The Colas c21.66

c21.66

Kulōttunga had various other names and titles. The name Rājēndra found mostly in the early records of the reign before the fifth year, sometimes makes its appearance in those of a later date.¹³⁷ A Rājakēsari by his place in Cōḷa succession, the Parakēsari title occurs in his inscriptions sometimes by mistake.¹³⁸ He is called Tribhuvana-cakravartin as early as the fifth year of his reign,¹³⁹ though this title is not systematically repeated as in the records of his successors. His inscriptions from the Telugu country give him, besides the usual Eastern Cāḷukya Sarvalōkāśraya and Viṣṇuvardhana, the titles,¹⁴⁰ Parāntaka, Permānaḍigaḷu, Vikrama-Cōḷa, Kulaśēkhara-Pāṇḍya-Kulāntaka. The *Kaliṅgattupraraṇi* calls him Virudarājabhayaṅkara, Akalaṅka, Abhaya and Jayadhara.¹⁴¹ The name Abhaya occurs also in an inscription from Śucīndram dated in the thirty-second regnal year,¹⁴² while Jayadhara is found in inscriptions from Tiruvoṟṟiyūr, Peṇṇāḍam and Cidambaram.¹⁴³ Tirunīṟṟuc-Cōḻa seems to have been another surname of the king, as a *dēvadāna* village granted to a new temple at Triśūlam is called Tirunīṟṟuc-Cōḻa-nallūr in an inscription of the thirty-ninth year.¹⁴⁴ The name Śunganadavirtta-śōḻanallūr occurs in an inscription of the twenty-eighth year,¹⁴⁵ and another record dated four years later gives the king the title: *Śungan-davirttu iru-ṉīkki ulagāṇḍa*, meaning 'who abolished the tolls and ruled the world after dispelling darkness.' Though there are many literary references to the abolition of tolls by the king,¹⁴⁶ none of them is calculated to throw any light on the exact nature and scope of the reform. The term *Śungam* is explained by Parimēlaḻagar to mean the tax (*iṟai*) on commodities carried in ships and carts,¹⁴⁷ and this explanation would include not only what we now call 'tolls,' but 'customs' as well. Though the exact date of Parimēlaḻagar cannot be determined with certainty, his explanation of *Śungam* may be accepted as applicable to the time of Kulōttunga; one might even suggest that the annotator had Kulōttunga's reform in his mind when he wrote his gloss on the verse in the *Tiruk-kuṟal*. However that may be, we have no means of deciding whether Kulōttunga did away with the tax on trade in one part only of his dominions or over the whole, and whether the abolition was permanent or only temporary and confined to a period following some occasion he wanted to celebrate by a boon to his subjects. On any of these alternatives, he would be entitled to the epithet '*Śungandavirtta*', but it is inconceivable that he meant to deprive the entire state permanently of a traditional and very profitable source of revenue. An inscription of a.d. 1194,¹⁴⁸ however, still refers to the Cōḻa-nāḍu as the country where no *Śungam* was collected. Perhaps the exemption was permanent, but confined only to the Cōḻa country proper. If this was so, the imperialism of the Cōḷas did not lack an economic side to it; it was not the purely military ideal of the *vijigīṣu* of the Arthaśāstras. It is curious how little the numberless inscriptions, which record a vast amount of detail on taxes and tax exemptions, assist us in obtaining a clear view of the prevailing tax-system or of the changes, if any, in taxation policy. That a land survey was undertaken in the sixteenth and fortieth years of Kulōttunga's reign is mentioned in the incriptions of his successors and confirmed by an inscription of his forty-eighth year mentioning the name of one of the survey officers.¹⁴⁹