The Colas c15.45

c15.45

He had many wives, of whom the names of no fewer than eleven occur in his inscriptions. Kōkkiḷān⁶¹ was the name of the mother of Rājāditya, called also Kōdaṇḍarāma, the eldest son of Parāntaka who died in the battle of Takkōlam. Another queen of Parāntaka, a Kēraḷa princess,⁶² the mother of Ariñjaya, deserves special notice as her marriage, contracted possibly in Āditya's lifetime, not only gave proof of the friendly political relations that obtained between the Cōḷa and Kēraḷa rulers, but apparently furnished the occasion for a large influx of Malaiyāḷis into the Cōḷa country in search of service under the king and his sons. Veḷḷangumaran, the Kēraḷa general of Rājāditya, who built a temple in Grāmam was only the leading example⁶³ of a large class of less known immigrants figuring as donors of small charitable gifts in the inscriptions of the period. Besides Rājāditya, Parāntaka had four other sons: Gaṇḍarāditya, Arikulakēsari, Uttamaśīli and Arindigai or Ariñjaya of the plates. One daughter of his, Vīramādēvi, called also queen of Gōvinda Vallavaraiyar, is mentioned;⁶⁴ and it is likely that another, Anupamā, was married to the chieftain of Koḍumbāḷūr. That Parāntaka was fond of many high-sounding titles⁶⁵ is clear from his inscriptions, amongst which the most noteworthy, in this as well as in other respects, are the celebrated records of the twelfth and fourteenth years of his reign dealing with the constitutional arrangements of the Sabhā of Uttaramērūr.⁶⁶ The Karandaí plates (v. 21) stress his promotion of agricultural prosperity by the digging of numerous irrigation canals all over the country. He performed several *hēmagarbhas* and *tulābhāras*, and gave *brahmadēyas*.⁶⁷ The Tiruvālangāḍu plates describe Parāntaka as the bee at the lotus feet of Śiva (Purāntaka), and they and the Leyden grant concur in stating that he covered with gold the Śiva temple of Cidambaram.⁶⁸ In fact Parāntaka’s reign was a great epoch in the history of South Indian temple architecture, and the work of temple-building begun by Āditya was continued vigorously during the best part of his reign. We have also much valuable and interesting evidence from the inscriptions on the details of administration, central and rural, on the state of religious faith and so on. These matters have been reserved for detailed study at a later stage.