The Colas c11.18

c11.18

From very early times Karikāla became the centre of many myths which, in modern times, have often been accepted as serious history. The *Śilappadikāram* which, with studied fairness attributes to each of the three Tamil monarchies some conspicuous success against northern Aryan kings, gives a glorious account of the northern expedition of Karikāla³⁰ which took him as far as the Himalayas and gained for him the alliance or subjection of the kings of the Vajra, Magadha and Avanti countries. The raising of the flood-banks of the Kāvērī by Karikāla seems to be first mentioned by the Malēpāḍu plates of Puṇyakumāra,³¹ a Telugu-Cōḍa king of the seventh or eighth century. Nothing can be more typical of the manner in which legends grow than the way in which this story mingles with another stream of legend centring round Triṇētra Pallava, and culminates in the celebrated jingle of the late Telugu-Cōḍa plates: *caraṇa-sarōruha vihata-vilōcana-pallava-trilōcana-pramukhākhila-prithivīśvara-kārita-kāvērī-tīra*,³² which has been made the basis of conclusions of the highest importance to the chronology of Early South Indian History. The choice of Karikāla to the Cōḷa throne by a state elephant which was let loose for the purpose from Kaḻumalam and which discovered him at Karūr, and his conquest of Kāñcī and settlement of agrarian colonies in the Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam are other elements in the Karikāla legends that can find no support from the earliest authorities on his reign. It would seem that the Toṇḍai-nāḍ was ruled by Toṇḍaimān Iḷandiraiyan in the days of Karikāla; and there is no satisfactory evidence in support of the suggestion that has been made that this chieftain was the grandson of Karikāla, or, at least, a viceroy appointed by him after his conquest of Kāñcī.³³