The Colas c20.21

c20.21

An attempt has been made³⁹ to connect these internal disturbances in the Cōḷa kingdom that led to the extinction of the direct line of the Cōḷas with the story of the persecution suffered by Rāmānuja and his disciples as it is narrated in Vaiṣṇava hagiology. Without minimising the difficulty of reconciling all the data proceeding from a mass of contradictory legends, but confining our attention to the professedly earliest biographies of Rāmānuja like the final chapters of the *Divyasūricarita*⁴⁰ and the *Yatirāja-vaibhavam*,⁴¹ it is just possible to identify the Cōḷa who died as Kṛmikāṇṭha in consequence of the persecution to which he subjected Rāmānuja and his followers with either Adhirājēndra, or possibly with Vīrarājēndra with whom the direct Cōḷa line practically comes to a close. The categorical statement in the *Divyasūricarita* that God Śiva of Tiruvārūr proclaimed the end of the rule of the kings of the Cōḷa family,⁴² and the chaos at the end of Vīrarājēndra's rule which is attested by, but not accounted for, by the *Kalingattupparaṇi* and the *Vikramāṅkadēva Carita*, and which might have been the concomitant of a religious upheaval, lend plausibility to the suggestion thus made. But it must be recognised that the details of the chronology of the life of Rāmānuja furnished by other works are not easy to explain on this assumption, and that it is perhaps impossible to reconcile all the data furnished by legend on any single hypothesis.⁴³