The Colas c17.12

c17.12

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.