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The Colas c23: Chapter XV. Rājādhirāja II and Kulōttunga III

The Cōḷas c23

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Chapter XV. Rājādhirāja II and Kulōttunga III

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A.D. 1163-1216

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In the absence of an heir in the direct male line Rājādhirāja II, a grandson of Vikramacōḷa by a daughter, was chosen by Rājarāja II as heir-apparent towards the end of his reign, and Rājādhirāja reigned as co-regent with Rājarāja for some years.¹ Rājādhirāja's *praśastis* are found in three forms, all purely rhetorical and of no historical value. The form which begins *kadal śūḻnda pār magaḷum (mādarum)* and occurs as early as the second year² was obviously borrowed from Rājarāja's inscriptions; the other forms are: *pū maruviya tiśaimugattōn* which appears first in the fifth year³ and was adopted later by Kulōttunga III, and *kadal śūḻnda pārēḻum*,⁴ found in inscriptions of the sixth and tenth years from the Tanjore district. While the *praśastis* of the king are thus of no use to history, several inscriptions of his reign give a fairly detailed account of the incidents of the war of Pāṇḍyan succession which, on a comparison with the story of the war given in the *Mahāvaṁsa*, is seen to be quite trustworthy.

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From the re-conquest of the Pāṇḍya country by Kulōttunga I, we hear almost nothing of its affairs or of the fortunes of the ancient line of Pāṇḍya rulers until we reach the reign of Rājādhirāja II. The inscriptions of the Pāṇḍyas, which may with more or less certainty be assigned to this period, show that even after Kulōttunga's southern wars, the Pāṇḍyas successfully maintained a part of the freedom they had gained from the initial difficulties which beset Kulōttunga I on his accession to the Cōḷa throne; they engraved inscriptions of their own with boastful *praśastis*, a thing which they did not or could not do when their country was ruled more firmly by the Cōḷa-Pāṇḍya viceroys. They waged their own wars without reference to the central power to which their allegiance tended to become more and more nominal. Parāntaka Pāṇḍya took part, as we have seen, in Vikramacōḷa's first Kalinga war and attacked Teliṅga Bhīma of Kolanu; but this real subordination to Cōḷa suzerainty apparently gave place to a more grudging recognition of it in the years that followed the death of Kulōttuṅga I, if not towards the end of his reign when the Cōḷa power underwent considerable curtailment by the loss of Mysore and Vēṅgī. Hardly any inscriptions of the Cōḷa monarchs are found in the Pāṇḍya country proper after the close of Kulōttuṅga's reign.⁵

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Towards the close of the reign of Rājarāja II, some years after Rājādhirāja had been chosen for the succession, a fierce succession dispute broke out in the Pāṇḍya country, and one of the rival parties appealed to the powerful Sinhalese ruler Parākramabāhu I (A.D. 1153-86) and the other to the Cō'a monarch. The war soon resolved itself into a continuation of the old struggle between the Cōḷa and Ceylon kingdoms. The intercession brought no good to either; out of the ashes of the civil war arose the Pāṇḍya power which in its renewed strength soon swallowed up both the kingdoms which had espoused the rival causes of the protagonists in the civil war.

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The early stages of the war are vividly described in the *Mahāvaṁsa*.⁶ In A.D. 1169 Parākrama Pāṇḍya of Madura sent an appeal for help against Kulaśēkhara who was investing the city of Madura. Before the Ceylonese army sent under Laṅkāpura in response to this appeal could reach the mainland, events there had moved rather fast. Kulaśēkhara had captured Madura and put an end to the lives of Parākrama, his wife and children at a place called Tirimalakke. On hearing this Parākramabāhu sent word to Laṅkāpura that the war should be continued until the kingdom of Madura was taken from Kulaśēkhara and bestowed on a scion of the house of Parākrama. Laṅkāpura effected a landing on the opposite coast in the face of opposition, and advancing by way of Rāmēśvaram, he strongly fortified himself at Kundukala, on the tongue of land projecting from the mainland into the sea near Rāmēśvaram. The war was marked by savage ill-treatment of the prisoners of war, the Tamils who fell into Laṅkāpura's hands being either impaled or transported to Ceylon to labour at the restoration of the Buddhist Vihāras of the island that had suffered during the Tamil domination. Without entering into the minute details of the marches and counter-marches and the numerous battles of the campaign which are of no direct concern to us, we may note that Laṅkāpura's task proved more difficult than was anticipated. Kulaśēkhara long kept up a brave resistance, and Laṅkāpura had to send for reinforcements to Ceylon and to placate the local chieftains of the Tamil country by means of presents and honours. When he learnt that Parākrama's son Vīra Pāṇḍya who had escaped the massacre of Kulaśēkhara was living in the Malaya (mountain) country, Laṅkāpura sent word to him to come and join him at a place not far from Madura. Kulaśēkhara put into the field army after army and a fierce war raged in the Ramnad and Madura districts, extending on either side to Pudukkottah and Tinnevelly. To judge from the length of the struggle and the way the Tamil chieftains repeatedly changed sides, the cause of Kulaśēkhara was apparently more popular in the Pāṇḍya country, and the support which Kulaśēkhara gained from his uncle in Koṅgu⁷ and from the Cōḷas may be taken also to confirm this estimate. However that may be, the next stage of the war as recorded in the *Mahāvaṁsa* began with the return of Kulaśēkhara from the Cōḷa country with a Cōḷa force commanded by Pallavarāyar and others which he sent to Toṇḍi and Pāśi. In the battle of Kiḷenilaya that followed, victory was with Laṅkāpura 'who dyed the water of the ocean ruddy with the blood of the foe'.⁸ Kiḷenilaya of the *Mahāvaṁsa* is doubtless identical with the modern Kīḻ-nilai in the Tirupattūr taluq of the Ramnad district. After another fight at Ponnamarāvati in which Kulaśēkhara was defeated and put to flight, Laṅkāpura gave over the government of the kingdom to Vīra Pāṇḍya (whose coronation he had already celebrated in accordance with the orders of Parākramabāhu), introduced the *kahāpaṇa*, the coin of Parākramabāhu, everywhere, and sent to Ceylon a vast amount of booty captured from the Pāṇḍya and Cōḷa countries.

