The Colas c14: Chapter VI. The Rise of Vijayālaya. Āditya I (c. A.D. 850-907)

The Cōḷas c14

Language: English

Chapter VI. The Rise of Vijayālaya. Āditya I (c. A.D. 850-907)

‘At the head of the great battle of Śrī Puṟambiya, this hero (Pṛthivīpati I) quickly defeated Varaguṇa, the Lord of the Pāṇḍyas; and having, at the expense of his own life, secured that his friend was Aparājita (unconquered) in fact as in name, he ascended to heaven.’¹ In these terms the Udayēndiram plates of Gaṅga Pṛthivīpati II record the part of his ancestor and namesake in the decisive battle which proved to be a turning-point in the history of Southern India. For the Pāṇḍyas never recovered from this staggering blow, and the Pallavas, though victory remained with them in the battle, owed it more to their allies than to their own strength. Thoroughly exhausted by incessant warfare on two fronts, against the Cāḷukyas and Pāṇḍyas, they were themselves in no position to pursue the advantage gained. Among the allies of the Pallavas were, besides the Gaṅga feudatory, the Cōḷa ruler Āditya I who, though he must have taken a subordinate place in the battle of Śrī Puṟambiyam, very soon discovered his advantage, and commanded the strength and energy to pursue it. The latest date known for Pṛthivīpati I is A.D. 879;² the battle in which he lost his life must have taken place about that date.

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Āditya I was the son of Vijayālaya, the first of the Imperial line of Cōḷas. An inscription from the Trichinopoly district³ mentions a grant of land made in accordance with an earlier charter issued by Parakēsari Vijayālaya, and this shows that the revival of Cōḷa power at this time begins from the neighbourhood of Uṟaiyūr, their ancient home on the banks of the Kāvēri. The Tiru-

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vālangāḍu plates⁴ quaintly affirm that Vijayālaya caught hold of Tanjore for his pleasure as if the city were his lawful spouse, and that he founded a temple to goddess Niṣumbhasūdinī (Durgā). Hultzsch suggested that some Parakēsari inscriptions from such distant places as Kāñcīpuram and Śucīndram may be assigned to Vijayālaya;⁵ though naturally one may doubt if he became so powerful as to leave stone inscriptions over so extensive a territory at such an early stage in the rise of the Cōḷas, evidence is increasing that this king was really powerful, and in a record of his third year from Vīracōḷapuram in Tirukōyilūr taluq of South Arcot he is clearly described as *Tañjai-koṇḍa parakēsari*, Parakēsari the captor of Tanjore⁶. Some of the parakēsari records near about Tanjore are unquestionably his.⁷ In a record of the fifth year of Vikrama Cōḷa from Kīlputtūr in the North Arcot district, there is a specific reference to a stone inscription of the fourth year of Vijayālaya. Possibly Vijayālaya, though a vassal of the Pallava ruler, still dated records in his own regnal years—a privilege exercised by certain vassals at all times and by all of them when the power of their suzerain was on the decline.

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What was the political position of Vijayālaya and from whom did he capture Tanjore? In order to answer these questions, we must try and establish the probable date of Vijayālaya’s rule. This is easily ascertained by calculating backwards from the accession of Parāntaka I, the grandson of Vijayālaya. The accession of Parāntaka has been fixed by Kielhorn between 15 January and 25 July A.D. 907.⁸

