The Colas c13.16

c13.16

Religious tradition confirms our general inference that the Cōḷas, though they had lost their power, did not disappear totally from the banks of the Kāvēri at this time. The *Periya Purāṇam*, a work of the twelfth century a.d., contains traditional information of some value. It tells us that the Pāṇḍya contemporary of Tiru-Ñānasambandar had for his queen a Cōḷa princess of the name Maṅgaiyark-karasi. Pugaḻccōḻa-Nāyanār was a Cōḷa ruler of Uṟaiyūr who held Karuvūr in subjection, conquered an Adigan³¹ and promoted Śaivism. The *Purāṇam* also affirms that when a petty chieftain of Kaḷandai, who became, later, celebrated as Kūṟṟuva-Nāyanār, wanted the Brahmans of Cidambaram to invest him with the diadem and thus confer the dignity of royalty on him in recognition of his extensive conquests, they declined to do so on the ground that only the ancient family of the Cōḷas was entitled to this high privilege, and, to avoid further trouble, migrated to the Cēra country in a body. The family of another Nāyanār, Ēyarkōn-kalikkāman, was living in a village on the banks of the Kāvērī, and devoting itself to agriculture and military service under the Cōḷa monarchs.³² Lastly, a Cōḷa prince married a Pāṇḍyan princess and lived at Madura when Sundaramūrti visited the place in the company of Śēramān Perumāḷ.³³ Though Śēkkiḷār, the author of the *Periya Purāṇam*, is our main authority for these statements, many of them are also found in Nambi Āṇḍār Nambi's brief *andādi* which was the basis of the *Purāṇam*, and the names at least of the kings and chieftains go back to the time of Sundaramūrti, in the eighth century a.d. The *Divyasūri-carita* and the *Guru-paramparā* tell the same tale from the Vaiṣṇava side. Dēvadēvi, the hetaera who captivated āḷvār Toṇḍaraḍippoḍi for a time, met the holy man first when she was returning from the court of the Cōḷa king at Uṟaiyūr. The celebrated Uṟaiyūr-nācciyār, who declined to marry a mortal, and insisted successfully on her union with Lord Ranganātha, was a Cōḷa princess, the daughter of Dharmavarmā of the solar line ruling at Uṟaiyur. Tirumangai-āḷvār started life as a military official appointed by the Cōḷa king. Possibly, some of these literary references to the Cōḷas are due to the mere fact that the works in which they occur were composed in the days of Cōḷa ascendancy; but the unmistakable references to the Pallava contemporaries of the earlier *āḷvārs* and *nāyanārs* in these works are sufficient indication that some old and genuine traditions must have survived at the time and that a few, though not all, of the allusions to the Cōḷas culled from these books may be quite trustworthy.