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The Colas c17: Chapter IX

The Cōḷas c17

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Chapter IX

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RĀJARĀJA THE GREAT (A.D. 985-1014).

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Rājakēsari Arumoḷivarman, as he was known in the early years of his reign, came to the throne, after a long apprenticeship as *yuvarāja*, on some day in the month following 25 June, A.D. 985.¹ He was the son of Parāntaka II Sundara Cōḷa by Vānavan-mahādēvi, and the joyous occasion of his birth is described in particular detail in the Tiruvālangāḍu plates.² The star of his nativity was Śatabhiṣak, as we learn from the inscriptions recording endowments for offerings in temples on his birth-days.

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With the accession of Rājarāja we enter upon a century of grandeur and glory for the dynasty of the Cōḷas. Quite obviously, the personal ability of the first Rājarāja, in some respects the greatest of all the great Cōḷa rulers of the Vijayālaya line, laid the foundation for the splendid achievements of his son and successor Rājēndra I, under whom the empire attained its greatest extent and carried its arms beyond the seas. The thirty years of Rājarāja's rule constitute the formative period in the history of the Cōḷa monarchy. In the organisation of the civil service and the army, in art and architecture, in religion and literature, we see at work powerful forces newly liberated by the progressive imperialism of the time. A relatively small state at his accession, that had hardly recovered from the disasters of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa invasion, the Cōḷa kingdom had, by the end of Rājarāja's rule, grown to be an extensive and well-knit empire efficiently organised and administered, rich in resources, possessed of a powerful standing army, well-tried and equal to the greatest enterprises. More wonderful than the work of this great monarch must have been his personality. But of him we have no authentic description; no eyewitness has rendered to Rājarāja the service which Nuniz and Paes did to Kṛṣṇa Dēva Rāya. There is not even a well-attested statue, or painting of this king³ that has come down to us. All that we know of his reign, however, and that is not little, attests his potent personality and the firm grasp of his intellect which allowed nothing to escape its vigilance and applied itself with as much vigour to the minutest details as to the sublimest ambitions of statecraft. The affection he lavished on his sister Kuṇḍavai, after whom he named one of his daughters,⁴ and the privileged position accorded to his grand-aunt, Sembiyan-mahādēvi, the mother of Uttama Cōḷa, indicate that he was a great and good man as well as a far-sighted ruler.

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Very early in his reign⁵ Rājarāja assumed the title Mummaḍi Cōḷa-dēva, a term whose meaning is not clear.⁶

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Almost the first military achievement of his reign was the campaign in the Kēraḷa country of which the result was summed up in the phrase ‘*Kāndaḷūr-śālaik-kalamarutta*’ which precedes the name of the king in several of his inscriptions from the fourth year⁷ onwards. Though this title appears from the fourth year, no inscription of Rājarāja has been found in the Kēraḷa and Pāṇḍya countries bearing a date earlier than the eighth year.⁸ Some years of fighting were apparently necessary before the conquest could be completed and the conquered country become sufficiently settled for its administration being properly organised.

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The Tiruvālangāḍu plates giving a detailed account of the king’s *digvijaya* state that he began with the conquest of the southern direction.⁹ This account mentions the capture of the Pāṇḍya king Amarabhujanga, and then states:

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‘The commandant (*daṇḍanātha*) of this ornament of the solar race then conquered Viḷinda which had the sea for its moat, whose extensive ramparts were shining aloft, which was impregnable to other warriors and which was the permanent abode of the goddess of victory.’

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We have often found before that the three southern kingdoms of Pāṇḍya, Kēraḷa and Simhaḷa were allied against the Cōḷa; this alliance was still effective in the time of Rājarāja, and it would seem that Rājarāja’s southern campaign was directed against the Pāṇḍya and the Cēra together. The Cēra king at this time was Bhāskara Ravi Varman Tiruvaḍi (A.D. 978-1036), whose inscriptions have been recovered from different parts of Travancore.¹⁰

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The Pallavas and Pāṇḍyas followed the injunctions of the Dharmaśāstras, and in their copper-plate grants, they caused a brief history of their ancestors to be engraved before recording the occasion for and the details relating to the particular gift. But Rājarārja was the first Tamil king who conceived the idea of formulating in set phrases an official record of the chief events of his reign which was to serve as an introduction to his stone inscriptions. In this he was followed by almost every one of his successors on the Cōḻa throne, and we shall see that the *praśasti* of his son Rājēndra I, which is rather brief in the early regnal years, grows in length as the reign advances and descriptions of fresh events are added on to it as they take place; these official ‘historical introductions’

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in the Cōḻa inscriptions are, in fact, an important aid to the discovery of the particular king to whose reign any given record belongs. Sometimes the same king used two or more forms of such introductions, and Rājarāja I seems himself to have employed at least three forms, of which the one beginning ‘*tirumagaḷ-pōla*’ was the most common from the eighth year onwards.¹¹ In this introduction the only reference to the first campaign of the reign seems to be the phrase employed about Kāndaḷūr Śālai already quoted. A second form of the introduction¹² also places the victory at Śālai first among the achievements of the reign. Yet another, dated in the twentieth year,¹³ mentions that Rājarāja ‘destroyed the town of Madurai, conquered the haughty kings of Kollam, Kolladēśam and Koḍungōḷūr and that the kings of the sea waited on him.’

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One question suggests itself naturally in relation to this southern campaign of Rājarāja. Did he conquer Madura and the Pāṇḍya country first and march into Kēraḷa by the southern passes that led into it from the Tinnevelly district, or was the line of his march the other way round? The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates and the last of the introductions cited above seem to suggest that the capture of Madura and the subjugation of the Pāṇḍya king Amarabhujanga preceded the advance on the strong fortress of Viḻiñam and on Śālai.¹⁴ But the bare mention of Kāndaḷūr Śālai in the earlier records of the reign and in the opening lines of the ‘*tirumagaḷpōla*’ introduction, and the provenance of Rājarāja’s inscriptions which appear in South Travancore about two years earlier than in the Tinnevelly and Ramnad districts point to the other alternative.¹⁵ It is possible that the Tiruvālangāḍu plates and the later inscriptions of Rājarāja mixed up facts relating to several distinct campaigns against the southern country. For it is clear that Rājarāja sent more than one expedition against the Pāṇḍya and his ally the Cēra. One seems to have been directed specially against Kollam. The campaign in which Rājarāja claims, in his Tanjore inscriptions,¹⁶ to have conquered the Cēra and the Pāṇḍyas in the Malai-nāḍu (Mountain country) was quite obviously different from and later than that in which Kāndaḷūr and Viḷiñam were attacked.