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This account of the *Mahāvaṁsa* is on the face of it incomplete. It does not say how Vīra Pāṇḍya fared, or what happened to Kulaśēkhara, and seems deliberately to avoid stating that Lankāpura returned to Ceylon.⁹ One gains the impression that the Ceylonese author has drawn a veil over the ultimate failure of the effort after its initial success.

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That this is the fact becomes clear from a study of the Cōḷa inscriptions bearing on the war and from some events recorded in the *Mahāvaṁsa* under the reigns of the successors of Parākramabāhu I.

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The Ārppākkam (Chingleput Dt.) inscription¹⁰ of the fifth year of Rājādhirāja contains the earliest epigraphical account of this war. It says that the Ceylon army captured the Pāṇḍimaṇḍalam and drove out Rāja Kulaśēkhara from Madura; the army then proceeded against the *sāmantas* of Rājādhirāja, and made war in the region of Toṇḍi and Pāśī, and won victories which struck terror into the hearts of the people in the Śōḻamaṇḍalam and other tracts (nāḍus). Ediriliśōḻa Śāmbuvarāya, when he heard of these occurrences, became greatly concerned about how it was all to end and sought divine intercession through Svāmidēvar, a holy man, also called Umāpatideva or Ñānaśivadeva, a native of Dakṣiṇalāḍa in Gauḍa-deśa, whom he besought to ward off by prayer, sacrifice and worship the invasion of the Cōḷa country by the wicked troops from Ceylon and the resulting harm to the Brahmins and temples thereof; Svāmidēvar said in reply that he knew that the Ceylon army had put an end to worship in the temple of Rāmēśvaram and had plundered its treasury; he would endeavour by occult means to bring down disaster on the enterprise of the invaders who were Śivadrōhis. With this object he performed *pūjā* for full twenty-eight days, and then came news from Piḷ'ai Pallavarāyar that the *pradhānis* including Jayadratha and Lankāpuri *daṇḍanāyakas* and the entire force from Ceylon had sustained defeat. And the Śāmbuvarāya in his gratitude presented the village of Ārppākkam to Svāmidēvar.

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The Pallavarāyanpēṭṭai (Tanjore Dt.) inscription¹¹ of the eighth year is more explicit in its details. Like the *Mahāvaṁsa*, it begins by stating that Kulaśēkhara Pāṇḍya was ousted from Madura by the advent of the Ceylon army, that thereupon he entered the Cōḷa country, and appealed to the Cōḻa monarch for help in regaining the Pāṇḍyan throne; the Cōḻa ruler then ordered that Kulaśēkhara was to be restored to his throne, and that Laṅkāpuri-daṇḍanāyaka and others were to be killed and their heads nailed to the gates of the city of Madura, the Pāṇḍya capital. Pallavarāyar alias Tirucciṟṟambalamuḍaiyan Perumāṇambi, who was entrusted with these tasks, entertained Kulaśēkhara suitably during his stay in the Cōḻa country, and having with his army, resources and zeal, brought about the reconquest of the Pāṇḍyan kingdom, he carried out his master’s orders to the letter by nailing the heads of Laṅkāpuri-daṇḍanāyaka and others to the gates of Madura. Kulaśēkhara thereupon re-entered Madura, and thus was averted the conversion of the Pāṇḍyan country into a province of Ceylon (*pāṇḍai-nāḍu Īḻa-nāḍāgādapaḍi pariharittu*).

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A third inscription dated in the twelfth year, four years after the last one,¹² and found in the North Arcot district, carries the account of the war a stage further. The record is unfortunately much damaged and many gaps in it greatly obscure its meaning. This inscription records a gift of land to one Paḻaiyanūr-uḍaiyān Vēdavanam-uḍaiyān Ammaiyappan alias Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan, and narrates the war in recounting his services to the state.¹³ After giving a brief account of the war up to the restoration of Kulaśēkhara to the throne of Madura,—an account which follows the earlier records summarised above and ascribes to Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan a prominent part in these events,—the inscription proceeds to narrate an expedition against Ceylon, organized presumably by Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan. He heard that the Sinhalese king, Parākramabāhu, was preparing for another attack on the Cōḻa king and his *protégé* Kulaśēkhara and that, with this intent, he was concentrating his forces and building ships in Ūrattuṟai, Pulaiccēri, Mātōṭṭam, Vallikāmam, Maṭṭivāḷ¹⁴ and other places. To counteract this, Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan, acting on behalf of the Cōḻa monarch, employed Śrīvallabha, the nephew (*maru-maganār*) of the king of Ceylon and a claimant to his throne kept out of his rights¹⁵ and now on the mainland ready to make common cause with the enemies of Parākramabāhu. The expedition that was sent with Śrīvallabha at its head captured and destroyed several places in Ceylon, including Pulaiccēri and Mātōṭṭam, where Parākramabāhu was gathering his forces; it seized many elephants and set fire to a considerable area extending over twenty *kādams* from east to west and seventy *kādams* from north to south, killing some of the Sinhalese chieftains of the locality and taking others captive. The booty captured in the course of the expedition was then duly presented to the Cōḷa king by Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan who thus successfully counteracted all the machinations of the Ceylonese ruler.

