The Colas c21.5

c21.5

The death of Vīrarājēndra after he had made his peace with Vikramāditya VI, the accession of Adhirājēndra, and the revolution in the Cōḻa country that was arrested for a time by Vikramāditya's intercession, but, after the retirement of Vikramāditya to the Tuṅgabhadrā, ran its full course and ended fatally for Adhirājēndra, gave Kulōttuṅga the opportunity to make himself master of the Cōḻa kingdom. The theory of a civil war between Adhirājēndra and Kulōttuṅga that has sometimes been put forward¹⁶ gets no support from the inscriptions, and appears highly improbable. There is likewise no warrant for the view that Kulōttuṅga at first gained control of a part of the Cōḻa kingdom and became master of the whole of it only at the end of four or five years of fighting,¹⁷ or that he killed many princes of the blood to clear his way to the throne.¹⁸ The inscriptions of Kulōttuṅga, however, agree with the *Kaliṅgattu-pparaṇi* in stating that his advent to the south rescued the Cōḻa country from a state of anarchy and dissolution, and restored unity and order in that land. The inscriptions say: 'In the south, he put on the pure jewelled crown by right so as to put an end to the commonness of the goddess¹⁹ of the sweet smelling lotus-flower (Lakṣmī) and the loneliness of the good earth-maiden who had the Ponni (Kāvērī) for her garment.' There is not the slightest suggestion here of any opposition encountered by Kulōttuṅga in the Cōḻa country; rather his advent is said to have been quite welcome, if not actually sought after. Writing some years later, when Kulōttuṅga had, by his wise and strong rule, secured for the people of the empire several years of continued peace and prosperity, Jayangoṇḍār draws in deeper colours his picture of the anarchy that preceded the advent of Kulōttuṅga:²⁰