The Colas c11.13

c11.13

Oḷiyar submitted to him, the ancient Aruvāḷar carried out his commands, the Northerners lost splendour, and the Westerners were depressed; conscious of the might of his large army ready to shatter the fortresses of enemy kings (Karikāla) turned his flushed look of anger against the Pāṇḍya whose strength gave way; the line of low herdsmen was brought to an end, and the family of Irungōvēḷ was uprooted.’ If we disregard the vague statements about Northerners and Westerners in these lines from the *Paṭṭinappālai*, we see that for all his heroism on the battlefield Karikāla’s permanent conquests did not extend much beyond the land of the Kāvēri. The Aruvāḷar were the inhabitants of the Aruvānād which comprised the lower valley of the Peṇṇār, just north of the Kāvērī delta country. The Oḷiyar were perhaps some nomadic tribe of nāga extraction, whom Karikāla converted to a settled life.²⁴ The description of Kāviri-pūmpaṭṭinam and its foreshore, which takes up so much of the *Paṭṭinappālai*, gives a vivid idea of the state of industry and commerce under Karikāla who is said to have promoted the reclamation and settlement of forest land and added to the prosperity of the country by multiplying irrigation tanks.²⁵