The Colas c22.21

c22.21

The extent of the empire under Rājarāja's rule is borne out by the provenance of his inscriptions. An inscription⁷⁸ of the seventh year from Kendaṭṭi recording the construction of a temple by a Kāḍuveṭṭi chieftain on a hill at Śūṟūr in Kuvaḷāla-nāḍu, the mention in a fragmentary record⁷⁹ from the Salem district of Tagaḍūr-nāḍu in Gaṅga-nāḍu, a sub-division of Nigarili-śōḻamaṇḍalam, and a gift recorded at Perumbēr⁸⁰ in a.d. 1164 by a person who calls himself Tagaḍūr Kiḻavan, show that in Koṅgu and the eastern part of the Gaṅga country, the Cōḷa hegemony still continued to be recognised in some manner. In the Telugu country, Rājarāja's suzerainty is clearly attested by a fair number of stone inscriptions found throughout the Vēṅgī country up to Drākṣārāma,⁸¹ though it is clear that the feudatory chiefs of Velanāṇḍu were becoming more and more independent and overbearing. As a matter of fact, from the close of the reign of Kulōttuṅga I when, as we have seen, great disasters befell the Cōḷa empire, and its extent became greatly circumscribed by the successes of the Hoysaḷas and the Western Cāḷukyas, the most remarkable phenomenon within the empire was the steady growth in the power and influence of local dynasties. The hold of the central administration over the outlying parts of the empire had always been less firm than in the districts nearer the capital; but by the end of Rājarāja II's rule, the administrative system was betraying signs of weakening even at its centre. The monarchy is no longer the vigorous autocracy that it was, ever active in the pursuit of war and glory, in the maintenance of order and the promotion of costly and essential enterprises of public utility. The inscriptions give clear indications of the increasing helplessness of the king in the face of the growing turbulence of his vassals, who, while acknowledging the nominal suzerainty of their overlord, play a more prominent part than the suzerain or his government in the conduct of the affairs of the area under their control. The system of village administration with its autonomous local assemblies seems to have been generally unaffected by the changed situation; but the strength of the centralised bureaucratic administration so laboriously planned and built up by Rājarāja I and his successors was gone.