The Colas c19.14

c19.14

A second war against Sōmēśvara was undertaken by Rājādhirāja between A.D. 1044 and 1046. The Maṇimaṅgalam inscription⁵² of 3 December, A.D. 1046 gives a short account of this campaign stating that the Cōḷa king defeated in battle several subordinate chieftains⁵³ of the Cāḷukya forces, and destroyed the palace of the Cāḷukyas in the town of Kampili. Other inscriptions, of which the earliest is dated in the thirtieth year of Rājādhirāja, furnish some additional information about what followed the destruction of the palace at Kampili.⁵⁴ Another engagement, said to be the third of its kind, followed at Pūṇḍūr, described as a *kaḍaka-mānagar* or cantonment city, on the left bank of the Kṛṣṇā river, in which several Telugu chieftains including the brothers of Telinga Viccaya, his mother and son, vassals of Sōmēśvara, were made prisoners of war together with numberless women; thereupon, the city of Pūṇḍūr was sacked by the Cōḻā army and razed to the ground, its site being ploughed with asses and sowed with *varāṭikai*, a kind of coarse millet; finally, the large palace at Maṇṇandippai was consigned to the flames, and a pillar of victory erected, bearing the emblem of the tiger. These occurrences, no doubt considerably exaggerated in the partial report of the Cōḻa records, must have taken place before a.d. 1048.