The Colas c18.40

c18.40

There is nothing incredible in this record of an audacious raid into the northern countries ordered by Rājēndra and carried out so thoroughly by his *daṇḍanātha*. It is possible that small successes were magnified into great victories and that any reverses sustained were glozed over; it is likely that the statement of the Tiruvālangāḍu plates⁷⁶ that the water of the Ganges was carried to Rājēndra by the defeated kings of the north at the bidding of the Cōḷa general is a boast without foundation. But of the substantial correctness of the story in its essentials we can entertain no doubt whatever. Partly on account of his imperfect knowledge of the political geography of the period, and more on account of the embellishments introduced into the story by his own imagination, Venkayya greatly underrated the veracity of the inscriptions of Rājēndra, and held that the expedition was nothing more than a pilgrimage to the Ganges.⁷⁷ Though the fetching of the water of the Ganges was perhaps present from the beginning as the object of the expedition,⁷⁸ the motive behind it was undoubtedly an exhibition of the power of the Cōḷa empire and a demonstration of its strength to the rulers of Northern India. Such *digvijayas* were undertaken by all powerful monarchs in India and were enjoined upon them by the political code of the country. The aim of the expedition was then not merely getting down the water of the Ganges to the Cōḷa capital, but doing so after establishing a right of way, so to say, across territories outside the empire by a strong show of force. This becomes clear from the statement that at the end of the expedition Rājēndra erected a 'liquid pillar of victory' (*gaṅgā-jalamayam jayastambham*) in his capital with the waters of the Ganges in the form of the tank Cōḷaganga.⁷⁹ 'The invasion of the great southern conqueror Rājēndra Cōḷa I,' says R. D. Banerji, 'seems to have left some permanent marks in Bengal.... Some obscure Karṇāṭa chief seems to have followed Rājēndra Cōḷa I and settled in western Bengal... From him was descended Sāmantasēna, who is generally taken to be the founder of the Sēna dynasty.'⁸⁰ The Karṇāṭas of Mithilā probably had a similar origin. A commentary, of uncertain date, to the *Siddhāntasārāvaḷi* of Trilōcana Śivācārya mentions the fact that Rājēndra imported Śaivas from the banks of the Ganges into his own kingdom and established them in Kāñcīpura and in the Cōḷa country.⁸¹