The Colas c21.63

c21.63

Other inscriptions of Viṣṇu-Vardhana give an exaggerated and doubtless partly fictitious account of his achievements, and it is by no means easy to sift the evidence.¹¹⁹ To confine our attention to statements relating to his conquests from the Cōḷas, it is probable that Taḷakāḍ (Rājarājapura), Nīlagiri, Nangili, Kōḷāla, Tereyūr and Kōyāttūr¹²⁰ became subject to him as a result of Gangarāja’s campaigns, and the same may be true of a part, though not the whole, of Kongu; but the claim that Kāñcī obeyed his commands and that he squeezed, as if he held it in his hand, the southern Madhurāpura is not less incredible than his wars against Cakrakūṭa or Lāṭa. On the other hand there is some evidence of a raid into the heart of the Cōḷa country by the Hoysaḷa forces in this period, evidence which gives some colour to Viṣṇu-Vardhana’s claim that he marched up to Rāmēśvaram. An inscription of Parākrama Pāṇḍya¹²¹ states that several years before the date of the record, certain Paḷḷis of the temple at Āḍutuṟai rescued some of its images which were being carried to Haḷēbīḍ, and were rewarded by the grant of certain privileges which were renewed by Parākrama Pāṇḍya. It is probable that the unsuccessful attempt to remove images from Āḍutuṟai to Haḷēbīḍ was made in Viṣṇu-Vardhana’s reign, and if this view is correct, the exaggerated statements of Viṣṇu-Vardhana’s conquests in his inscriptions must have some basis in fact. In any event, the absence from the Mysore country of Kulōttunga’s inscriptions after his forty-fifth year (1115) is sufficient proof of the transfer of Gaṅgavāḍi from the Cōḷas to the Hoysalas as a result of the war; but even here the re-appearance of Vikramacōḷa's inscriptions in the Kōlār region and elsewhere shows that the Cōḷas managed either to retain or recover part of the province.