The Colas c18.21

c18.21

An inscription³⁴ of Rājēndra informs us that in his twenty-fourth regnal year the emperor made a grant of land to the temple built at Mannārkōvil (Tinnevelly) by the Cēra king Rājasimha and called Rājēndra-Śōḷaviṇṇagar, and that this grant was to take effect from the fifteenth year of Jaṭāvarman Sundara Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya. Assuming that the fifteenth year of the viceroy fell either in the twenty-fourth year of the emperor or possibly a little earlier, Jaṭāvarman Sundara Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya must have been appointed viceroy about the sixth or seventh year of Rājēndra, a date which fits in with the indications furnished by the Tiruvālangāḍu plates taken along with the Tamil *praśasti*. The Mannārkōvil inscription is also valuable in other respects. It shows that the viceroys enjoyed almost regal status and were allowed officially to issue orders dated in their own years of office. It also indicates the close contact maintained between the headquarters of the empire,—Rājēndra was residing in his palace at Kāñcīpuram when this gift was made,—and the viceregal courts. Lastly, the jurisdiction of the Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya viceroy over the Cēra country is clearly seen in the Cēra king building a temple in the Pāṇḍya country and naming it after the Cōḷa emperor. From his inscriptions we see that Jaṭāvarman Sundara Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya ruled as viceroy for at least twenty-three years, up to about a.d. 1040. One of the latest³⁵ of these inscriptions opens with the *praśasti* of Rājēndra himself, (*tiru manni vaḷara*): Another states that Śucīndram in Nāñjināḍ (South Travancore) came to be called Sundara-śōḷa-caturvēdimangalam after the viceroy.³⁶ One curious fact not easy to explain is the record of a grant at Kōṭṭār (near Nagercoil) in south Travancore by an Eastern Cāḷukya prince who called himself Sarvalōkāśraya Śrī Viṣṇuvardhana Mahārāja *alias* Cāḷukya Vijayāditya Vikkiyaṇṇa. The inscription is dated in the 11th year of Sundara Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya³⁷ *i.e.*, about a.d. 1029. Kōṭṭār was a strong fortress of strategic importance in those days and the Cōḷas maintained a strong garrison there; it is quite possible that an Eastern Cāḷukya prince who held an important place in the army lived in Kōṭṭār for some years. But his identity is uncertain in the extreme.