The Colas c17.36

c17.36

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