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This date rests on the copious and unimpeachable testimony of astronomical data drawn from his numberless stone inscriptions, and forms the sheet-anchor of Cōḷa chronology in this period. The duration of the reign of Parāntaka's father, Āditya I, was at least twenty-seven years, possibly more. A very interesting record from Tirukkalukkuṉṟam,⁹ dated in the twenty-seventh year of Rājakēsari, may for very good reasons be ascribed to Āditya; palaeographically, it certainly belongs to the time before Parāntaka; the subject-matter of the record is the renewal of the gifts of some lands to the local temple, made originally by Skandaśiṣya and continued by Pādāvikoṇḍa Narasiṅgapōttaraiyar, both well-known Pallava kings. Such a renewal is normal after a conquest, and as Āditya I is known to have conquered the Pallavas and annexed the Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam to the Cōḷa country, it is practically certain that this inscription is one of Āditya’s. It should also be observed that in the earliest copper-plate grant, so far known, of this line, Āditya I is simply called Rājakēsari,¹⁰ without any other name. How much longer Āditya ruled after the date of the Tirukkaḷuk-kuṇṛam inscription cannot now be ascertained. But an inscription from Takkōlam dated in the 24th year of Rājakesari, no doubt Āditya I, mentions a solar eclipse which occurred in A.D. 894 or 895.¹¹ This would give A.D. 870 or 871 for the accession of Āditya, and a rule of about 36 years for him till A.D. 907. We thus get 870 or thereabouts for the close of the reign of Vijayālaya, which might have begun, therefore, sometime before A.D. 850.¹²

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The date thus obtained for the beginning of Vijayālaya's rule is some years earlier than the date of the accession to the Pāṇḍyan kingdom of Varaguṇavarman, who sustained defeat at Śrī Puṛambiyam, near Kumbakōṇam in the Tanjore district. The power of the Pāṇḍyas was still, at the accession of Varaguṇa, quite considerable in spite of the set-back it suffered after the battle of the Ariśil in the reign of his father.¹³ At this time, moreover, the enterprising chieftains known to history as the Muttaraiyar were in possession of part of the fertile delta land in the Tanjore district; their inscriptions come from Śendalai¹⁴ and clearly describe them as ruling Tanjore also, though they had their head-quarters at Śendalai or Niyamam. Like the Cōḷas, the Muttaraiyar found it impossible to set up an independent rule, and had to support themselves by clinging to the Pāṇḍyas or the Pallavas.

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Their inscriptions and their titles show that they played a clever game and were ready to change their allegiance to suit their interests. In Varaguṇa's time, either of their own accord or as a result of temptations offered by Varaguṇa, they appear to have thrown in their lot with the Pāṇḍyas. The result was that they lost Tanjore, which was captured by Vijayālaya acting in the interest of the Pallavas. Little could the Pallava ruler have suspected that in thus employing his Cōḷa subordinate, he was, as the Indian saying has it, training his tiger-cub to a taste for blood. Nor could Vijayālaya have dreamt that his vicarious victory was to be the beginning of one of the most splendid empires known to Indian History.

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The success of Vijayālaya meant the weakening of the Muttaraiya allies of the Pāṇḍya Varaguṇavarman, who undertook an expedition calculated to redress the balance. This began well enough, and Ịdavai, on the north bank of the Kāvērī in the Cōḷa country, was reached.¹⁵ But the Pallava ruler Aparājita who succeeded Nṛpatuṅgavarman, just before this Pāṇḍya invasion, made a great effort. He got all his allies together, most prominent among them being the Gaṅga king Pṛthivīpati I. The alliance between the Gaṅgas and the Pallavas was of ancient standing, and though there is no definite evidence to prove it, we may assume that the Cōḷa Āditya, who had succeeded his father in the meanwhile, also fought on the side of Aparājita¹⁶ in the great battle of Śrī Purambiyam. More lucky than the Gaṅga monarch, Āditya lived to share the spoils of victory. Possibly, in his gratitude to his Cōḷa ally, Aparājita not only allowed Āditya to keep what his father had taken from the Muttaraiyar, but added some new territory in the neighbourhood to the sphere of his rule.

