The Colas c21.38

c21.38

In the north, Kulōttunga left the administration of the Vēṅgī kingdom in the hands of Vijayāditya VII until his death. The relations between them, never very happy, seem to have continued strained even after Kulōttunga’s accession to the Cōḷa throne. There are Eastern Gaṅga inscriptions which, as already noted, show that the Gaṅga king Rājarāja took up the cause of Vijayādita VII with Kulōttunga and secured for him a peaceful time towards the end of his life and career as ruler of Vēṅgī. After the death of Vijayāditya at the end of fifteen years of his reign in Vēṅgī, Kulōttunga appointed his son, Rājarāja Mummaḍi Cōḍa, as Viceroy, and he was anointed as Viceroy most probably on July 27 a.d. 1076.⁸⁵ He, however, preferred living under the same roof as his parents to the enjoyment of a distant viceroyalty, and relinquished his office at the end of a year. His younger brother, Vīra Cōḍa, was then chosen Viceroy and continued to rule in Vēṅgī for a period of six years from the date of his coronation in Śaka 1001 (a.d. 1078-9).⁸⁶ From 1084 to 1089 another son of Kulōttunga, by name Rājarāja Cōḍagaṅga, was the Viceroy. This is clear from the Ṭēki plates of this ruler, dated in the seventeenth year, obviously of Kulōttunga. The Piṭhāpuram plates of Vīra Cōḍa⁸⁷ also state that Vīra Cōḍa was recalled from Vēṅgī by his father who desired ‘to see the growing beauty of his youthful countenance’, and that he was sent again to the north at the end of five years though his father’s ‘eyes had not attained satiety’. But these plates do not state what happened at Vēṅgī during the five years that Vīra Cōḍa spent with his father, and the Cellūr plates of Vīra Cōḍa make no reference either to the break in his Viceroyalty or to Cōḍaganga. Hultzsch says⁸⁸ that this total silence of the Cellūr plates and the omission of Cōḍaganga's name from the Piṭhāpuram plates may lead us to suppose that Cōḍaganga had discredited himself with his father and had been on bad terms with his brother. The fact that Cōḍaganga, though apparently the eldest son of Kulōttunga,⁸⁹ was not appointed Viceroy until a comparatively late stage lends colour to the supposition. In any event, Vīra Cōḍa's second term as Viceroy of Vēṅgī seems to have commenced about A.D. 1088-89 and lasted till at least 1092-93. As Viceroy of Vēṅgī, Vīra Cōḍa was assisted by a Velanāṇṭi prince Vedura II, a nephew of Gonka I, in a battle against an unnamed Pāṇḍya king, and Vīra Cōḍa conferred on Vedura the doab country, Sindhu-yugmāntaradēśa, identified by Hultzsch, with the land between the Kṛṣṇā and Gōdāvari.⁹⁰ Soon after, Kulōttunga likewise favoured other princes of the same line. Vīra Cōḍa was succeeded by Vikramacōḷa who apparently ruled in Vēṅgī till he was chosen heir-apparent to the Cōḷa throne in A.D. 1118.