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The chief event of this expedition which took place some-time before the year A.D. 1008¹⁷ was apparently the storming and capture of the strong fortress of Udagai.¹⁸ Malai-nāḍu or Kuḍa-malai-nāḍu, the western hill-country, may be identified with Coorg,¹⁹ and the fortress of Udagai must be looked for in the Western Ghats in that region, or perhaps a little to the south. Inscriptions of the fourteenth and sixteenth years,²⁰ though they mention the occupation of Kuḍa-malai-nāḍu, do not yet record the attack on Udagai. The statement made in the inscriptions that Rājarāja deprived the Pāṇḍyas of their splendour when they were still flourishing in all its glory seems to indicate that the capture of this fortress was not effected in the first war. The *Kaliṅgattuprani*²¹ in its notice of this king’s reign mentions only the conquest of Udagai besides the foundation by him of the Śadaiyam festival in the Cēra country. In all his three *ulās*, the poet Oṭṭakkūttan says that Rājarāja’s great achievement was the crossing of the ‘eighteen forests’ for the sake of his ambassador and setting fire to Udagai. We are unable to explain this satisfactorily; apparently the immediate cause of the march against Udagai was an insult offered to the king’s ambassador.

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The Cōḷa general who most distinguished himself in the campaigns in the West was perhaps no other than the crown prince Rājēndra.²² He was afterwards made Mahādaṇḍanāyaka of the Vēṅgī and Gaṅga-maṇḍalas. He had also the title Pañcavanmārāya. This 'tusker of Mummuḍi-Cōḷa,' as he is called, 'seized the Tuḷuva and Koṅkaṇa, held Malēya (Malabar), and pushed aside the Cēra,' as well as the Teluṅga and the Raṭṭiga.²³ As chief military officer in the Gaṅgamaṇḍala, he carried out the royal order conferring on Manija the village of Māḷavvi (Coorg) and the title Kṣatriyaśikhāmaṇi-koṅgāḷva in recognition of his heroism in the battle; perhaps it was fought against the Caṅgāḷvas, a petty local dynasty. In any case, this was the beginning of the line of Koṅgāḷvas who ruled a small kingdom for about a century as the subordinates of the Cōḷas to whom they owed their existence, and then disappeared with the expulsion of the Cōḷas from these regions after the rise of the Hoysaḷas.²⁴

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Īḻam (Ceylon) is included among the conquests of Rājarāja from the first in the *tirumagaḷ* introduction,²⁵ (a.d. 993). The king is said to have taken the Īḻamaṇḍalam owned by the fierce Siṅgaḷas and famed in all the eight directions.²⁶ In his twenty-ninth year (a.d. 1014) Rājarāja made a grant of several villages in Ceylon for various purposes to the celebrated temple he had erected at Tanjore.²⁷ The Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates contain the following picturesque account of the invasion of Ceylon.²⁸

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'Rāma built, with the aid of the monkeys, a causeway across the sea and then slew with great difficulty the king of Laṅkā by means of sharp-edged arrows. But Rāma was excelled by this (king) whose powerful army crossed the ocean by ships and burnt up the king of Laṅkā.'

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This naval expedition of Rājarāja against Ceylon must have taken place in the reign of Mahinda V who came to the throne a.d. 981 and was still ruling Ceylon at the time when the island was invaded by Rājarāja's son and successor Rājēndra I. But the *Mahāvaṁsa* makes no mention of Rājarāja's invasion, apparently because the annals of Mahinda's reign became confused after the tenth year (a.d. 991) on account of the military revolution which led to the ascendancy of Kēraḷa and Kaṇṇāṭa mercenaries in a large part of his kingdom.²⁹ As a result of the military rising, Mahinda had to take refuge in the inaccessible hill country in the south-east of Ceylon called Rōhaṇa. Rājarāja then found his opportunity and made himself master of Northern Ceylon which became a province (*maṇḍalam*) under the name of Mummuḍi-śōḻa-maṇḍalam.³⁰

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The Cōḻa invasion had one permanent result. Anurādhapura, the capital of Ceylon for over 1000 years, was finally destroyed by the armies of Rājarāja. Polonnaruwa, formerly a military outpost of the ancient capital as seen from its alternative name Kandavura Nuvara (the camp-city), now became the capital under the Cōḷas. While the earlier Tamil invaders of Ceylon had aimed at the overlordship only of Rāja-raṭṭha, the Cōḷas were bent upon the mastery of the whole island. This decided the choice of their capital. There is practically no trace of Cōḷa rule in Anurādhapura. When Sinhalese sovereignty was restored under Vijayabāhu I, he crowned himself at Anurādhapura, but continued to have Polonnaruwa for his capital, as it was more central and rendered easier the task of controlling the turbulent province of Rōhaṇa.³¹ Polonnaruwa was renamed Jananātha-mangalam,³² after another title assumed by Rājarāja about the middle of his reign.³³ Rājarāja's inscriptions have been found in Ceylon.³⁴

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It is probable that Rājarāja signalised the Cōḷa occupation of Ceylon by the construction of a stone temple of Śiva in Polonnaruwa. This 'beautiful little' Śiva Dēvāle, 'constructed of granite and lime-stone' which 'stands within the walled confines of the old city' of Polonnaruwa is among the few Hindu monuments of Ceylon, which are still in a good state of preservation; and 'its architectural form seems at once to class it with the Hindu fanes of South India erected from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, of which the great temple of Tanjore is the finest and most elaborate exponent.'³⁵ The earliest inscription found in this temple is dated early in Rājēndra I's reign. An officer from the Cōḷa country by name Tāḷi Kumaran built another temple called Rājarājēśvara at Mahātittha (Mantota), which was also named Rājarājāpura, and richly endowed the new temple.³⁶

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Turning now to Rājarāja's conquests in other directions, Gaṅgapāḍi, Noḷambapāḍi and Taḍigaipāḍi sometimes called Taḍigaivaḷi, all of them in the Mysore country became parts of the Cōḷa kingdom in Rājarāja's time. One of the variant forms of the introduction to the king's stone inscriptions implies that the conquest of the Mysore country immediately followed the victory at Sālai, and that it was undertaken before the expedition against the Eastern Cāḷukyas into the Vēṅgī country.³⁷ After his victory at Sālai, Rājarāja is here said to have gained successes at Taṭṭapāḍi (Taḍigaipāḍi?), Taḷaikkāḍu, Noḷambapāḍi and Pirudigaṅgar-vaḷanāḍu. This campaign

