The Colas c21.62

c21.62

This province was under the Cōḷas at the time and regularly administered as a division of the Cōḷa Empire. It was conquered for the Hoysaḷa by his Daṇḍanāyaka Gangarāja. The ancient line of Adigaimāṇs of Tagaḍūr (Dharmapuri) in the Kongu country acted as the representatives of Cōḷa power in this region. The Hoysaḷa inscriptions begin their narrative of Gangarāja’s conquest of the Cōḷa province with the statement that the Cōḷa’s *sāmanta* Adiyama (Adigaimān) was stationed like the bolt of a door above the ghats, in the camp at Taḷakāḍu, on the frontier of the Gangavāḍināḍu, that Adiyama refused to surrender to Gangarāja, the *Nāḍu* which the Cōḷa had given and told Gaṇgarāja to fight and take it.¹¹⁷ The battle which followed and practically decided the fate of the Gangavāḍi province must have been fought not far from Taḷakāḍ. Besides Adiyama, two other chiefs, Dāmōdara and Narasiṁha Varma, and other unnamed *Sāmantas* fought on the Cōḷa side. The victory of Gangarāja against the Tiguḷas (Tamils) was complete, and he followed up his success by expelling the Tamils from Gangavāḍi. ‘Having driven out the Tiguḷas, he restored Gangavāḍi to Vīra Ganga (Viṣṇu-Vardhana); was not Gangarāja a hundred-fold more fortunate than the former Rāja¹¹⁸ of the Gangas?’