The Colas c19.11
The Cōḷas c19.11
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c19.11.1
The Cōḷa inscriptions affirm that Vikkamabāhu lost his life in the Cōḷa war,³¹ and that his diadem fell into the hands of Rājādhirāja; the *Mahāvaṁsa*, however, says that he suddenly died of a disease in the twelfth year of his reign A.D. 1041 in the midst of extensive preparations for a Cōḷa war. It is possible that the Cōḷa panegyric is more boastful than true, though his crown may have been among the booty of the Cōḷas.³² Despite Rājēndra’s success against Mahinda V, therefore, the whole of Ceylon was held by the Cōḷas only for a short while, a period of about a decade, after which the province of Rohaṇa asserted its independence, and kept up a perpetual war against the Cōḷa province. In Rājādhirāja’s reign this struggle became very acute as every ruler that came after Vikkamabāhu was actuated by the desire to expel the Damiḷas from Ceylon. Neglecting the eight days’ rule of Kitti (A.D. 1041)³³ the ‘mighty Mahālāna-kitti’ who became king of Rohaṇa, ‘was vanquished in his third year (A.D. 1044) in battle against the Cōḷas, and with his own hand he cut his throat and so died a sudden death.³⁴ Thereupon the Damiḷas took the chief treasures, such as the diadem and the like and sent them to the Monarch of the Cōḷa land.’ It is not easy to identify Mahālānapitti with any of the four Sinhalese rulers mentioned by name in the Cōḷa inscription quoted above. Vikkamapaṇḍu (A.D.
c19.11.2
1044-47) was according to the *Mahāvaṁsa*³⁵ the only son of Mahālānapitti, who, having left his country through fear and lived for a time in the Dulu country, returned to Rohaṇa when he heard of the fate of his father, and was killed, after a short rule, in a fight with Jagatīpāla. The Cōḷa inscription, on the contrary, implies that he was a Pāṇḍya prince who had once ruled over the southern Tamil country, and was compelled by Rājādhirāja himself to abandon Southern India and seek his fortune in Ceylon, where he became king. As the Pāṇḍyan and Ceylonese dynasties were at this time in close political and dynastic alliance with each other and with the Kēraḷas, and were united in their common opposition to Cōḷa ascendancy,³⁶ we have perhaps to assume that the two accounts supplement each other. Vikrama Pāṇḍya had apparently a Sinhalese father and a Pāṇḍya mother: his early career in the Pāṇḍya country is represented, not quite accurately, by the *Mahāvaṁsa*, as a sojourn in the Dulu country, or possibly, this sojourn in the Dulu land was an interlude between the Pāṇḍyan and the Ceylonese phases of his career. Whatever that may be, there is no doubt that the Cōḷa inscriptions and the *Mahāvaṁsa* speak of one and the same prince here, and that while the Ceylonese account of the manner of his death is not contradicted by the Cōḷa records, it is quite possible that his diadem also fell into the hands of the Cōḷas as is claimed by them. Of Jagatīpāla (A.D.
c19.11.3
1047-51), the *Mahāvaṁsa* says³⁷ that he was ‘a sovereign’s son’ from Ayōdhyā, and that after coming to Ceylon he ‘slew Vikkamapaṇḍu in battle and ruled as a mighty man in Rohaṇa for four years. Him also the Cōḷas slew in battle and sent the Mahēsi with her daughter and all the valuable property to the Cōḷa kingdom.’ If we overlook the discrepancy about the place of origin, Kānyakubja according to the Cōḷa records and Ayōdhyā according to the *Mahāvaṁsa*, there is a striking similarity in the fortunes of Jagatīpāla of the chronicle and Vīra-Salāmēghan of the inscriptions, and it may be concluded that we have here only one prince mentioned under two different names in our sources.³⁸ But this conclusion is not unassailable; the death of Vīra-Salāmēghan is mentioned in an inscription dated towards the end of A.D. 1046;³⁹ the most critical study of the *Mahāvaṁsa* has led to the conclusion that Jagatīpāla began to rule in A.D. 1047 and went on till four years later. So that, after all, the differences in the names and the places of origin of these two princes may mean that they were two different persons who had little in common with each other besides having attained some celebrity in Ceylon as opponents of the Cōḷa regime and met very similar fates at the hands of their antagonists. How these adventurers from Northern India came to Ceylon in search of a career is not easy to explain satisfactorily at present.
c19.11.4
Śrī Vallabha Madanarāja, the fourth and last of the princes mentioned in the Cōḷa inscriptions, has been identified with king Parakkama of the *Mahāvaṁsa* who was slain in fight with the Cōḷas.⁴⁰ This identification is also to be accepted with caution.