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At this stage events took quite an unexpected turn and our inscription records a defection from the Cōḷa cause on the part of Kulaśēkhara. We can only surmise the actual course of affairs. The policy adopted by Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan to defeat the plans of Parākramabāhu against the rulers of the mainland was to foment civil strife in Ceylon by supporting a rival claimant to Parākramabāhu's throne; Parākramabāhu had had enough trouble to meet at the commencement of his reign from Śrīvallabha's father, Mānābharaṇa, and had no desire for another long struggle to retain his throne. When hard pressed at home by the activity of Śrīvallabha, Parākramabāhu strengthened himself on the mainland by effecting a calculated change in his diplomatic position in relation to the Pāṇḍyan civil war. He recognised that his attempt to support Parākrama Pāṇḍya's line and keep Kulaśēkhara out of the Madura throne had not only failed in itself, but was threatening his own position with ruin. He now made up his mind not only to recognise Kulaśēkhara as the rightful Pāṇḍyan king, but to enter into a close alliance with him by sending him lavish presents and thus weaning him from his tendency to seek the Cōḷa protection. Our inscription roundly asserts that Kulaśēkhara lost all consideration for the good done to him before (by the Cōḷa king) and resolved to enter into an alliance with the king of Ceylon¹⁶ and to co-operate with him in hostilities against the Cōḷa kingdom. In pursuance of this plan, he drove to the north of the river Veḷḷāṟu the Ēḻagattār¹⁷ and the Maṟava *sāmantas* who were loyal to the Cōḷa king and were employed in his service, such as Rājarāja Karkuḍi-mārāya and Rājagambhīra Añjukōṭṭai-nāḍāḻvān, and also removed from the gates of Madura the heads of the Ceylon generals that had been nailed there by the other Pallavarāyar who had placed Kulaśēkhara on the Pāṇḍyan throne. Some letters and presents from Parākramabāhu to the generals and partisans of Kulaśēkhara fell into the hands of the Cōḷa generals, and this discovery of Kulaśēkhara's treachery brought about a volte-face in Cōḷa policy. The Cōḷa ruler issued orders to Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan that Vīra Pāṇḍya, the son of Parākrama Pāṇḍya, the original ruler of Madura, must be installed in Madura and Kulaśēkhara turned out. This the general seems to have effected successfully.¹⁸ An inscription from Śambanārkōyil dated in the sixth year of the reign of Kulōttunga III states that owing to the vicissitudes of an invasion, the images of one temple had to be removed for safe custody to another temple in the eleventh year of the reign of Rājādhirāja II. This statement makes it probable that at some stage in the war, Kulaśēkhara and Parākramabāhu led an expedition into the heart of the Cōḷa country.

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The inscriptions thus show that for a period of seven or eight years the attention of Rājādhirāja was chiefly devoted to the conduct of the war in the south. And if the interpretation of the records given above is correct, towards the end of this period, Rājādhirāja had himself to order the deposition of Kulaśēkhara on whose behalf and at whose entreaty he had entered the struggle, because Kulaśēkhara had been found guilty of the basest treachery towards the Cōḷa ruler. At the stage we have reached in the war, Kulaśēkhara had lost his throne and was in exile, and Vīra Pāṇḍya, the son of Parākrama, had been set up on the throne of Madura, by the Cōḷa general, Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan. And this was the position to the end of Rājādhirāja's reign, though after the accession of Kulōttunga III there was, as we shall see, another turn in the wheel of fortune, and Kulaśēkhara's line once more possessed the Pāṇḍyan throne also with Cōḷa assistance. Rājādhirāja had on the whole good reason to be satisfied with the results of the campaigns. Parākramabāhu's designs had been totally frustrated and his candidates steadily kept out of the Madura kingdom. Repeated expeditions of his forces on the mainland had been successfully met and in spite of temporary victories, the ruler of Ceylon had lost heavily in the fighting and his military and naval resources had been greatly damaged. The Cōḷa king now assumed the surname; 'who was pleased to take Madura and Īḻam,' (*Maduraiyum Īḻamum koṇḍaruḷina*).¹⁹ While the capture of the Madura kingdom was a fact, the inclusion of *Īḻam* (Ceylon) in the title must be understood only as a claim to that kingdom like that set up by the English kings to the throne of France or as merely indicative of the military successes achieved by the Cōḷa ruler against the Ceylonese. If we follow the chronology of the *Mahāvamsa* and one set of Rājādhirāja's inscriptions, the events of the war may be placed between say A.D. 1169 and 1177.²⁰

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That under Rājādhirāja the Cōḷa empire continued to retain the same proportions as under Rāja-rāja II may be inferred from the provenance of his inscriptions which are found in Nellore and Kāḷahasti and Nandalūr.²¹ Even a part of the Ganga country would seem still to have been included in the Cōḷa empire, if the Cōḷa-mahārāja Ghaṭṭi-nuḷamba Bhujabala-vīra Āhōmallarasa, described in a Kāñcīpuram inscription²² as the Mahāmaṇḍalika of Gangamaṇḍala, was in fact a feudatory of Rājādhirāja II. An inscription from Āttūr²³ in the Tanjore district is issued in the name of Tribhuvana-cakravartin Karikālacōḷadēva who took Madura and Īḻam, and obviously the inscription belongs to this period; it seems legitimate to infer that Karikāla was a title of Rājādhirāja II, an inference which is confirmed by another inscription (from Cidambaram) which couples the names Rājādhirāja and Karikāla.²⁴ A damaged record from Tiruvīḷimiḻalai,²⁵ which bears no date, mentions the place Komaran Kulōttunga-śōḻa-caturvēdimangalam in the Tiruvaḻundūr-nāḍu; the village seems to have been named after prince Kulōttunga, afterwards Kulōttunga III, an inscription of whose reign²⁶ mentions gifts made in the same village as early as the third year of Periyadēvar, evidently Rājādhirāja II; the relation of Kulōttunga III to Rājādhirāja, if any, is not clear.

