The Colas c18.52

c18.52

At the date of Rājēndra's expedition (*c.* a.d. 1025) therefore, well over a quarter of a century must have elapsed from the renewal of active trade with the East consequent on the increased energy of the Cōḷa empire under Rājarāja and the improved conditions in China, and knowledge about the Malay country and Archipelago must have been common in the Cōḷa country. The larger Leyden grant, by stating¹³⁶ that after his father's death Rājēndra confirmed in perpetuity the original grant of Ānaimaṅgalam to the Cūḍāmaṇi-vihāra in Negapatam, clearly implies that in the beginning of Rājēndra's reign the relations of the Cōḷa kingdom with Kaḍāram and Śrī Vijaya continued to be friendly. We have no means of deciding the exact cause of a quarrel, if there was one. We have to assume either some attempt on the part of Śrī Vijaya to throw obstacles in the way of the Cōḷa trade with the East, or more probably, a simple desire on the part of Rājēndra to extend his *digvijaya* to the countries across the sea so well-known to his subjects at home, and thereby add lustre to his crown. Whatever the actual cause of the expedition, it is difficult to believe that, even if all the facts narrated in the inscriptions of Rājēndra are accepted as literally true, the campaign led to any more permanent result than a vague acknowledgement of the suzerainty of the invader on the part of the ruler of Śrī Vijaya. We shall see later that one of the successors of Rājēndra, Vīrarājēndra I, claims to have conquered Kaḍāram and restored it to its ruler who supplicated for it before the conqueror. In any case, there is no evidence to show that the Cōḷas made any attempt to rule these lands as provinces of their empire.¹³⁷ At best they might have received a periodical tribute. The fragmentary Tamil inscription in Sumatra dated A.D. 1088¹³⁸ proves only the presence of Tamil merchants in the island, a fact even otherwise well-established.