The Colas c16.s2.5

c16.s2.5

This is a record of the second or third year of a Rājakēsarivarman who may be identified with Gaṇḍarāditya. It suggests that even under Gaṇḍarāditya attempts were made to retrieve the losses sustained in the closing years of his father’s rule, and that, possibly, the Bāṇas, or some among them, were successfully seduced from their allegiance to Kṛṣṇa III. This Bāṇa alliance may thus be counted among the earliest indications of the emergence of Cōḷa power from the eclipse it suffered for a time. After the death of Gaṇḍarāditya, his efforts were continued by Ariñjaya who fell fighting at Āṟṟūr. If this view of Gaṇḍarāditya’s reign is correct, it is possible that he also sought, at first with little success, to recover lost ground in the south, and that Vīra Pāṇḍya’s boast of ‘taking the head’ of a Cōḷa may be referred to the same reign.