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Among the officials and feudatories mentioned in the records of Rājādhirāja's reign, the following may be noted. The two most prominent were the two Pallavarāyars whose successes in the Pāṇḍyan civil war have already been dealt with in detail. The elder Pallavarāyar of Kārigai-kuḷattūr, Tirucciṟṟambalam-uḍaiyān Perumānambi, was the trusted lieutenant of Rājarāja II and survived him only long enough to be of service to the widowed queens and the young children of Rājarāja after the demise of the king. The other Pallavarāyar, Paḻaiyanūruḍaiyān Vēdavanamuḍaiyān Ammaiyappan *alias* Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan came into prominence early after Rājādhirāja's accession as he is found making a gift of land in Tiruvārūr in the second year of the reign.²⁷ At the death of Perumānambi, it was Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan who decided the proportion in which the lands belonging to the former were to be distributed among his relatives.²⁸ He also endowed three lamps in the temple of Tiruvālangāḍu, North Arcot, in the thirteenth year of Rājādhirāja. Vēdavanamuḍaiyān Karuṇākaradēvan *alias* Amarakōn of Paḻaiyanūr who endowed lamps in Tiruvalañjuḷi and Pattīśvaram²⁹ was perhaps a relative of Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan.

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The Sengēṇis and Kāḍavarāyas are strongly represented in the region of the Arcot districts and elsewhere. A certain Śengēṇi Ammaiyappan Śāmbuvarāyan made an assignment of some local taxes and dues to the temple of Tiruppulivanam towards the expenses of worship, offerings and repairs in the temple; as he could only have made over to the temple what was his own or within his power to dispose, it is clear that he must have either possessed a large assignment himself or been an important official of the central government with large powers devolved upon him. This Śāmbuvarāya was most probably the same as Edirili-śōḻa who is called Śengēṇi Ammaiyappan Śīyan Ammaiyappan in a Kāñcīpuram record,³⁰ and who granted the village of Ārppākkam as *ēkabhōga-iraiyili* to Umāpati-dēva *alias* Ñānaśiva-dēva for his celebrated worship of Śiva and prayers to him to avert the disasters threatened by the invasion of the Ceylon forces.³¹ Other chieftains of the same dynasty are mentioned.³²

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From the reign of Kulōttunga I, the growth in the number of feudatories and the extent of their influence on the administration and policy of the central government is one of the most striking features of Cōḷa history. The multiplication of these over-mighty subjects of the king naturally weakened the control exercised by his government over the general welfare of the country and removed considerable areas from its direct purview and constituted them into more or less independent jurisdictions. So long as village-communities and other popular organisations, rural and urban, were the only machinery of local administration by the side of the central government, the latter had a firm hold not only on the general administration as a whole but on the manner in which the various corporations carried on their affairs. It was not to be expected that powerful chieftains, who, though in the beginning they might have risen with the support and favour of the king, subsequently found themselves at the head of armed forces, would stand the same amount of interference as the humbler popular organisations, the assemblies and the guilds. Such chieftains often found themselves in possession of considerable areas of territory allotted to them by the king partly in recognition of their past services and partly with a view to enabling them to add a contingent of soldiers to the forces of the king in times of need. The growth in the number of such chieftains had two consequences.

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The first was to weaken the prestige of the king’s government by increasingly restricting the sphere of its effective operation, and thereby to loosen its hold even on the rest of the administration. The inscriptions of the later Cōḷa rulers do not give rise to the same impression, as do those of the earlier monarchs, of a powerful central government ever active in restraining, correcting, advising and guiding the more or less autonomous local organisations in the various parts of the empire. The popular organisations seem to be for the most part left to themselves, and when they have anything to do with outside authorities, it is generally with the local chieftains who have come up in their neighbourhood that they have to deal. It is more often to them rather than to the king that they begin to look for large gifts or the permanent assignment of local taxes and dues for charitable purposes. Another consequence of the new situation was that the local chieftains began to enter into political compacts calculated to regulate their conduct towards the emperor. These compacts seem to have had an important rôle in effecting the transition by which the class of official nobility, which had at first grown with the growth of the Cōḷa empire, converted itself into a number of petty local chieftaincies of a hereditary character.

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It is remarkable that the binding power of these compacts is often sought to be secured by the most fearful imprecations some of which are too shocking to be reproduced here. The earliest of these compacts are those found in the Ramnad district towards the close of the reign of Kulōttunga I and in the beginning of Vikramaśōḷa's reign. In the forty-second year of the reign of Kulōttunga I, as we learn from an inscription from Śivapuri (Ramnad Dt.),³³ Kaṇḍan-Mangalattēvan *alias* Tuvarāpati-vēḷān swore a vow of alliance and fealty to Sundarattōḷan Kaṇḍan *alias* Rājēndraśōḷa Tuvarāpati-vēḷān saying: 'I, Kaṇḍan Mangalattēvan *alias* Tuvarāpati-vēḷān do hereby swear that I shall remain true to (your) life, wealth and honour, and that, if I fail, I shall incur the sin of him who becomes the husband of his mother and of consuming liquor (*surā*) and beef (*gō-māmsam*).' About ten years later, in the same place is registered another compact³⁴ between Rājēndraśōḷan *alias* Niṣadarājan and Kaṇḍan Sundarattōḷan *alias* Tuvarāpati-vēḷān by which the former swore fealty to the latter in similar terms. Another instance comes from North Arcot and belongs to the reign of Rājādhirāja II; an inscription from Māḍam dated in the eleventh regnal year of the king³⁵ registers a similar compact among three chieftains of the Śengēṇi family.