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against the Noḷambas and the Gaṅgas, first mentioned in the eighth and ninth³⁸ years of the king's reign, would seem in reality to have advanced very far, if not actually ended by the sixth year (A.D. 991), as we find an inscription of Cōḷa-nārāyaṇa, obviously a name of Rājarāja I, in the Mysore country dated in this year (Śaka 913).³⁹ An official from Kōlār in the Gaṅgarasāyira with a Gaṅga name made an endowment in South Arcot in the seventh year of Rājakēsari, perhaps Rājarāja I.⁴⁰ This conquest was no doubt facilitated by the fact that the Cōḷas had never lost their hold on the Koṅgu country or, if they had done so, had very soon recovered it when they began to reassert themselves after the troubles consequent on the invasion of Kṛṣṇa III. Rājarāja does not claim to have conquered the Koṅgu area, and he was master of it early in his reign. Copper-plates⁴¹ recording a gift of land in the fifth year of Rājakēsarivarman have been found at Tiruccengōḍu, and these may with tolerable certainty be assigned to Rājarāja I, if they do not belong to an earlier Rājakēsarī like Parāntaka II. The conquest of Taḍigaipāḍi was probably undertaken from the side of Koṅgu and as part of the campaign in Kuḍamalai-nāḍu. By the time of this war the Noḷambas had long ceased to be an independent power and become subordinate to the Gaṅgas. In the tenth century the name Noḷambapāḍi still included⁴² not only the districts of Tumkūr and Citaldurg, but much of the Bangalore, Kōlār and Bellary districts and even parts of Salem and N. Arcot; this is sufficient proof of the place once held by the Noḷambas in the politics of Southern India. Though they lost much of their power at the time of Rājarāja's invasion, they did not by any means die out altogether, and in Śaka 920 Gannarasa, the son of Ayyapa, was ruling a portion of Daḷigapāḍi as a feudatory of Rājarāja.⁴³ A certain Noḷambādhirāja was the general of the Cōḷa monarch in his sixteenth year.⁴⁴ Either the same person or another, Noḷambādhirāja Cōrayya, is again mentioned as feudatory of the Cōḷa in Śaka 933.⁴⁵ These instances raise a suspicion that the Noḷamba subordi-nates of the Gangas turned against their Ganga overlords and paid off old scores by taking the side of the Cōḷas openly, or by assisting them in other ways. The Gangas then were the chief enemy against whom was directed the expedition into Mysore. This invasion, which started with an attack on Taḍigaipāḍi⁴⁶ and Taḷakāḍ after crossing the Kāvēri from the Kongu country, was a complete success, and made the Cōḷas supreme in the entire Ganga country for a period of more than one century. The easy success was partly also the re-sult of the disappearance of the Rāṣṭrakūṭa power, which had taken place about A.D. 973, when Taila II Āhavamalla restored the ancient Cāḷukya line to power. By this, political revolu-tion the Gangas and the Noḷambas lost their chief support, as there was nothing as yet to bind them to the newly risen Cāḷukya power corresponding to the dynastic alliances and common enterprises that had brought them close to the Rāṣṭrakūṭas. But the Western Cāḷukyas were by no means indifferent to the advanc-ing power of the Cōḷas under Rājarāja, and in an inscription dated A.D. 992, Tailapa II claims to have gained a victory against the Cōḷa king and captured 150 elephants from him.⁴⁷

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Within a few years after 992, Tailapa II died and was succeeded by Satyāśraya on the Cāḷukya throne. The later inscriptions of Rājarāja's reign state that he fought a success-ful war against Satyāśraya and captured some of his treasure, part of which went to the enrichment of the great Tanjore tem-ple.⁴⁸ The W. Cāḷukyas were also hard pressed in the north by the hostility of the Paramāras of Mālwa and must have found it hard to sustain themselves against two powerful ene-mies attacking them from opposite directions. The inscrip-tions of Rājarāja from about A.D. 1003⁴⁹ roundly assert that he captured by force Raṭṭapāḍi, 'the seven and a half lakh country. This is a violent exaggeration. More trustworthy is the poetic statement in the Tiruvālangāḍu plates⁵⁰ that Satyāśraya, though, true to his ‘origin from Taila (oil), he fled the battle-field in order to escape the misery of facing the ocean-like army of Rājarāja, still became himself the abode of misery (*kaṣṭāśraya*). The Karandai (Tanjore) plates devote several verses to the account of Rājarāja’s war against Satyāśraya. Rājarāja’s elephants are said to have wrought havoc on the banks of the Tungabhadrā (v. 28). Seated on his war horse, he is said, single-handed, to have checked the rush of the advancing Cāḷukya army like Śiva restraining with his *Jaṭā* the force of Gaṅgā’s descent on earth (v. 29). He took the Cāḷukya general Keśava prisoner (v. 31). The next four verses are also descriptive of this war, though they add no new facts (32-5). Lastly, a verse under the reign of Rājēndra I, the son and successor of Rājarāja, discloses that Rājarāja had taken a vow to capture Mānyakhēṭa, the Cāḷukya capital, and that Rājēndra fulfilled the vow (v. 51).

