The Colas c10.7

c10.7

The Cōḷas adopted the tiger as their crest; the same animal was figured on their banner. Not one of the numberless references to this Cōḷa emblem which occur in Tamil literature tells us anything of its origin. Some late local chieftains of the Telugu country who claimed descent from Karikāla adopted the lion-crest.¹² And the Sindas of the Nāga family, who used the Vyāghralāñchana, had the story that Sinda, their eponymous ancestor, born of the serpent king Dharaṇēndra at Ahicchatra in the region of the Sindhu, was reared by a tiger. A slightly different form of the story makes him the offspring of a union between God Śiva and the Sindhu, brought up on tiger's milk by the king of serpents.¹³ These late inventions only confirm the fact that the origin of the tiger-crest was forgotten quite early by those who had adopted it.