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It will become clear presently that under Kulōttunga III this tendency became much more general, and there can be no doubt that we have here unmistakable evidence of the approach of the end. The empire is dissolving into a number of warring principalities before the eyes of the king, now no longer powerful to enforce his will on his vassals who, though they still own allegiance to him, generally act very much by themselves and as best suits their divergent interests.

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The latest regnal year traced in the inscriptions of Rājādhirāja II is sixteen,³⁶ so that his reign extended up to a.d. 1179 or 1182 according as we adopt a.d. 1163 or 1166 for the commencement of his reign. The inscriptions of Kulōttunga show that his rule commenced between 6 and 8 July, a.d. 1178.³⁷ It is thus clear that Kulōttunga III had come to be recognised as the next sovereign before the death of Rājādhirāja. It has been shown above that Kulōttunga could not have been one of the tender children of Rājarāja³⁸ for whose protection the Pallavarāyar took effective steps at the time of Rājarāja’s death. If the assumption is correct that Kulōttunga is identical with Kumāra Kulōttunga mentioned in the inscriptions of Rājādhirāja II,³⁹ then it would seem that he was not of the direct line of the Imperial Cōḷas any more than his predecessor. The *Kulōttuṅgan-kōvai*⁴⁰ gives the pedigree of Kumāra Kulōttunga thus:

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``` Saṅgamarāja

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Nallaman Kumāra Śaṅkaraśōḻan Kulōttunga ```

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There is an *ulā* on Śaṅkaraśōḻan which seems to mention his elder brother under the slightly different name Kumāramahīdhara. It must be noted, however, that as neither the *kōvai* nor the *ulā* mentions any historical events specifically traceable to Kulōttunga III of the inscriptions,⁴¹ the identification of this king with Kumāra Kulōttunga of literature is still open to doubt. There is no means available at present of ascertaining the exact relation of Saṅgamarāja to the Cōḷa line.

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The records of Kulōttunga’s reign are very numerous, and the chief *praśasti* that appears in many of them begins *puyal vāyttu* (or *vāykka*) *vaḷam peruga*, a formula which is borrowed from the inscriptions of Rājarāja II and is first found in this reign in a record of the third year.⁴² Though at first this form is repeated almost exactly as it occurs in Rājarāja’s reign and furnishes no data for the historian, by the ninth year of the reign an account of the Pāṇḍyan war of Kulōttunga is incorporated in it,⁴³ and this account is reproduced in almost all the subsequent editions of the *praśasti* with significant variations which will presently be discussed. The other *praśastis* of the reign, less frequently employed and of little historical importance, may be more briefly noticed. The formulas commencing *malar mannu poḻil-ēḻilum* and *pū mēvi maruviya* both appear first in records of the fifth year;⁴⁴ a record from Māgaral, dated in the eleventh year,⁴⁵ has the *praśasti* beginning *pū mēvi vaḷar* of Kulōttunga II and cannot be distinguished from the inscriptions of that monarch except by the Parakēsari title of the sovereign. Some records of Kulōttunga III begin *pū maruviya tiśai mugattōn*, a form which first appears in the fifth year and of which only the first words are mentioned in a record of the seventeenth year.⁴⁶

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The inscriptions of Kulōttunga very often exhibit, besides the *praśastis*, some descriptive titles of the monarch which are a great help in the identification of his inscriptions and in the study of the history of the reign. In one record⁴⁷ of the second year, and more frequently from the fourth year⁴⁸ onwards, the phrase '*Maduraiyum Pāṇḍiyan muḍit-talaiyum koṇḍa-ruḷiya*,' meaning 'who was pleased to take Madura and the crowned head of the Pāṇḍya,' is employed to distinguish the king from his earlier namesakes. This shows that the Pāṇḍyan campaign of which we get a detailed account for the first time in the ninth year, must have commenced, if not actually been completed, some years earlier. The descriptive title quoted above is revised from time to time by the addition of Īḻam (Ceylon) in the tenth year,⁴⁹ Karuvūr in the sixteenth,⁵⁰ and of Kāñcīpuram in the twenty-fourth year.⁵¹ The city last mentioned is not included in many inscriptions; Kulōttunga is also stated to have celebrated a *vīrābhiṣēka* and a *vijayābhiṣēka*.⁵²

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The reign of Kulōttunga III is a remarkable example of the triumph of the personal ability of the monarch against the forces of disruption that were steadily increasing in their number and in the intensity of their action. Pāṇḍyan affairs had not reached a settlement when Kulōttunga came to the throne; and much active fighting was still needed; and though Kulōttunga succeeded for the best part of his reign in enforcing Cōḷa suzerainty over the Pāṇḍyan kingdom, it became clear by the end of his reign that the southern kingdom, after its recovery from the effects of the civil strife, was being ruled by able and ambitious monarchs who were prepared not only to assert their independence of the Cōḷa power, but to embark, in their turn, on a career of aggressive warfare and territorial aggrandisement. We shall see that Kulōttunga lived long enough to experience the first shock of the newborn imperialism of the Pāṇḍyas. Elsewhere, the numerous feudatory dynasties were preparing to break off from the centre when opportunity occurred, and some of them like the Siddharasas of Nellore caused no end of anxiety to the emperor by their restless activity directed not seldom against the central power itself. All the energy and the strength of Kulōttunga was taken up in counteracting the machinations and undoing the mischief resulting from the actions of such overgrown vassals. In spite of everything, however, until towards the close of the reign of Kulōttunga, the Cōḷa empire suffered no visible curtailment, and the period of his rule marks the last great epoch in the history of Cōḷa architecture and art. Literature did not fail to get its meed of encouragement. Kulōttunga himself must be counted as the last of the great Cōḷa monarchs. Under his weak successor, the empire went to pieces and its ruler suffered personal humiliation at the hands of one of his feudatories who was in alliance with the newly risen power of the Pāṇḍyas, and it was only the intercession of the Hoysala ruler Narasimha that restored the Cōḷa monarch to the semblance of sovereignty, though not to real power.