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An inscription of Satyāśraya from Hoṭṭūr (Dharwar), dated Śaka 9(2)9 A.D. 1007, states that the Nūrmaḍi Cōḷa Rājēndra Vidyādhara, the son of Rājarāja Nityavinōda and the ornament of the Cōḷakula, advanced as far as Dōnūr in the Bijapur district, with an army of 900,000 troops, plundered the whole country, killed women, children and Brahmans, caught hold of girls and destroyed their caste. The same record proceeds further to say that Satyāśraya, ‘the slayer of the Tamil’ (*Tiguḷa-māri*), thereupon forced the Cōḷa to turn back, captured his paraphernalia (*vastu-vāhana*) and thus conquered the southern quarter.⁵¹ Though the account of wholesale slaughter and rape must be discounted as proceeding from a hostile source, still this account given by the Cāḷukya inscription of Rājēndra’s invasion of Raṭṭapāḍi rings very true, and may be accepted as substantially correct. Though overwhelmed for a time by the strength and rapidity of the Cōḷa onslaught, Satyāśraya soon recovered himself, and by hard fighting rolled back the tide of invasion. In Raṭṭapāḍi proper there are no traces (as there are in Noḷambapāḍi and Gaṅgapāḍi) of the occupation of the country by the Cōḷas.⁵²

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The campaigns in the N. W. that have so far engaged our attention resulted in the annexation to the Cōḷa empire of practically all the territory that had ever been held by the Gaṅgas and the Noḷambas in Mysore, and nearly the whole of the modern district of Bellary,⁵³ so that the Tuṅgabhadrā became the boundary between the two empires. No inscriptions of Rājarāja have been found in Bellary so far; but then there are no Cāḷukya inscriptions of the period either. As a rule, Cōḷa inscriptions are not found in the remote provinces of the empire in as great numbers as in areas nearer home, and we cannot on this account entertain doubts about the correctness of facts clearly attested by contemporary records. That Rājarāja had a Mahādaṇḍanāyaka for the Gaṅga and Vēṅgī *maṇḍalas*⁵⁴ towards the close of his reign is sufficient proof of the extent of his empire and of the contiguity of these two *maṇḍalas*.

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Rājarāja's intercession in Vēṅgī affairs was the direct and natural result of the political development of the early years of his reign, rather than of any diplomatic design to dissociate the Eastern Cāḷukyas from their Western cousins.⁵⁵ If Rājarāja and his successors found it easier to spread their power along the east coast than across the Tuṅgabhadrā, this was partly due to the different conditions in which the Eastern and the Western Cāḷukyas found themselves when the Cōḷas entered on their imperial career under Rājarāja. After more than three centuries of rule in Vēṅgī marked by many wars with the Rāṣṭrakūṭas of Western Deccan, the Eastern Cāḷukyas had become an old and decrepit race, and their kingdom was falling a prey to disputed successions and anarchy. The coming of the Cōḷas brought fresh blood into the family and became a source of strength to this declining dynasty which, sustained for nearly a century by the Cōḷas in a position of respected though subordinate alliance, soon after, more than repaid the debt by contributing largely to the continuance of the Cōḷa empire under Kulōttuṅga I and his successors, the Cōḷa-Cāḷukyas, as they are sometimes called. The Western Cāḷukyas, on the other hand, had just emerged under Taila II, after centuries of subordination to with the aid of the Kolanu chief Nṛpa Kāma whose daughter he married, and put an end to Tāla’s rule some time before 955, possibly even killed him in battle as hinted by the Pabhuparṟu grant of Śaktivarman I which says that Amma despatched a *dāyāda* of his to heaven.⁶⁰ But very soon after the Vēṅgī kingdom was invaded in force by Kṛṣṇa III, and Amma sought refuge in Kalinga a second time; it was after the eleventh year of his reign (956) that according to the Māṅgallu plates, Amma fled to Kalinga a second time.⁶¹ The government of Vēṅgī was now entrusted by Kṛṣṇa to Dānārṇava who was also supported by a party hostile to Amma within Vēṅgī. But when the Rāṣṭrakūṭa withdrew, Amma returned to Vēṅgī and apparently made it up with Dānārṇava, and once more ruled the kingdom for some time. At last Dānārṇava rose once again and having killed Amma in battle, took the throne for himself (970).⁶²

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Dānārṇava sought to extend his kingdom to the south and came into conflict with the Cōḷas who were recovering their northern possessions which had been overrun by Kṛṣṇa III. His son Śaktivarman is said to have won his spurs as a boy in a Tamil battle (*dramilāhava*);⁶³ no further details are forthcoming. Meanwhile, Amma’s brother-in-law, Bhīma the son of Jaṭā-Cōḍa and ruler of Peḍekallu (Kurnool district), was on the move to avenge Amma II’s death. His activities could not be clearly made out as the inscription which records them is sadly mutilated.⁶⁴ As a boy Bhīma must have been a feudatory of Kṛṣṇa III and possibly had even to take part in his campaigns in Vēṅgī. But after Kṛṣṇa’s death he asserted himself and resented the success of Dānārṇava against Amma followed by his conquest and annexation of Pottapi to Vēṅgī. The details are not clear, but in the war that followed Bhīma killed Dānārṇava, drove his children into exile, and occupied the whole of Vēṅgī.

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The period of twenty-seven years (973-999) between the death of Dānārṇava and the accession of Śaktivarman I, his son, is described in later charters of the Eastern Cāḷukyas as an interregnum⁶⁵ and ascribed to a bad stroke of fate.⁶⁶ This was the period when Jaṭā-Cōḍa Bhīma ruled in Vēṅgī; he was not a Cāḷukya and his rule was an unwelcome intrusion, a real interregnum from the standpoint of the Cāḷukyas. During this period, Bhīma met with much sullen opposition from the Vaidumbas, the nobles who were loyal to Dānārṇava's memory, and Kāmārṇava the Eastern Gaṅga king of Kaliṅga who was related to Dānārṇava and in whose court Dānārṇava's sons found shelter in the first instance. But Bhīma overcame all opposition after years of fighting and having destroyed Kāmārṇava in 978 and his brother Vinayāditya in 981, made himself master of Kaliṅga also. The children of Dānārṇava, two sons Śaktivarman and Vimalāditya, and perhaps their mother also, left Kaliṅga to find a welcome in the Tamil Cōḷa court and settle for a time in Tiruvaiyāṟu in the Tanjore district.⁶⁷ After the accession of Rājarāja, their presence in the Cōḷa country was turned by that farsighted ruler to great advantage in the development of his policy against the rising power of the Western Cāḷukyas under Taila II and Satyāśraya. They became the instruments of Cōḷa policy and furnished the excuse for Rājarāja's interference in Vēṅgī. On the other side, it seems possible though as yet there is no direct proof, that the Western Cāḷukyas came to an understanding with Jaṭā-Cōḍa Bhīma. Rājarāja invaded Vēṅgī in 999 or a little earlier to restore Śaktivarman to the throne of Vēṅgī. Though details are lacking in Cōḷa inscriptions, Śaktivarman's records state that first he killed a great warrior Ekavīra despatched against him by Bhīma, and then put to death two other powerful chiefs Baddema and Mahārāja, and finally uprooted the 'widespread tree of Jaṭā-Cōḍa to its very roots' i.e. did away with Bhīma himself. But the struggle was hard and lasted some years. Though Bhīma was driven out of Vēṅgī and Śaktivarman began his rule in 999, Bhīma returned to the charge, chased Śaktivarman as far as Kāñcī, and it was only after another fight in the neighbourhood of that city (1001-2) that Śaktivarman could feel fairly secure on the throne of Vēṅgī. In any event, it is quite certain that Śaktivarman owed much to the Cōḷa king's support, and possibly he consented to recognise the overlordship of Rājarāja in some form after becoming king of Vēṅgī. We know that the exact date of Vimalāditya's accession in Vēṅgī was 10 May, A.D. 1011⁶⁸ and that his predeces-

