The Colas c11.20

c11.20

The *Maṇimēkalai*³⁷ mentions a great battle at the Kāriyāṟu in which the Pāṇḍya and the Cēra were defeated by a junior prince (Iḷangōn) of the Cōḷa family in the reign of Māvaṇkiḷḷi, also called Neḍumuḍikkiḷḷi and Kiḷḷivaḷayan in this poem. This battle has been identified with the one in which Neḍungiḷḷi met his fate and the civil strife came to an end;³⁸ from this the inference has been drawn that the Iḷangōn of the *Maṇimēkalai* was no other than Nalangiḷḷi, and that Nalangiḷḷi was the younger brother of Neḍumuḍik-kiḷḷi; some writers go further and argue that because Nalangiḷḷi is called Śēṭcenni-Nalangiḷḷi,³⁹ he may be a grandson of Iḷañjēṭcenni, the father of Karikāla, with the result that Neḍumuḍik-kiḷḷi, Nalangiḷḷi, and Māvaḷattān turn out to be three sons of Karikāla. But there is nothing except the name in favour of identifying the two references to the Kāriyāṟu in the *Puṟanānūṟu* and the *Maṇimēkalai*; nothing is known of the circumstances of Neḍungiḷḷi's death at the Kāriyāṟu, a fact which finds only the most casual mention in the colophon to *Puṟam* 47; we are to infer from this that as there was a civil war between Nalangiḷḷi and Neḍungiḷḷi, a fight at the Kāriyāṟu might, by proving fatal to the latter, have closed the strife. On the contrary, the battle of the Kāriyāṟu described, though briefly, yet with considerable vividness, in the *Maṇimēkalai*, appears as a first-class event in the foreign relations of the Cōḷa kingdom, and not as a petty fight incidental to a quarrel among blood relations; and there is no suggestion in the context that the Cēra and the Pāṇḍya were, on that occasion, engaged in aiding one Cōḷa prince against another. The last argument adduced from the name Śēṭcenni-Nalangiḷḷi is not without force, and it appears quite likely that he and Māvaḷattān were the sons of Karikāla.