The Colas c15.42

c15.42

That even this decisive battle was not followed by the total collapse of all resistance to Kṛṣṇa's advance, and that he had some more years of rather hard fighting, may be inferred from the fact that inscriptions dated in his reign do not begin to appear till his sixteenth year, A.D. 956 or at the earliest 953. Inscriptions from South Arcot dated in Śaka years 874-876 (A.D. 952-954)⁵⁶ recording gifts of minor chieftains but not acknowledging either Cōḻa or Rāṣṭrakūṭa supremacy may be taken to support this inference. There is much uncertainty, however, about the exact course of the events that followed Takkōlam. We have no Cōḻa records from the districts of North Arcot, South Arcot and Chingleput for several years after the battle; Kṛṣṇa's records with dates ranging from the sixteenth to the twenty-eighth years of his reign are found in the same area. By assuming the tittle '*Kacciyum-Tañjaiyum-Koṇḍa*,' Kṛṣṇa claimed to have captured Kañcīpuram and Tañjāvūr. The 'spurious' Sudi plates⁵⁷ state that Būtuga, after conquering Rājāditya, assaulted Tanjore, Nālkoṭe and a number of other fortresses and handed over to Kṛṣṇa elephants, horses and a vast amount of treasure captured from these places. The Karhāḍ grant A.D. 959, which shows Kṛṣṇa still in his camp at Mēlpāḍi (N. Arcot) at the end of his southern campaigns, states that in the course of his *digvijaya* in the south, he uprooted the family of the Cōḻas, distributed their territory among his followers, extorted tributes from several kings, including the king of Ceylon, and erected a pillar of victory in Rāmēśvaram.⁵⁸ We cannot say for certain if these are merely empty boasts or the record of a triumphant raid across the southern countries. No inscriptions of Kṛṣṇa or his vassals [Figure: COLA KINGDOM UNDER PARĀNTAKA I At its greatest extent *..* Towards the end [hatched box]]