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sor and elder brother Śaktivarman ruled for twelve years before him. This would give A.D. 999 as the date of Śaktivarman's accession and the end of the interregnum. Śaktivarman is called in his plates Cāḷukya-nārāyaṇa, a surname evidently modelled on that of Rājarāja, Cōḷa-nārāyaṇa. Thus a study of the affairs of the E. Cāḷukya dynasty before Rājarāja began to interest himself in them makes it plain that, far from their being sought out by Rājarāja as valuable political allies, they owed their position to that great monarch. By the part he played in restoring order and putting an end to the long-drawn civil strife in that kingdom, Rājarāja was well justified in claiming to have conquered Vēṅgī. This is not to say that Vēṅgī became at once an integral part of the Cōḷa Empire⁶⁹ like the other areas where, as in the Gaṅga or even the Pāṇḍya country, the separate political existence of the conquered country was deliberately put an end to, and the administrative system of the Cōḷas was imposed. If the analogy suggested by the term is not pressed too far, the political relation in which Vēṅgī stood to the Cōḷa empire under Rājarāja is best described as that of a protectorate. The alliance between the two ruling families was sealed by a dynastic marriage; Vimalāditya married Rājarāja's daughter Kundavā, the younger sister of Rājēndra.⁷⁰

c17.28

The fall of Bhīma and the subordination of Vēṅgī to Rājarāja were bitter pills to Satyāśraya. In fact from this time Vēṅgī becomes a bone of contention between the Cōḷas and the Western Cāḷukyas, and for the next 135 years, with few intervals, Vēṅgī becomes a theatre of their hostilities; the Eastern Cāḷukya rulers of the country recede into the background. Śaktivarman's inscriptions are silent on the occurrences after his accession. But a Western Cāḷukya inscription⁷¹ from Cebrolu (Guntur district) shows that a Western Cāḷukya army under the command of Bāyal Nambi invaded Vēṅgī, burnt down the forts of Dharaṇikōṭa and Yanamadala, and that the general had established himself at Cebrolu by A.D. 1006. What happened subsequently is not apparent; but the date of the record suggests that Satyāśraya made an effort to displace or subjugate Śaktivarman before he could establish himself firmly in his kingdom. The invasion of Raṭṭapāḍi by Rājēndra that occurred about the same time and is so vividly described in the Hoṭṭūr inscription already noticed was perhaps calculated to draw off Satyāśraya's forces from Vēṅgī and succeeded in its purpose.

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The last of the conquests, mentioned only in the latest inscriptions of Rājarāja, is that of the 'old islands of the sea numbering 12,000,' the Maldives.⁷² This naval conquest, of which we have no details, is sufficient indication that the navy which, as we shall see, Rājēndra used so effectively some years later, had been organised under his great father who stands in many ways in the same relation to Rājēndra as Philip of Macedon to Alexander the Great. An earlier occasion in Rājarāja's reign in which the navy played a part was the conquest of Ceylon. In this increasing realisation of the importance of a good navy, we may find a reason for holding that the expedition against Kāndaḷūr in the early years of Rājarāja's rule was primarily intended to sterilise the naval power of the Cēras.

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The Karandai (Tanjore) plates (v. 30) state that Rājarāja drove out a Bāṇarāja after a battle and cut off the head of a certain Bhogadeva, occurrences of which no adequate explanation is now forthcoming.⁷³

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In the closing years of his reign Rājarāja associated his son Rājēndra with himself in the official administration. This formal recognition of Rājēndra as heir apparent took place some time between 27 March and 7 July A.D. 1012.⁷⁴ Rājēndra must have been at least twenty-five years of age at the time as he is mentioned in Rājarāja's inscriptions of the fourth year as a young prince.⁷⁵ Considering the large number of Tanjore inscriptions which mark the twenty-ninth year of his father, we may conclude that this year A.D. 1014 marked the close of Rājarāja's illustrious reign.⁷⁶

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Rājarāja's great reign is commemorated by the magnificent Śiva temple which he built at Tanjore, the Rājarājēśvara, which stands to this day, the finest monument of a splendid period of South Indian history and the most beautiful specimen of Tamil architecture at its best. The temple is remarkable alike for its stupendous proportions and for the simplicity of its design. A rectangular court, 750 feet by 250, is divided into two by a partition wall, which carries a low tower of beautiful design; the inner court is twice as long as the outer. The chief shrine occupies the centre of the Western half of this inner court and the *Vimāna*, which rises over the sanctum to a height of nearly 200 feet on a square base of about a hundred feet, dominates the whole structure. The boldly moulded basement, the huge monolithic Nandi, the simple and tasteful bas-reliefs and the decorative motifs on the *Vimāna* and the balustrades, the graceful sculptures in the niches on the sides of the *Vimāna* and the fine chiselling which marks the entire work, including the lettering of the numerous inscriptions, are not equalled by anything known in South Indian architecture. Viewed from any angle, the effect produced by the whole of this wonderful structure is pleasing and impressive. That the stone walls round the *garbhagṛha* right under the *Vimāna* in the interior of the temple were overlaid with a thin coat of chunam (lime) plaster, and painted, is beyond question. When he saw this great enterprise of his reign drawing to completion, on the 275th day of the 25th year of his reign, Rājarāja solemnly dedicated the copper-pot intended for adorning the finial at the top of the *Vimāna*. We have no authentic information as to how the colossal labour involved in transporting the huge blocks of granite over great distances, and the technical problems involved in raising them to position, were met. The conquered countries doubtless paid part of the cost. After its completion, the temple in the capital city had close business relations with the rest of the country; year after year villages from all parts of the empire were required to supply men and material according to a fixed schedule for the various requirements of the temple. Those nearer home took out perpetual loans from the numberless money endowments showered on the temple by the piety and the generosity of the court and its officials, and undertook to contribute regularly the annual interest in cash or in some other way previously determined. In the minute care and precision with which most of these arrangements were completed before Rājarāja's twenty-ninth year we see the hand of a masterful and imaginative administrator. Karuvūr Dēvar, a contemporary hymnist, celebrated the new temple in one of his sacred hymns. Tañjāvūr, it should be noted, was not among the numerous sacred spots of Śaivism consecrated by the hymns of the Dēvāram Saints, Appar, Sambandar and Sundaramūrti. The temple was altogether a creation of Rājarāja's policy.