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We have seen that Kulaśēkhara, on whose account Rājādhirāja II fought the powerful ruler of Ceylon, Parākramabāhu I, and his *protégé* Vīra Pāṇḍya, the son of Parākrama Pāṇḍya, ultimately made his peace with the Ceylonese king, turned against his Cōḷa benefactor, and paid for his treachery by being driven out of Madura by Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan who sought out Vīra Pāṇḍya and restored him to the throne of Madura. A solitary inscription of Vīra Pāṇḍya comes from Sucīndram;⁵³ it begins *pūmaḍandaiyum jayamaḍandaiyum* and records a gift of seven *vēlis* of land to the local temple on the occasion of the king's coronation; it seems more likely that this grant was made by Vīra Pāṇḍya when he was installed by Aṇṇan Pallavarāyan, rather than on the earlier occasion when the Ceylonese generals secured for him a temporary hold on Madura. How long Vīra Pāṇḍya occupied the throne can only be surmised; there is no doubt, however, that in a short time he too succumbed to the blandishments of the king of Ceylon and went over to his side. The fact was that the traditional alliance among the southern powers—Vēṇāḍ, Pāṇḍya and Ceylon—against the Cōḷa monarchy was too firmly established to be shaken by considerations of gratitude for help received at a critical juncture. We shall see that Vīra Pāṇḍya at a later stage sought refuge in Kollam when he was driven out of Madura. It will be recollected that when Parāntaka I extended the Cōḷa dominion to the south, the conquered ruler of the Pāṇḍya country, Rājasiṁha, found sympathy and support in Ceylon and Kēraḷa. That the general relations of these powers among themselves and towards the Cōḷas remained constant in the long interval that had elapsed up to the accession of Kulōttunga III must have become clear from the account that has been given in the preceding pages. Hence it was that both Kulaśēkhara and Vīra Pāṇḍya, though they were ready to seek Cōḷa assistance against each other, could not maintain that friendship after their object was attained, and drifted into the diplomatic situation normal to the ruler of the Pāṇḍyan kingdom.

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The further stages of the war as recorded in Kulōttunga's inscriptions, all of them commencing *puyal vāyttu vaḷam peruga*, may now be briefly summarised. An inscription from Cidambaram dated on the 88th day of the ninth year⁵⁴ records the coronation of the king at his accession, and then states that the king despatched an army when Vikrama Pāṇḍya sought his aid and in the campaign that followed, the son of Vīra Pāṇḍya fell,⁵⁵ Īḷagam was subdued, and the army of the *maṛavas* (*maṛappaḍai*) was beaten, while the Siṅgaḷa soldiers had their noses cut off and rushed into the sea.⁵⁶ Vīra Pāṇḍya was attacked and compelled to turn back; Madura and his throne were seized from him and handed over to the Pāṇḍya (Vikrama) who had sought the aid of the conqueror; a pillar of victory was also set up. Another inscription, also from Cidambaram, dated on the 118th day of the eleventh year, says:⁵⁷

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'By a single army, (Kulōttunga) had the nose of the son of Vīra Pāṇḍya cut off before he was captured, bestowed on Vikrama-Pāṇḍya the great city of Kūḍal, and returned. After this, he took the crowned head of Vīra

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Pāṇḍya who had returned to the attack because of the disgrace (of his former defeat), and erected a pillar of victory at the end of the fight.'

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Two records from Tirukkaḍaiyūr⁵⁸ dated in the fifteenth (?) and sixteenth years repeat the events recorded in the last preceding inscription in identical words and add the following:

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'Having finished the fight, he (Kulōttunga) caused the best of his (Vīra Pāṇḍya's) women to enter (his own) *vēḷam*;⁵⁹ (he) set his foot on the crowns of the *Tennan* (Pāṇḍya), who had entered the Western Kollam with his relatives as he had no (other) refuge, and of the powerful Cēra, when they made obeisance at his lotus feet; (he) was pleased to confer on the Tennavan (Pāṇḍya) the sovereignty of the land of Śen-Tamiḻ (Madura country) and (its) crown; (he) put on the anklet of heroes and raised the banners of heroism and of liberality; (he) was pleased to be present when the chief of Kaikayas named his son after him (Kulōttunga) and gave him many robes; having bestowed a living, such as kings seldom got, on the *mīnava* (Pāṇḍya) Vīra Kēraḷa whom he had compelled to turn his back on the battle-field, whose finger he had cut off, and who had since surrendered himself into slavery; (he also) gave him to eat by his side from vessels given by him.⁶⁰

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A record from Tiruviḍaimarudūr, also dated in the sixteenth year,⁶¹ states that the warriors of Kulōttunga began to guard all places in response to the order: 'Capture Īḻam in the South, so that the *tennavar* (southerners—Pāṇḍya, Kēraḷa, and Śingaḷa?) may come and prostrate themselves, and the head of the Śingaḷavan may be cut off; fill the wavy sea (to make a causeway).' Then we have an inscription of the nineteenth year from Śrīrangam⁶² which repeats the incidents of the Pāṇḍyan war almost in the same words as the Cidambaram inscription of the eleventh year stating also that Vīra Pāṇḍya's second attempt to resist Kulōttunga was made on the field of Neṭṭūr, and adds that, at the end of the battle, he took into his *vēḷam* the young queen (*maḍakkoḍi*) of the Pāṇḍya ruler, and proceeds:

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‘When the Tennavan (Pāṇḍya), who had lost his fortune, and the Sēralan (Cēra) came (to the Cōḷa), bowed (to him) and sat down at the foot of (his) throne, (he) placed (his) feet on the crown of the former, granted (him) land, granted (him) a crown, and gave the Pāṇḍya permission (to go); and to him on whose flag was seen the bow (the Cēra),⁶³ he granted a fortune which (other) kings could not obtain.’

