dating inscriptions only in the regnal year of the king afforded no basis for framing the chronology of the line; while the names adopted by many of the kings were themselves misleading, being mere royal titles. The first actual date which gave a clue was in a Ganga inscription of 950 in Mysore (Md 41). This contained the statement that the Ganga king Būtuga, who was aiding the Rāṣṭrakūṭa king Kannara or Krishna III in his war against the Chōlas, slew the Chōla king Rājāditya at Takkolam (near Arkonam), thus bringing the war to a close. Chōla inscriptions dated in the Śaka era were also found in other parts of Mysore, and eventually in the Madras country too. A chronology of the Chōlas from the tenth century, when they first came into prominence, has thus been constructed, the calculations being made by Dr. Kielhorn (see *EI.* viii. App. ii. 21), and it would seem that contact with the Gangas and other powers to the north first led them to adopt the Śaka era in dating their inscriptions.² After the twelfth century the Chōlas ceased to be formidable.