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The accurate survey and assessment of the country for purposes of land-revenue, the perfection of the administrative organisation of the country by the creation of a strong and centralised machinery corresponding to the staff of secretaries in a modern administration, and the posting of representative officers of the central government in suitable localities, the promotion of a system of audit and control by which village assemblies and other quasi-public corporations were held to account without their initiative or autonomy being curtailed, the creation of a powerful standing army and a considerable navy which achieved even greater success under Rājēndra than under himself, mark out Rājarāja as the greatest among the empire-builders of Southern India. No wonder, popular appreciation of Rājarāja's eminence finds expression in a Sanskrit verse engraved in a rock face in Tenmahādēvimangalam (N. Arcot, Polur taluq) within a generation or so after the end of his reign; the verse says that Viṣṇu will be born as Rājarāja, and Vākpati (Bṛhaspati) as his minister Jayanta; the king would survey the world and found a city in his name on the Triśūla hill, the Navirmalai ruled by Nannan in the Śaṅgam age.⁷⁷

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Himself an ardent follower of Śiva, Rājarāja was, like all the great statesmen of India, tolerant in matters of religion, and all creeds received equal favour at his hands. The decorative sculptures on the walls of the Tanjore temple and the construction of some Viṣṇu temples recorded in his inscriptions are proof of his liberal religious policy. The celebrated Leyden grant records how he encouraged the erection of the Cūḍāmaṇi Vihāra in Negapatam by the Śailēndra king, Śrī Māra-vijayōttungavarman, the lord of Śrī Viṣaya and Kaṭāha across the sea. This Vihāra, which was building in the twenty-first year of Rājarāja,⁷⁸ was named after the father of its founder, and the Cōḷa monarch, with whose permission the construction was undertaken, dedicated to Lord Buddha dwelling in this Vihāra the village of Ānaimaṅgalam, and his son Rājēndra confirmed the grant after his father's death and caused it to be engraved on copper-plates. That Negapatam was the first port on the mainland touched by vessels from the East bound for South India becomes clear from I-tsing's itineraries.⁷⁹ This must have been the reason for the foreign king constructing a Vihāra there.

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If names are the music of history, this noble king greatly indulged his taste for this music; and what is more, he sought to make these names current coin by attaching them to new foundations or substituting them for old ones. Besides Rājarāja, Mummuḍicōḷa, Jayangoṇḍa and Arumoḷi, which became part of the names of cities (Puram), vaḷanāḍus and maṇḍalams, the king also called himself Cōḷēndrasimha, Śivapādaśēkhara, Kṣatriyaśikhāmaṇi, Jananātha, Nigarili-śōḷa, Rājēndrasimha, Cōḷamārtāṇḍa, Rājāśraya, Rāja-mārtāṇḍa, Nityavinōda, Pāṇḍyakulāśani, Kēraḷāntaka, Śingaḷāntaka, Ravikulamāṇikya, Telingakulakāla⁸⁰ and so on. Many of these names, together with those of other members of the royal family, like Kundavai, Śembiyan-mahādēvi and others often distinguished the wards (sēris) in the larger villages and towns of the Cōḷa empire.⁸¹ The regiments in the army also bore names formed out of the surnames of kings and princes.

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Rājarāja had a number of wives but apparently only a few children. The queens mentioned in his inscriptions as making gifts to temples and in other connections number about fifteen, and though we can hardly be sure of it, Dantiśakti Viṭaṅki, also called Lōka-mahādēvi, appears to have occupied the most important place among them. With her we find the king in Tiruviśalūr in the twenty-ninth year of his reign. On this occasion the king performed the *tulābhāra* and his queen Dantiśakti the *hiraṇyagarbha* in the temple at Tiruviśalūr.⁸² The inscription recording this fact is engraved below a sculptured representation of the king and the queen in a worshipping posture. Some of the gold was used to make some flowers for Kṣētrapāla in the shrine built by the queen at Tiruvalañjuḷi.⁸³ The mother of Rājēndra, the only son of Rājarāja we know, was Vānavan-mahādēvī alias Tribhuvana-mahādēvi.⁸⁴ We know that Vallavaraiyar Vandyadēvar was the husband of Kundavai, the elder sister of Rājarāja,⁸⁵ who is often called in the inscriptions Āḻvār Parāntakan Kundavaip-pirāṭṭiyār and the daughter of Pon-māḷigait-tuñjina-dēvar.⁸⁶ Kundavai was much respected and treated with great affection by her brother. Her gifts to the Tanjore temple were recorded, next to the king's own, on the walls of the central shrine, while those of the queens and the officers of state found a place only on the niches and pillars of the enclosure.⁸⁷ Rājarāja must have had at least three daughters, because an inscription from Tiruvalañjuḻi mentions besides the younger Kundavai, the queen of Cāḷukya-Vimalāditya, a middle daughter of the king called Mādēvaḍigaḷ⁸⁸ Peculiar interest attaches to two memorials erected by Rājarāja which show his eagerness to fulfil his obligations to his family, and that in a manner productive of public good. They are the construction at Tirumukkūḍal⁸⁹ of a *maṇḍapa* called after Śembiyan Mahādēvi, the queen of Gaṇḍarāditya and mother of Uttama Cōḷa, and the foundation of the Cōḷēśvara or Ariñjigai-Īśvara temple at Mēlpāḍi.⁹⁰

c17.37.1

The history of the reign may be concluded with an account of the leading officials and feudatories who distinguished themselves in the royal service. Mention has been made already of the place held by Mahādaṇḍanāyaka Pañcavan Mahārāya, (probably identical with the crown-prince) the sphere of whose command extended over the Ganga and Vēṅgī *maṇḍalas*, and the Noḷamba feudatories of the king in the Ganga country. Paraman Maḷapāḍiyār *alias* Mummuḍi-śōḻan was a general who conquered the Śīṭpuli and Pāki *nāḍus* early in this reign. In the Trichinopoly district, the Paḻuvēṭṭaraiyar, of uncertain origin but closely allied to the royal family from the days when Parāntaka I married a Paḻuvēṭṭaraiyar princess, were occupying a respected position, and were apparently in the enjoyment of full responsibility for the administration of a small area around Paḻuvūr. The inscriptions of Aḍigaḷ Paḻuvēṭṭaraiyār Kaṇḍan Maṟavan, which clearly acknowledge the overlordship of Rājarāja are found in Kīḻa- and Mēlappaḻuvūr from the third year of the reign and show him ruling in state.

