The Colas c19.69

c19.69

From the Tirunāmanallūr inscription of the fourth year, and the Yōgi-mallavaram and Kanyākumārī records of the seventh,¹⁷⁶ Vīrarājēndra is seen occasionally to have appropriated the full regal titles of the Western Cāḷukyas such as Sakala-bhuvanāśraya, Mēdinī-vallabha and Mahārājādhirāja, besides specially Cōḷa titles which, like Āhavamallakulakāla, recall the victories won against the Cāḷukyas. He also styled himself Pāṇḍyakulāntaka, Rājāśraya, and Rajarājēndra, titles which, together with Vallabhavallabha, Vīra Cōḷa, and Karikāla, are found in the Kanyākumārī inscription as well.¹⁷⁷ The same inscription tells us that Vīrarājēndra presented a fine ruby called Trailōkyasāra for being mounted on the crown of the Dancer of the Golden Hall, Naṭarāja of Cidambaram¹⁷⁸ and that he endowed many *brahmadēyas* in the countries of Cōḷa, Tuṇḍīra, Pāṇḍya, Gaṅgavāṭi, and gratified forty thousand Brahmans, learned in the Vedas, by gifts of land.¹⁷⁹ We have already noticed that Gaṅgāpurī was the capital of the Cōḷa empire in this reign as well, and that at the end of his wars he returned to it in state. A palace in Gaṅgaikoṇḍacōḷapuram called Śōḷakēraḷa-māḷigai and a throne in it called Rājēndraśōḷa Māvali-vāṇarājan are mentioned in a record of the fifth year.¹⁸⁰ The latest regnal year of Vīrarājēndra that is found in inscriptions is the eighth, which is mentioned in a record¹⁸¹ of the third year of Parakēsari Adhirājēndradēva, the son and successor of Vīrarājēndra, and the brother-in-law of Cāḷukya Vikramāditya VI. Vīrarājēndra's death must have occurred, therefore, early in A.D. 1070. Śrāvaṇa Āślēṣā was the asterism of his birth.¹⁸² One of his queens, Arumoḷinaṅgai, survived till the fifteenth year of Kulōttuṅga I; her name is mentioned in an incomplete inscription of that year from Tanjore.¹⁸³ The presence of Buddhism in the Cōḷa kingdom in the reign of Vīrarājēndra, and the influence of Buddhist scholarship on Tamil literature, are attested by the *Vīraśōḻiyam*, a curious work on Tamil grammar conceived on ultra-Sanskritic lines by Buddhamitra, who calls himself chieftain of Ponpeṟṟi. This place is identified by Venkayya with Ponpetti in the Paṭṭukkōṭṭai tāluq of the Tanjore district.¹⁸⁴ 49. Codrington, *Ceylon Coins* pp. 84-5.