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Of Āditya (c. A.D. 871-907) the Anbil plates state only that on both the banks of the Kāvēri he built in honour of Śiva rows of tall stone temples which stood, the monuments of his success, from the Sahyādri mountain to the wide ocean.¹⁷ The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates state that he overthrew the strong Pallava ruler Aparājita,¹⁸ and deprived him of his territory. The Kanyākumārī inscription gives him the surname Kōdaṇḍarāma, and states that in a battle he pounced upon and slew the Pallava king who was seated on the back of a tall elephant.¹⁹ A record from Tillaisthānam²⁰ confirms this evidence by clearly stating that Rājakesari extended his power to the Toṇḍaināḍ. Āditya must be taken, therefore, to have put an end to the Pallava power

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by annexing Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam, and to have extended the Cōḷa dominions, till they bordered on those of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. Aparājita's inscriptions mention his eighteenth regnal year; and no record from Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam that can be attributed to Āditya bears a date earlier than his twenty-third regnal year. But as a gift, a *dēvadāna*, was made in the 21st year,²¹ the conquest and annexation of the Pallava territory may be dated roughly about A.D. 890.

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But the settlement of the newly conquered territory in Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam apparently took some years and may have involved fresh campaigns. The Karandai plates include the Pallava among the kings overthrown by Parāntaka I, the son also provided for the feeding of a thousand people on certain festival days. Āditya had besides Parāntaka another son, Kannaradēva by name.³³

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It is remarkable that the kings of the Vijayālaya line were ardent Śaivites. Vijayālaya himself established a Durgā temple in Tañjāvūr after he captured it; Āditya built temples to Śiva. His son raised a shrine over his sepulchre, establishing a linga on it—a Śaivite adaptation of the Buddhist practice of erecting memorial stupas.

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The Cōḷa rulers of this time were not slow to acquire for themselves a pedigree; and a mythical ancestry tracing their descent from the sun was soon provided, though some kings of lunar genesis were also mixed up in it. The earliest version of it is in the Anbil plates which give fifteen names before Vijayālaya including the genuinely historical ones of Karikāla, Kiḷḷi and Kōcceṅgaṇān. The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates swell the list to forty-four, and the Kanyākumārī list runs up to fifty-two, while the Leyden grant is satisfied with a dozen. There are others of varying lengths to be gathered from literary works like the *Kaliṅgattupparaṇi*, the *ulās* of Oṭṭakkūttan and so on. No two of these lists agree, though some names and details are common to all. An eponymous Cōḷa finds a place in all the copper-plates, and the Kanyākumārī inscription dresses up a pretty story³⁴ about his advent to the south. He was drawn in that direction in pursuit of a Rākṣasa who had assumed the form of an antelope, and he was followed by some of his commanders. Then he killed the Rākṣasa and moved along the banks of the Kāvērī, 'the river which brings to the earth, in the guise of water, the nectar obtained by the gods after churning the ocean of milk.' Having bathed in the river, when he looked for some brahmans, apparently to bestow some gifts on them, he found none there; and so he summoned many excellent brahmans from Āryāvarta and settled them on the banks of the river. He then cleared the forest, planted groves of areca-palms and laid out fruit-gardens and otherwise improved the country. Such is the quaint account of the origin of the Cōḷa kingdom as it was imagined by the court-poet of Vīrarājēndra.³⁵ 1. *SII.* ii, No. 76, v. 18; 337 of 1912.

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2. Rangachari, NA. Nos. 536-7; *EI.* iv. pp. 180-3.

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3. 675 of 1909. A Vijayālaya-caturvēdimangalam is mentioned among the *brahmadēya* villages which were required to supply men for service in the Tanjore temple in Rājarāja's reign (*SII.* ii 69, para 139). See also 164 of 1915 (Vikrama Cōḷa 5) for a reference to a *kal-veṭṭu* of the fourth year of Vijayālaya in the North Arcot district. A Pāṇḍya inscription of the thirteenth century from Nārttāmalai (Pd. 282) mentions a Vijayālayacōḷēśvara temple. Nos. 125 and 126 of 1943-4 from near Tiruttaṇi (Chittoor dt.), though only late Vijayanagar records, mention a temple named after Vijayālaya.