c17.37.2

He had for instance officers or nobles of the *perundaram*, like the Cōḷa monarchs and princes themselves.⁹¹ This chieftain built a temple of Tiruttōṟṟam-uḍaiyār in Mēlappaḻuvūr,⁹² and adopted the ancient standard prevailing at Nandipuram for regulating taxation in Paḻuvūr.⁹³ The latest records mentioning him seem to be dated in the fifteenth year of Rājarāja.⁹⁴ Madhurāntakan Gaṇḍarādittan, apparently a son of Madhurāntaka Uttama Cōḷa,⁹⁵ served Rājarāja as an important official in the department of temple-affairs, so to say. We see him conducting enquiries into the affairs of temples in various parts of the country, punishing defaulters⁹⁶ and making proper arrangements for the prevention of neglect in subsequent years. He has been wrongly identified with Gaṇḍarādittar, the author of the *Tiruviśaippā*, which was in reality composed by his grandfather.⁹⁷ In the district of North Arcot there were the Iḷāḍarāya (Lāṭa) chieftains who had apparently been ruling the region round Pañcapāṇḍavamalai continuously from the days of Parāntaka I; in the eighth year of Rājarāja, Uḍaiyār Vīraśōḷar, son of Uḍaiyār Iḷāḍarājar Pugaḻvippavargaṇḍan, remitted, at the request of his queen, some taxes in favour of a Jain temple.⁹⁸ The regal titles employed in the inscriptions of these chieftains are perhaps an indication of the high favour in which they stood with their Cōḷa overlords.

c17.37.3

In the sixteenth year of the reign of Rājarāja, we find mention, in a Tiruvallam inscription,⁹⁹ of a Tiruvaiyan Śaṅkaradēva who claimed descent from the Gaṅga kings of Kōlār and built at Tiruvallam a temple called Tiruvaiya-Īśvara apparently after his father. The high-sounding titles that precede the name of this obscure chieftain constitute a clear warning against hasty inferences from such titles in regard to the political status of the person employing them. Nannamarāyar of the Vaidumba family, the son of Tukkarai who possessed the Ingallūr-nāḍu in Mahārājapāḍi, in the Cuddapah district, gave an endowment at Tiruvallam in North Arcot about a.d. 1005.¹⁰⁰ Like the Vaidumbas, the Bāṇas, who shared the same fate with them at the hands of Parāntaka I, seem to have become officers sharing in the administration of the country under the Cōḷas.

c17.37.4

A Bāṇa prince, Maravan Narasimhavarman, whose records commence with the usual introduction of Rājarāja and then proceed to give the traditional titles of the Bāṇas in all their fullness, was apparently ruling some part of the South Arcot district in the neighbourhood of Jambai towards the close of Rājarāja’s reign, as we learn that he excavated a new irrigation tank in that locality.¹⁰¹ The Tanjore inscriptions mention Sēnāpati Śrī Kṛṣṇan Rāman of Amaṇ-kuḍi,¹⁰² who is called Rājēndraśōḻa Brahmamārāyan in the larger Leyden grant,¹⁰³ as the person who built the *tiruccuṟṟālai*, the surrounding enclosure and *maṇḍapa* of the Tanjore temple under the king's orders. Īrāyiravan Pallavaraiyan *alias* Mummuḍi-sōḻapōśan was another officer of *perundaram* rank who presented an image and some jewels to the Tanjore temple.¹⁰⁴ He was doubtless a high official in the secretariat of the revenue department as we find him attesting the Leyden grant and an important inscription from Ukkal¹⁰⁵ relating to revenue settlement. Sēnāpati Kụṟavan Ulagaḷandān *alias* Rājarāja Mahārājan who is also mentioned in the Tanjore inscriptions,¹⁰⁶ apparently got his surname Ulagaḷandān (one who measured the world) after carrying out the revenue survey which began in the sixteenth year (A.D.

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1001), formed one of the most original and important administrative achievements of the reign¹⁰⁷ and furnished the basis for the revenue policy for many years thereafter, as can be seen from the numerous references to the survey in subsequent records.

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¹ *E.I.* ix p. 217.

c17.39

² vv. 61-3.

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³ I am inclined to agree with T. G. Aravamuthan, who rejects the Tanjore bronze sometimes taken to be Rājarāja as late and spurious. See his *Portrait Sculpture in South India* p. 36 and fig. 11. *ARE.* 1952 II 12. A sculptured representation of a king (and queen) at Tiruvīśalūr may be of this king.

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⁴ 633 of 1902.

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⁵ 453 of 1908 (yr. 3).

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⁶ See *SII*, ii. Intr. p. 3 and n. 6. The best explanation seems to be: 'the thrice (powerful) Cōḻa.'

