The Colas c18.7

c18.7

We shall now trace the progress of Rājēndra's conquests as recorded in the sources above mentioned, accepting as our basis the precise indications of chronology in the *tiru manni vaḷara* introduction. From this introduction we learn that up to the third year of his reign he had conquered Iḍiturai-nāḍu, Banavāse (Vanavāsi) encircled by a continuous hedge of forest, Koḷḷippākkai whose ramparts were surrounded by *śuḷḷi* trees, and Maṇṇaikkaḍakkam whose fortifications were unapproachable. Whether this account is a retrospective version of Rājēndra's invasion of Raṭṭapāḍi of a.d. 1003-6 so vividly described in the Hoṭṭūr record of 1007, or recounts a second campaign necessitated by the recovery of Satyāśraya, cannot be decided with certainty. In any event, the campaign took place before a.d. 1008 because it was directed against Satyāśraya himself, who was succeeded by Vikramāditya V about that year. Iḍiturai-nāḍu, Eḍedore 2000, 'was a stretch of country between the rivers Kṛṣṇā on the north and Tungabhadrā on the south, comprising a large part of the present Raichur district.'¹² Koḷḷippākkai was, doubtless, Kulpak, about 45 miles north-east of Hyderabad, 'invariably termed Koḷḷipāka in the inscriptions,'¹³ and the centre of a 7000 district which was later on, at the beginning of the next century, ruled for, some time by Sōmēśvara III, as viceroy under his father Vikramāditya VI. Kulpak was still the centre of a province ruled by a governor under the Kākatīyas in the thirteenth century. In Maṇṇaikkaḍakkam with its strong fortifications one may easily recognise the Mānyakhēṭa which according to the Kanyākumārī inscription¹⁴ became the sporting ground of Rājēndra's forces in battle. Mānyakhēṭa (Mālkhed) must have suffered greatly in this invasion of Rājēndra. In the closing years of Rāṣṭrakūṭa domination, it had been once sacked and plundered by the Paramāra ruler of Mālwa; and now, forty years later, under the Cāḷukyas, a worse fate overtook the unfortunate city. This must have weighed greatly with the Cāḷukyas who, soon after, transferred the capital to Kalyāṇi or Kalyāṇapura, 48 miles to the N. E. of Mālkhed.¹⁵ An inscription of Rājēndra from the Trichinopoly district, dated in his third year,¹⁶ mentions an incident in the fight with Satyāśraya before Maṇṇaikkaḍakkam. A certain Śrutimān Nakkan Candran, a native of Ūṟṟattūr, was ordered directly by the king (*perumāḷ tiruvāyāl moḻiya*) to attack the enemy's elephant and apparently lost his life, and for his benefit a gift was made to the temple of Mahādēva in his native village of Ūṟṟattūr. In this campaign, therefore, Rājēndra crossed the Tungabhadrā, carried the war into the heart of the Cāḷukya country and attacked their very capital. It is not easy to see how these operations across the Tungabhadrā could have been coupled with an attack on Banavāse, long celebrated as the centre of Kadamba power, and then part of the W. Cāḷukya kingdom. Banavāse lies much outside, and too far to the west of the line of advance indicated by the rest of this campaign;¹⁷ and yet the language of the inscription seems to render it obligatory to treat the whole as one campaign, and the names mentioned as the different stages, though not in that order, of a single expedition. This and the date of the Hoṭṭūr inscription go far to suggest that the data furnished by Rājēndra's inscriptions also belong to the war which was waged about A.D. 1004 against Satyāśraya by Rājarāja, and that in this war the advance of Rājēndra against the Cāḷukyas started from somewhere in the N.W. of Mysore, took a generally north-eastern line along the course of the Tungabhadrā until the Raichūr doab was reached, when a more northerly course was struck, and Kulpak and Mālkhed became the objects of attack. A *maṇḍapa* at Tiruvorriyūr called Maṇṇaikoṇḍa-Śōḻa was among the mementos of this campaign.¹⁸