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4. *SII.* iii, No. 205 vv. 45 and 46. The Kanyākumkāri inscription of Vīrarājēndra (*TAS.* iii, p. 142, v. 54) exaggerates this and says that Vijayālaya founded Tanjore. The Anbil plates pun on his name Vijayālaya in praising his valour on the battle-field (v. 16).

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5. *SII.* iii p. 17 n. 14; *EI.* v, p. 42; *SII.* iii No. 11 from Ukkal is now seen to belong to Uttama Cōḷa. *ARE.* 1939/40—1942/43, II 30.

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6. 51 of 1936, *ARE.* 1935-6 II 34. Another record of the eighth year of Parakēsari with no title from Kāppalūr, fifty miles north of Vīracōḷapuram, may also be his—283 of 1938-9. *ARE.* II 12. MAR. 1909 para 18 comments suggestively on a single line fragment from Kūḍalūr in the Mysore area. See also *ARE.* 1909 para 35, and 1916 II 17.

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7. E.g., 436 and 439 of 1908 from Tiruvīlimiḷalai,

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8. *EI.* viii p. 260.

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9. 167 of 1894; *EI.* iii, p. 279.

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10. Anbil Plates (*EI.* xv) vv. 17-18.

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¹¹ *EI.* xix, No. 12.

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¹² K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyar observes: 'If Vijayālaya came of the same family as the Cōḷa Mahārāja Kumārānkuśa, it is very likely that he was the grandson of his.' *TAS.* iii, p.

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¹⁰⁸ Kumārānkuśa, as we have seen, figures as the *vijñapti* in the Vēlūrpāḷaiyam plates of Nandivarman III. It is extremely doubtful, however, if he and Vijayālaya belonged to one and the same branch of the Cōḷas. See *ante* p. 104.

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¹³ *PK.* pp. 73 ff.

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¹⁴ *EI.* xiii pp. 134 ff. where these records are tentatively referred to the first half of the 8th century A.D. (p. 136). Note particularly *Tañjaittiram pāḍi ninṟār; Tañjaik-kōn; Tañjai narpugaḷāḷan* occurring in them.

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¹⁵ 609 of 1905 (Rangachari - Mr. 8). The name Pāṇḍiyanai -ven - kaṇḍa - śoḷa-caturvedimangalam is applied to this place in a late record (42 of 1914) dated Ś. 1369; this can hardly be a reference to the discomfiture of Varaguṇavarman. *Contra* Rangachari Tj. 185.

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¹⁶ Inscription 337 of 1912 (Rangachari Ct. 226) of Priduvayya mentioning the Cōḷa-rāja is too fragmentary to throw any light on the political relations of the age. *Contra* Dubreuil, *Pallavas* p.

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⁸³ T. A. Gopinatha Rao writes (*E.I.* xv, p. 49): 'It is known from other records that Āditya and the Pāṇḍya king Varaguṇa marched against the Pallava
17. v. 18.
18. v. 49.
19. v. 55.
20. 286 of 1911.
21. *SII.* iii No. 142. 21a. 271 of 1938-9, ARE. II 12. See *JOR.* xix pp. 148-9, and Potdar Comm. Vol. pp. 29-31.
22. 5 of 1897; *EI.* xix No. 12.
23. 161 of 1928. 23a. 14 of 1920; *EI.* xxvi p. 233.
24. 16 of 1899. The regnal year 24 is given by Krishna Sastri (*SII.* iii No. 94) but does not seem to be borne out by the text.
25. 13 of 1899.
26. The place of Aparājita, though not his relation with his predecessor Nṛpatuṅga, is well attested. The narrow range of the provenance of his inscriptions needs an explanation. It seems strange that the victor of Śrī Purambiyam appears to have left no inscriptions to the south of Kāñcīpuram. The death of Pṛthivīpati on the field perhaps left Aparājita at the mercy of his overbearing ally Āditya who managed to take the southern Toṇḍaimaṇḍalam as the price of his co-operation. He chose the next opportunity to complete the destruction of the Pallavas.