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⁷ 395 of 1922 is the earliest record so far known mentioning this achievement and dated in the 24th day of the fourth year. It is no longer true therefore to say that 'until the 8th year of his reign, A.D. 994, he did not undertake any expedition' (*SII.* ii Introd. p. 2). What Rājarāja's achievement at Kāndaḷūr exactly was has been the subject of much discussion. Though *śālai* and *kalam* mean respectively 'a feeding house' and '(eating) plate', these meanings seem hardly satisfactory in the present instance (Contra *TAS.* ii 2-5). On the other hand *śālai* in the sense of 'roadstead' is not known in any other context. But, after all, *śālai* may only be part of the name of the place; or it may have the ordinary meaning of a road. In any case, no other meaning seems more likely than the one usually adopted for the whole phrase viz., 'who destroyed the fleet in the roadstead of Kāndaḷūr.' The alternative suggestion that the 'scale of feeding in the feeding-house of Kāndaḷūr was regulated by the king' (S. Desikavinayagam Pillai - *Kerala Society Papers*, Series 2 pp. 100 ff.) necessitates a far-fetched explanation of the need for the use of force in the transaction, and fails to explain why such a thing had to be done over again, for instance, by Rājādhirāja. D. Pillai's objection that the destruction of a fleet would not be described as an act of grace *aruḷi* as this is done in the usual introduction, '*tirumagaḷpōla*' etc., of Rājarāja, is easily met; Rājādhirāja caused the Pāṇḍya Vira Kēraḷa to be trampled by an elephant, and this is described as an act of grace '*kadakkaḷiṟṟān-udaippittaruḷi.*' Perhaps, *aṟuttu* does not mean 'destroyed', but simply 'overcame,' cf. *Kalingattupparaṇi* (verse 370) saying that Viḷiñam was destroyed and *śālai* captured. It must be admitted, however, that the earliest mention of Kāndaḷūr (*TAS.* i p. 6, l. 6) does support D. Pillai's interpretation. Gopinatha Rao has correctly identified Kāndaḷūr with a part of Trivandrum now called Valiya Sālai. But see *TAR.* 1920-21 (p. 65) where Kāndaḷur near Pūvār (Neyyattinkara) is suggested. *Śālai* is sometimes sanskritised as *jvālā*. (*T.A.S.* ii. p. 4).

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⁸ The Darśanankōppu record (*TAS.* i. p. 238) seems to be the earliest so far known.

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⁹ vv 76-79.

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¹⁰ *TAS.* ii pp. 31-2. It must be noted that the period of this king's rule has been fixed on the evidence of a single record, the Tirunelli plates.

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¹¹ 261 of 1910. Only a few records before the thirteenth year contain any introduction.

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¹² 67 of 1923 (Year 14).

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¹³ 394 of 1911 *ARE.* 1912 II 23.

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¹⁴ 'Perhaps Kāndaḷūr or Kāndaḷūr Śālai was near Viḷiñam . . . Kāndaḷūr Śālai which is said to belong to the Cēra king in later inscriptions was probably held by the Pāṇḍyas when it was attacked by Rājarāja.' Venkayya, *SII*, ii. Intr. p. 2.

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¹⁵ Darśanankōppu (Yr. 8), Sucīndram (Yr. 10), Vijayanārāyaṇaṃ (Yr. 10).

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¹⁶ *SII.* ii 1 paragraphs 34, 51 etc. It is these campaigns to which the Tiruvālaṅgāḍu plates refer in v. 83 as the conquest of Paraśurāma's country. Contra Venkayya *SII.* ii. Intr. p. 4.

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¹⁷ *SII.* ii 1 para. 51.

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¹⁸ 236 of 1902 (Yr. 27)—*SII.* vii No. 863; also *TAS* ii. p. 5.

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¹⁹ See Aḍiyārkkunallār on *Śil.* xi 1. 53. Kielhorn calls it Malabar. *EI.* vii-List No. 704. See also *EC.* iii TN. 122.

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²⁰ *SII.* iii. 19, 51.

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²¹ viii v. 24.

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²² *EC.* iii Sr. 125.

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²³ No. 5 of 1895 (Yr. 28), *EC.* iii Sr. 140; also i. Cg. 46 and pp. 12-13.

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²⁴ A record from Kaleyūr (353 of 1901) dated Śaka 929 mentions that a Cōḷa general Apramēya defeated some Hoysaḷa leaders. But

c17.62

Kielhorn considers this date 'of no value for historical purposes' *EI.* iv pp. 67-8. Contra Rice, *Mysore and Coorg* pp. 86, 144-5.

c17.63

26. *SII* iii 4, 15.

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27. *SII.* ii 92 paragraphs 12-15.

c17.65

28. v. 80.

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29. *CV.* Ch. lv, v. 4-12.

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30. *SII.* ii 92 paragraph 12.

c17.68

31. *Ceylon Journal of Science*—G. II, 2 pp. 145-7.

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32. *ASC.* 1906 p. 27.

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33. 132 of 1910 (Year 17).

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34. *ASC.* 1891 p. 12 Nos. 78-80. The record from Padaviya dated in the 27th year cited at *SII*, ii. Intr. p. 5 must be among these.

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35. *ASC.* 1906 pp. 17 ff.

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36. 616 of 1912 (*SII.* iv. 1412).

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37. 67 of 1923. *ARE.* 1923 II, 27.

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38. 97 of 1921 (Yr. 9). See *SII.* ii. Intr. p. 3 and n. 1, where a record of the 8th year from Tiruvaḍandai is said to mention these conquests; the reference is doubtless to 261 of 1910.

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39. *MAR.* 1917, p. 42.

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40. 127 of 1919. The official's name Gaṅgan Ambalavanan Gaṇḍarāditta Śōla Viḻupparaiyan seems to imply that he rose to prominence in Uttama Cōḷa's reign, if not earlier.

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41. *SII.* iii 213. No. 212 also of Rājakēsari and of the 10th year mentions Maḷavaraiyan Sundaraśōḻan as the donor. This name suggests the reign of Parāntaka II Sundara Cōḷa, and if this is correct, the father of the donor must, like Śiṟiyavēḷār, have met his fate in the Ceylonese expedition of that monarch's time. *ARE.* 1914 II, 15.

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42. *EI.* x p. 57 and n. 3.

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43. 169 of 1911 (Yr. 13).

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44. *EC.* x Mb. 208.

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45. *ibid.* Ct. 118.

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46. 'The present Kṛṣṇarājapet, Nāgamangala, Maṇḍya, Seringapatam and Maḷavaḷḷi tālūkas of the Mysore district,' Fleet, *IA* xxx pp. 109-10.

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47. 36 of 1904; *IA.* v. p. 17. *SII.* ix (i) No. 77. Attempts have been made to account for the hostility between the Western Cāḷukyas and the Cōḷas by the assumption that it was a continuation of the Pallava tradition by the Cōḷas, that the Cōḷas were of the Solar race while the Cāḷukyas were of the Lunar, and that the former were Śaivas while the latter were Vaiṣṇavas and patronised Jainism (*SII.* ii Intr. p. 5 and n. 4). Such efforts lead nowhere.

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48. *SII.* ii 1, paragraph 92. Judging by the relative value of the presents made to the temple at the conclusion of these campaigns, it would seem that the success in the Cāḷukya war was nothing by the side of the victories gained elsewhere.

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