The Colas c15.2

c15.2

At the time of the battle of Śrī Puṟambiyam, the Cōḷas held a small principality including Tanjore and Uṟaiyūr, perhaps in subjection to the Pallavas. But within twenty-five years their power became formidable. This expansion was exclusively the work of Āditya I, a remarkable warrior and able diplomat. Circumstances favoured him and he made full use of his opportunities. The Pāṇḍyas, after Śrī Puṟambiyam, were engrossed in their own troubles at home; Varaguṇa died soon after the battle, and his successor Śrī Pāṟāntaka Vīranārāyaṇa had to deal with a serious rising headed by the haughty Ugra.¹ With the Pallava Aparājita, Āditya was on friendly terms for some years after Śrī Puṟambiyam. He then turned against him and deprived him of the bulk, if not the whole, of his possessions; in this enterprise, Āditya was possibly aided by his Ganga contemporary; and the obscure conflicts that were engaging the Bāṇas, the Vaidumbas, the Gangas and the Noḷambas, of which the battle of Sorēmati was the central event, must have indirectly facilitated Āditya's success. Before the end of his reign Āditya conquered Kongu and annexed it to his territories. Thus at the accession of his son Parāntaka, A.D. 907, the Cōḷa kingdom embraced the whole country between Madras and Kāḷahasti in the north, and the Kāvēri in the south, with the exception of the Mysore table-land and the strip along the west coast. It kept the Ganga power in a position of subordinate alliance and was friends with the Cēra. The first conflict with the Pāṇḍya power had perhaps already taken place in the Kongu country.²