The Colas c21.59

c21.59

The Cōḷa Empire under Kulōttunga maintained extensive foreign connections in India and outside. The relations with the Empire of Śrī Vijaya have been noticed above. An incomplete Gāhadvāl *praśasti* engraved on the walls of the temple of Gaṅgaikoṇḍa-cōḷapuram shows that Cōḷa diplomacy in this period embraced the Northern India States within the range of its orbit. This *praśasti* which begins *Akuṇṭhōtkaṇṭha* must belong to Madanapāla or his son Gōvindacandra of Kanauj. The inscription¹⁰⁸ opens by citing the forty-first regnal year of Kulōttunga, and then gives a good part of the Gāhadvāl *praśasti*, but stops without giving the name of the actual ruler who makes the record or detailing the gift which furnishes the occasion for it. This *praśasti* in the distant Cōḷa capital is perhaps evidence of some dynastic connection, otherwise unknown, between these two dynasties. And the increased emphasis on sun-worship in the Cōḷa country in Kulōttunga's reign may be due to the close association with the Gāhadvāls who were great worshippers of the sun.¹⁰⁹ It may also be noted in passing that a certain Vāgīśvara-rakṣita of the Cōḍa country is mentioned in a copper-plate grant of Gōvindacandra (a.d. 1129) as a disciple of Śākyarakṣita of Orissa.¹¹⁰ We have already noticed the inscription from Cidambaram which is dated 13 March a.d. 1114, and mentions the fact that Rājēndra received a peculiar stone as a present from the king of Kāmbhōja, and that he caused this stone to be inserted into the wall of a hall in front of the shrine at Cidambaram.¹¹¹ One wonders if this is a relic of the friendly connections maintained by Kulōttunga with the powerful Khmer empire across the seas, on the sea-route to China. Kyanzittha (a.d. 1084—1112), the ruler of Pagan, is said in Burmese accounts, to have met a Cōḷa prince, converted him to Buddhism and married his daughter; Tamil epigraphy and literature offer no help in settling the identity of the Cōḷa prince or the truth of the Burmese story.¹¹²