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The inscription then mentions the defeat of Pāṇḍya Vīra Kēraḷa, whose finger was cut off and who was forced to turn back,⁶⁴ and the gifts made to him, as also the gift of much treasure, robes, and bejewelled vessels to the Pāṇḍya who bore the glorious name of ‘chief of the family of the Sun’. From Tiruvoṟṟiyūr⁶⁵ we have an inscription of the nineteenth year which says, in the midst of much sham history, that Kulōttunga cut off the heads of Tennavan and Vikkalan; these statements, it is certain, deserve no credence and may be ignored. Another record from Tirumāṇikuḷi⁶⁶ of the twenty-first year follows the Śrīraṅgam inscription of the nineteenth year except that it omits the gifts of land and crown to the Pāṇḍya and of wealth to the Cēra when they both sat at the feet of Kulōttunga’s throne and he placed his foot on the crown of the Pāṇḍya; it also adds at the end that Kulōttunga adorned with his feet the crown of the Ceylonese king (Īḻattān) in order that it may prosper.

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Lastly, there are two records from the Pudukkottah state⁶⁷ with a unique form of the *praśasti* not so far traced in any other inscriptions of Kulōttunga. From one of these records, the date has been lost; the other is dated in the thirty-fourth year. This *praśasti* mentions the Pāṇḍyan campaigns of Kulōttunga at two points in a manner that clearly implies that the facts recorded in the other inscriptions cited so far do not take us to the end of the story and that there was another expedition some years later. Though we must reserve to a later stage a discussion of the events recorded in the *praśasti* but having no bearing on Pāṇḍyan affairs, it may still be useful to give here an analysis of the entire *praśasti*. It opens in the usual manner by recording the benevolent effects of the king’s coronation; it then records the gilding of parts of the Cidambaram temple, the construction of Tribhuvanīśvaram, the gilding of Rājarājīśvaram and the institution of festivals in these temples; next follows a brief narration of a northern campaign culminating in the recapture of Kāñcī;⁶⁸ what follows, on the subjugation of Vaḍugu and the annexation of Vēṅgimaṇḍalam, the shower of gold (in the form of gifts) and the entry into Uṟangai, is evidently a record of further details of the same campaign not found in other inscriptions. Then begins the story of the Pāṇḍyan war, narrated in almost the same words as those of the Śrīraṅgam inscription cited above.⁶⁹ Kulōttuṅga is then stated to have conquered Īḻam (Ceylon), waged a fierce war against Koṅgu, entered Karuvūr and worn the ‘great crown of victory’ (*vijayamāmuḍi*), assuming the title Śōḻa Kēraḷa. Then he set out to wear the ‘crown of heroism’ (*vīra-muḍi*), fought against the warlike army of Malaya,⁷⁰ besieged Maṭṭiyūr and Kaḷikkōṭṭai, defaced some of the Pāṇḍyan troops by cutting off their noses and took captive the *maṟap-paḍai* and *ēḷagap-paḍai*; he then surrounded Madura with his troops, drove the Pāṇḍya, his younger brothers and his mother into the forests, demolished the coronation *maṇḍapa* of the Pāṇḍyas, and after ploughing its site with asses, sowed *kavaḍi* on it, and then wore the ‘crown of heroism’ after taking the title of Cōḻa-Pāṇḍyan. He then put on the anklet of heroes, assumed the title Tribhuvanavīra and went on a triumphal march round the city with the banner of heroism raised aloft; at the end of it, he worshipped the God of Madura,⁷¹ and presented many fine jewels to the deity. He then proclaimed that the name of Pāṇḍi-maṇḍalam was thenceforth to be Cōḻa-Pāṇḍiyan-maṇḍalam, and that of Madura was to be Muḍit-talai-koṇḍa-śōḻa-puram; he then inscribed the name ‘Lord of the Cēra and Pāṇḍya’ (Cēra-pāṇḍiyan-tambirān) on the *maṇḍapa* in which he had been camping, changed the name of the Pāṇḍiyan and conferred the title Pāṇḍya on the bard (*pāṇan*) who celebrated the prowess of his arms that took Madura to the discomfiture of the Tennavan (Pāṇḍya). He then opened a broad street in his own name for the procession of the God of Madura, instituted a new festival and stayed to worship the deity during the procession (in the new street). He then covered the Madura temple with gold so that it resembled a golden mountain, and distributed the tribute of gold and *iraiyili* (lands) levied from the country of the Cēra (and) Pāṇḍya among the temples of Cidambaram, Tiruvārūr and Tribhuvanam. He also planted pillars of victory carrying the praise of his arms in every direction.⁷² He finally restored the kingdom to the Pāṇḍya together with his regalia and assured him of his friendship.

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From these records, the Pāṇḍyan wars of Kulōttunga are seen to comprise three separate campaigns.

