The Colas c22.20

c22.20

The latest regnal year found in the inscriptions of Kulōttunga II is the sixteenth or the seventeenth; this means his reign came to a close about A.D. 1150. Some four years before this date, he associated his son⁶⁹ Rājarāja II in the actual conduct of the administration, and in the inscriptions of Parakēsari Rājarāja his regnal years are counted from some date after 6 April in A.D. 1146.⁷⁰ Of the reign of Rājarāja II many inscriptions have been preserved which contain a number of *praśastis* attesting the extent of his kingdom and disclosing the names and positions of a number of feudatories. Judging from the silence of these inscriptions on the military transactions of the reign, one may infer that, like the reign of Kulōttunga II, that of Rājarāja II was generally peaceful. The most common *praśasti* of the reign is that commencing *pū maruviya tirumādum* which gives a high-flown account of the benefits of Rājarāja's rule and appears for the first time in inscriptions of the third year.⁷¹ This mentions one queen who is called Avanimuḻuduḍaiyāḷ and is said to have sat on the throne along with the king. Much longer, but equally unhistorical, is another *praśasti*, also dating from the third year;⁷² this commences *pū maruviya poḻil ēḻum* and, among other things, emphasises the flourishing condition of Tamil literature in the reign by calling the king *muttamiḻkkut-talaivan*, the patron of the three-fold Tamil;⁷³ three queens are mentioned at the end of this *praśasti* besides Avanimuḻuduḍaiyāḷ mentioned above, two of these being called by the almost identical titles Bhuvana-muḻuduḍaiyāḷ and Dharaṇi-muḻuduḍaiyāḷ, and the third Ulaguḍai Mukkōkkiḻān, doubtless the same as the queen mentioned in two other inscriptions of the fourteenth and seventeenth years of the reign.⁷⁴ Two other *praśastis* also occur in the inscriptions of the reign, and they begin *puyal vāyttu vaḷam peruga*⁷⁵ and *kaḍalśūḻnda pār mādar*.⁷⁶ The former occurring in a record of the fifth year of Rājarāja II was subsequently adopted by Kulōttunga III in whose inscriptions an account of his Pāṇḍyan invasion is inserted in the body of this rather short introduction. Likewise the latter, occurring in a record of Rājarāja's tenth year, becomes the chief *praśasti* of the reign of Rājādhirāja II, and it is noteworthy that the queen mentioned at the end of this *praśasti* is called Ulaguḍai Mukkōkkiḻān-aḍigaḷ in the inscriptions both of Rājarāja and Rājādhirāja,⁷⁷ a clear proof that this is a title, not the personal name, of the chief queen.