The Colas c15.24

c15.24

Hastimalla got the title Bāṇādhirāja from Parāntaka before A.D. 916. (Sholingur record.) Vijayāditya II Prabhamēru ruled the Bāṇa territory independently till A.D. 909.²⁶ The conquest of the Bāṇas by Parāntaka must have taken place in the intervening period of six or seven years. The great-grandson of Vijayāditya Prabhumēru is known from his Udayēndiram grant to have been the friend of Kṛṣṇarāja III Rāṣṭrakūta. There were two Bāṇa kings intervening—Vikramāditya II and Vijayāditya III, Pugaḷvippavargaṇḍa. Considering the fact that the Rāṣṭrakūta Kṛṣṇa III could not have begun his reign much earlier than A.D. 940, it seems proper to infer that the two Bāṇa rulers who were dispossessed of their kingdom and perhaps forced by Parāntaka to seek refuge within the Rāṣṭrakūṭa dominion were Vikramāditya II and Vijayāditya III. The title conferred on Pṛthivīpati II, Bāṇādhirāja, was not then an empty name; it carried with it the real overlordship of the Bāṇa country for some years. And this uprooting of the Bāṇas, so proudly proclaimed by the Gaṅga ruler who benefited thereby, contributed to the invasion of the Cōḷa lands by Kṛṣṇa III which ended so disastrously for the Cōḷas.