The Colas c19.18

c19.18

There is, however, no mention in Sōmēśvara's inscriptions either of this campaign of Rājādhirāja or of the later war which, as we shall see, led to his death on the battle field of Koppam,⁶² and for all the vaunted successes of the Cōḷas, the Cāḷukyas seem to have retained their power unbroken. The provenance of the inscriptions of Sōmēśvara, of which several are dated records, shows that the extent of the Cāḷukyan empire on the side of the Tungabhadrā continued undiminished. From the Haḍagalli taluq of the Bellary district comes an inscription⁶³ of Trailōkyamalladēva (Sōmēśvara I) dated (Śaka 968) early in A.D. 1047 recording a gift by the chieftain Kāḷidāsa, whose name figures also among the Telugu princelings⁶⁴ repulsed by the Cōḷa troops in one of the numerous fights of the time. Two other records⁶⁵ from the same region are dated in the next year, Śaka 969, of which one records a gift of land to a Viṣṇu temple by Mahāmaṇḍalēśvara Gaṇḍarādityarasa, 'lord of Māhiṣmatīpura,' ruling the Sindavāḍi 1000, Beṇṇevūru 12 and Nuru-gaṇḍa as a vassal of Śōmēśvara. This chieftain may perhaps be identified with Kaṇḍar-dinakaran of the Cōḷa inscriptions.⁶⁶ Even if we do not accept the rhapsodies of Bilhaṇa over Sōmēśvara's conquest of Kāñcī or Vikramāditya's *digvijaya*, we must assume that the repeated incursions of the Cōḷas into Cāḷukyan territory, however annoying to the king and detrimental to the happiness of his feudatories and subjects, resulted in no permanent loss of territory. On the other hand, the bulk of the fighting is on Cāḷukyan territory, and in the course of the wars many large cíties seem to have suffered considerable damage from the destructive fury of the invader. The aim of the Cōḷas was apparently to reduce the Cāḷukyas to political subjection such as that of the Pāṇḍya, Kēraḷa and Vēngī kingdoms in this period. In this endeavour they failed totally. It would seem moreover that Sōmēśvara succeeded in extending his influence, at least temporarily, over Vēngī. His Mulguṇḍ inscription⁶⁷ dated A.D. 1053 speaks of one of his sons, Sōmēśvara-dēva, ruling over Beḷvōla 300 and Puḷigere 300, as bearing the title Vēngīpura-varēśvara. And there is found in Drākṣārāma, as already noted, a record of the same king⁶⁸ dated two years later (Śaka 977) registering a gift by a daughter of one of his ministers, Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa by name.