The Colas c17.34

c17.34

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.