The Colas c17.23

c17.23

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*.