The Colas c21.64

c21.64

Towards the end of his reign, Kulōttunga lost much of his territory in another direction. The northern half of the Vēṅgī kingdom, if not the whole of it, seems to have slipped from his hands and gone over to the empire of the Western Cāḷukya ruler Vikramāditya VI. That the latter was bent on making reprisals for his failure in the first war against Kulōttunga and that he kept up his enmity against Kulōttunga unabated is clear from the records of his reign. In a.d. 1084, Vikramāditya complains that the 'hostile Cōḷa does not come to the battle-field.'¹²² In fact, Vikramāditya's plan was to take advantage of Kulōttunga's pre-occupation with affairs in the south and create a diversion in the north by proceeding against the kingdom of Vēṅgī and its vassal states. From the history of the Viceroyalty of Vēṅgī, we see that the efforts of the Western Cāḷukya ruler did not apparently have any tangible result up to the accession of Vikramacōḷa to that office about a.d. 1092-3. Soon after came the war against the chief of Kuḷam and against South Kaliṅga; these revolts were perhaps, at least in part, due to the intrigues of Vikramāditya. And so too might have been the defiance of the E. Gaṅga ruler Anantavarman Cōḍagaṅga which necessitated the second Kaliṅga war, the war against North Kaliṅga. It was not, however, till Vikramacōḷa was summoned to the south in a.d. 1118, by the aged Kulōttunga to become the heir-apparent to the Cōḷa throne, that the troubles that had long been gathering against Kulōttunga in the north came to a head. The Piṭhāpuram inscription of Mallapadēva,¹²³ dated Ś 1124 (a.d. 1202), makes the definite statement that after the marvellous (*apūrvapuruṣō*) Kulōttuṅga had ruled for fifty years the five Drāviḍas together with the Andhra country, when Vikramacōḷa went to rule the Cōḷa country, the land of Vēṅgī at once fell into a state of anarchy (*Vēṅgī-bhūmir-nāyaka-rahitā jātā*).¹²⁴ This statement throws much welcome light on the contemporary inscriptions of the Andhra country relating to the close of Kulōttunga's reign and the period of Vikramacōḷa's rule as Cōḷa king.