The Colas c21.65

c21.65

Kulōttunga's inscriptions are found in Drākṣārāma in a continuous series up to his forty-ninth year, A.D. 1118-19.¹²⁵ On the other hand, there are no inscriptions of Vikramacōḷa in the Northern Circars dated earlier than his ninth year (A.D. 1127), and even then they form a very limited number and are confined to the southern parts of the Vēṅgī kingdom in the modern Guntur district.¹²⁶ Vikramāditya's inscriptions are found in considerable numbers in Drākṣārāma and are dated in the years of the Cāḷukya-Vikrama era which started from the commencement of his reign. The largest number of these inscriptions bear dates from 45 to 48, but earlier and later dates are not unknown either in Drākṣārāma or elsewhere in the Telugu country.¹²⁷ Many among these records are engraved by the Telugu feudatories of Vikramāditya who acknowledge their subordinate position either openly or implicitly, by naming their suzerain lord or by simply dating their records in the Cāḷukya-Vikrama era. It has to be remembered, however, that in some instances the use of the era may have been no more than the continuance of a habit even after the reason for it had disappeared. That Vikramāditya's rule did extend in this period over practically the whole of the Telugu country becomes clear from the provenance of his inscriptions. In A.D. 1115-6 his general Anantapālayya is found ruling in state in the Guntur area.¹²⁸ In Ś. 1039 (December, A.D. 1117), the Kākatīya chief Prōla of Anumakoṇḍa acknowledges the supremacy of the Western Cāḷukya ruler and records that the Anumakoṇḍa territory was conferred on his father Bēṭa some time before by the same sovereign.¹²⁹ About a year later, in December A.D. 1118, Anantapālayya, the *daṇḍanāyaka* of Vikramāditya, was, according to an inscription from Kommūru in the Guntur district, ruling over Vēṅgī 14,000.¹³⁰ A record in Cebrolu dated in the same year (1118) praises the heroism of a Koṇḍapaḍumaṭi general Sūra in a battle at Bezwada, fought perhaps in the Cāḷukya war of conquest in Vēṅgī.¹³¹ And about A.D. 1120, Anantapāla's wife made a gift to the celebrated shrine of Bhīmēśvara in Drākṣārāma.¹³² Velanāṇṭi Rājēndra in the same year, and Mayilama, the wife of a Telugu Cōḍa chief, in the year after that, also made gifts in Drākṣārāma recorded in inscriptions dated in the Cāḷukya-Vikrama era.¹³³ Another Western Cāḷukya commander, a nephew of Anantapāla, was ruling Koṇḍapalli in the Krishna district, in A.D. 1127.¹³⁴ The inscriptions from Drākṣārāma bear dates in the Cāḷukya-Vikrama era up to 57, A.D. 1132-33. Towards the close of this period, about Ś. 1053 (A.D. 1131) a certain Nambirāja, son of Malla, ruled in apparent independence, over the Ṣaṭsahasra country to the south of the Kṛṣṇā river and styled himself Lord of Kolḷipāka.¹³⁵ The Cāḷukya-Cōḷa power in Vēṅgī was undoubtedly eclipsed by that of the Western Cāḷukya ruler Vikramāditya from A.D. 1118, and the Cōḷas were unable to regain even part of the territory so lost until after the death of Vikramāditya in A.D. 1126. Towards the close of Kulōttunga’s reign, therefore, the extent of the Cōḷa empire had become much less than what it was at his accession. To the loss of Ceylon at the commencement of the reign was now added that of Gaṅgavāḍi and Vēṅgī, and the Cōḷa empire became more or less a purely Tamil power for the time being. In the prolonged duel between Vikramāditya and Kulōttunga, the former had the satisfaction, though belated, of carrying to a successful end his policy of breaking the union of the Vēṅgī and Cōḷa thrones, and Kulōttunga had to acquiesce in the result which he had so long withstood but could no longer avert. The latest known inscription of Kulōttunga mentions his fifty-second year,¹³⁶ showing that he lived up to A.D. 1122.