The Colas c16.s2.16

c16.s2.16

The Madras Museum plates of Uttama Cōḷa, though they add little to our knowledge of political history, are of very great interest to the study of the social life and the administrative methods of the kingdom in Uttama Cōḷa's time; they form moreover beautiful specimens of the palaeography of the period.⁷⁷ Even the stone inscriptions of the reign contain little information on political transactions. Some inscriptions recently discovered in the Trichinopoly district,⁷⁸ dated in the twelfth year of Parakēsari, introduce to us a high official of Uttama Cōḷa's government by name Ambalavan Paḷuvūrnakkan of Kuvaḷālam (Kōlār). He was an officer of *perundaram* rank who built of stone the old shrine of Vijayamaṅgalam celebrated by Tirunāvukkaraśu as a temple in Gōvandaputtūr on the bank of the Coleroon,⁷⁹ commemorating Arjuna's (Vijaya's) penance for obtaining the favour of Śiva;⁸⁰ and on this officer, Uttama Cōḷa conferred the title Vikramaśōlamārāyar,⁸¹ from which we may conclude that Uttama had also the title Vikrama. The same officer continued in Rājarāja's service later; in the records of Rājarāja's reign he has the title Mummudiśōḷa prefixed to his personal name, and also bears the alternative title Rājarāja Pallavaraiyan.⁸² No other evidence exists to show that Uttama Cōḷa's suzerainty extended as far as Kōlār in Mysore, and all the inscriptions mentioning this official come from one place, and that in the Trichinopoly district. It must be assumed, therefore, that for some reasons unknown to us, this person migrated from Kōlār into the Cōḷa dominions and rose to a high position in the royal service.