The Colas c21.3

c21.3

Kulōttunga's reign began approximately on 9 June A.D. 1070¹. As he ruled for fifty years thereafter,² he must have been a young man at accession. The asterism of his birth was Puṣya.³ The numerous inscriptions of this long reign contain several *praśastis*, each with some variant forms. In the first four years the most common *praśasti* is the one commencing *tiru manni viḷaṅga* or *vaḷara* which records the achievements of Kulōttunga (here called Rājēndra) before he came to the Cōḷa throne. These events have been discussed already in relation to the problem of his accession. The latest records containing this early *praśasti* are dated in the fourth year. The same events are also narrated in different words in another *praśasti* known so far only from one record of the sixth year at Tirukkōvalūr and commencing *pū mēl arivaiyum*.⁴ Yet another *praśasti*, briefer and of far less historical value, also occurring in these four years, is that commencing *pūmiyum tiruvum*, of which we have an expanded form in the rare introduction beginning *pū maruviya tirumaḍandaiyum*.⁵ The two most common forms of the *praśastis* of the reign are the short introduction commencing *pugaḻ-mādu viḷaṅga* which begins to appear in the fourth year⁶ and the longer one commencing *pugaḻ śūḻnda puṇari* appearing for the first time in the fifth regnal year.⁷ Of these it is the latter *praśasti* that is most helpful to the historian on account of the revisions undergone by it as the reign advances. Other *praśastis* are: *pū mēvi vaḷara* appearing in the ninth year,⁸ *pū mādu vaḷara* in the year after that,⁹ *tirumagaḷ jayamagaḷ* in the twelfth year,¹⁰ and possibly also *pū mādu puṇara* in a mutilated inscription¹¹ of which the date is lost. We must also take account of the double introduction, *vīramē tuṇai* followed by *pugaḻ mādu viḷaṅga*, which couples a *praśasti* of Vīrarājēndra with that of Kulōttunga and to which attention has been drawn already. This introduction is found as early as the fifth year in an inscription from Tribhuvani which also gives the *Tribhuvanacakravartin* title of Kulōttunga.¹² It is seen from the inscriptions of the reign now accessible to us that the titles Kulōttunga and Cakravartin were also assumed by the emperor much earlier in his reign than was once thought.