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Nṛpatuṅgavarman, otherwise known also by the name of Aparājita-varman, defeated and killed him.’ Apart from the identification of Aparājita with Nṛpatuṅga for which there is no evidence, it is difficult to believe that the expedition which led to the overthrow of Aparājita had anything to do with Varaguṇavarman’s campaign. As I understand the evidence, it was different, and most probably, some years later. (See Dubreuil-Pallavas p. 84).

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It must be admitted, however, that our view of the relation between the Cōḷas and the Pallavas in the time of Vijayālaya and in the early years of Āditya I is not final. It is quite likely that the aggrandisement of Vijayālaya at the expense of the Muttaraiyar had nothing whatever to do with the struggle between the Pāṇḍyas and the Pallavas. In that case, Vijayālaya took advantage of the confusion in the borderland between the dominions of the Pāṇḍyas and the Pallavas, and his son also gained by the weakening of both after Śrī Purambiyam. See, however, *EI.* xix p. 87 n. 6. Yet another view may be taken: The Muttaraiyar being allies of the Pallavas, the Cōḷas may, under Vijayālaya, have found occasion to join the Pāṇḍyas and to throw off the Pallava yoke. On this supposition the capture of Tanjore by Vijayālaya would be at once an act of aggression undertaken by him against the Pallava, to favour the Pāṇḍya, and a decisive step in the assertion of Cōḷa independence from Pallava suzerainty. On this assumption, it is not unlikely that Āditya fought on Varaguṇa’s side at Śrī Purambiyam. An objection to this view is the difficulty of explaining how, after the defeat he suffered on this occasion, Āditya recovered sufficiently to overthrow Aparājita later, and why Aparājita failed, after his success at Śrī Purambiyam, to reassert his supremacy over the Cōḷa.

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It may be that Māṟambāvai was the queen of Nandi III of Teḷḷāṟu, whose reign ended about A.D. 860. The earliest Cōḻa record which mentions her is in the 18th year of Rājakēsari, c. 889. She is also named in two of Nṛpatunga's inscriptions, both from the Tanjore dt. (Nos. 300 and 303 of 1901). See *ARE.* 1901, paragraph 10; *SII.* ii. p. 513, *n.*

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27. 258 of 1907. The regnal year of this record is 10, not 30.

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28. 286 of 1911.

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29. *ARE.* 1912 II, 11 suggests the identification of Sthāṇu-Ravi with Kōkkandan Ravi of the Candrāditya family (148 of 1910) on palaeographical grounds. The epithet '*pal-yānai-kōk-kaṇḍan*' in the Tillaisthānam inscription, like the phrase '*Toṇḍai-nāḍu-pāvina-Sōḻan*,' applies to Rājakēsari and not to Sthāṇu-Ravi, as *ARE.* (*ibid*) appears to suggest. 'It is not impossible that Sthāṇu-Ravi substantially assisted Āditya in his conquest of the Pallavas and the acquisition of their territory, and that Vikki-Aṇṇaṉ distinguished himself on this occasion as an able general.' (*ibid*). In the same paragraph we find the suggestion thrown out that Vikki-Aṇṇaṉ was, like his wife Kaḍamba-mādēvi, of Karṇāṭaka origin, and that he was a Vēḷir chieftain of Koḍumbāḷūr (Pudukōṭṭah).

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30. 332 of 1912. Śembiyan Mahābali Bāṇarasa (of this record) is no other than Pṛthvīpati II.

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31. *EI.* xv, p. 50.

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32. 286 of 1906; also 230 of 1903. Before the Kanyākumārī inscription gave us the information that Āditya had the name Kōdaṇḍarāma, the only Kōdaṇḍarāma known was his grandson Rājāditya; but Rājāditya must have been living in the 34th year of his father's reign. *EI.* xviii pp. 23-24.