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The first of them began at the request of Vikrama Pāṇḍya and led to the deposition of Vīra Pāṇḍya and the appointment of Vikrama to the throne of Madura. It is to be noted that the inscriptions are silent on some important points. How did Vīra Pāṇḍya incur the displeasure of Kulōttunga? This question has been examined above, and an answer has been suggested which must be held to be only tentative, till it is confirmed by direct evidence. Again, what happened to Kulaśēkhara after his expulsion from Madura? How was Vikrama Pāṇḍya related to him? What were the circumstances under which Vikrama Pāṇḍya persuaded Kulōttunga to undertake an expedition for aiding him against Vīra? In the absence of direct testimony, we can only assume what seems most probable, viz., that Kulaśēkhara was dead by the time this war began, that Vikrama Pāṇḍya was some near relative of his, if not his son, who inherited his rights to the Pāṇḍyan throne, and that he used very well the opportunities offered to him by the intrigues of Vīra Pāṇḍya with the natural enemies of the Cōḷa ruler. Though this campaign is not described in detail till after the commencement of the ninth regnal year (June a.d. 1186), it is possible that it was actually fought before a.d. 1182, the time when the title *Maduraiyum Pāṇḍiyan-muḍittalaiyum koṇḍaruḷiya* began to appear regularly in the inscriptions. If that was so, the campaign was fought in the last years of Parākramabāhu I of Ceylon, and the ‘Śiṅgaḷa soldiers’ who fought and suffered with Vīra Pāṇḍya must have been troops furnished by that king. The divergent accounts of the fate of Vīra Pāṇḍya’s son or sons render it difficult to decide what actually happened to them.

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When the Cōḷa forces had gone back after installing Vikrama Pāṇḍya on the throne of Madura, Vīra Pāṇḍya made another effort to retrieve his fortune, and this led to the second campaign in which Vīra Pāṇḍya's attempt was crushed on the battle-field of Neṭṭūr. This battle must have taken place before A.D. 1189 when it is briefly mentioned, though not by the name, for the first time. Later inscriptions embellish the account by the addition of fresh details. The main feature of this part of the struggle was the co-operation of the ruler of Kēraḷa with Vīra Pāṇḍya. After the defeat at Neṭṭūr, Vīra Pāṇḍya apparently sought refuge in Quilon (Kollam) with the Kēraḷa ruler of Vēṇāḍ; but the latter had no desire to harbour his dangerous guest for long, and they both made up their minds to surrender themselves to Kulōttunga and thus put a stop to further fighting. Vīra Pāṇḍya seems on the whole to have been treated better than he had a right to expect; he had to eat the humble pie in the open durbar of Kulōttunga and naturally lost his kingdom and the insignia of royalty including the harem; but his life was spared and possibly he got some land and other forms of wealth suited to his new situation.⁷³ Who the chief of the Kaikayas was who named his son after Kulōttunga, who the Pāṇḍya Vīra Kēraḷa and who 'the chief of the family of the Sun', we seem to have no means of determining. Again, though the Tirumāṇikuḻi inscription states that Kulōttunga placed his foot on the crown of the king of Ceylon, this can hardly be accepted as true. Of the date of the second campaign, we can only say that it must have taken place before A.D. 1189; whether it came to an end in the life-time of Parākramabāhu I of Ceylon who lived to 1187, or dragged on to the reign of Niśśaṅkamalla, separated from that of Parākramabāhu I only by the short reign of Mahinda VI, is therefore uncertain; it may be noted, however, that Īḻam first figures in the tenth year (A.D. 1188)⁷⁴ among the countries taken by Kulōttunga and that, in his numerous inscriptions, Niśśaṅkamalla claims to have led three successful expeditions to the Pāṇḍya country and to have renovated a temple at Rāmēśvaram.⁷⁵ The last claim is borne out by a Sinhalese inscription in Rāmēśvaram engraved on a stone which, according to the inscription itself, was the seat (*āsana*) on which Niśśaṅkamalla used to sit witnessing theatrical performances and listening to music. The inscription also records that the king spent vast treasures in renovating the temple which came thereafter to be called Niśśaṅkamallēśvara. The Pāṇḍyan expeditions of the Ceylon ruler were not by any means so brilliant as these inscriptions make out, and this may be the reason for the silence of the chronicle on the subject. ⁷⁶

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The third campaign of Kulōttuṅga in the Pāṇḍya country is described, as we have seen, in the Pudukkottah records dated in the thirty-fourth year of the reign. This inscription states definitely that after celebrating a Vijayābhiṣēka in Karuvūr, Kulōttuṅga started on an expedition against the Madura country in order to wear the crown of heroism, that is, to celebrate a Vīrābhiṣēka. If account is taken also of the fact that the Vijaya- and Vīrābhiṣēkas seem to be mentioned first only about the twenty-ninth regnal year, we may not be far wrong in assigning some date about a.d. 1205 to this campaign. If this is correct, the expedition must have been directed against Jaṭāvarman Kulaśēkhara who came to the throne in a.d. 1190, and was the first great ruler of the period of Pāṇḍyan revival that followed the close of the Civil War in which Rājādhirāja II and Kulōttuṅga III had espoused the cause of one or the other of the rival claimants to the throne. It seems probable that Kulaśēkhara was the son and successor of Vikrama Pāṇḍya who had been supported by Kulōttuṅga. His inscriptions are found in the Madura, Ramnad and Tinnevelly districts.⁷⁷ They contain elaborate *praśastis*, one of which sets up the proud claim that before the Pāṇḍyan fish, the fierce tiger of the Cōḷa and the bow of the Cēra hid themselves (in fear). This claim and the desire of Kulōttuṅga for a Vīrābhiṣēka after his Vijayābhiṣēka at Karuvūr are the only indications that remain of the probable causes of the war between Kulaśēkhara and Kulōttuṅga III; the inscriptions of the former ruler do not mention the war or any of its incidents. We may not accept literally everything mentioned in the inscriptions of Kulōttuṅga; but there is no doubt that Kulaśēkhara paid a heavy penalty for his contumacy. As the war ends with the restoration of Kulaśēkhara, the success of Kulōttuṅga was certainly not so absolute, and the statement that the Pāṇḍyan ruler and his relatives⁷⁸ sought refuge in the forests is mere rhetoric. The sieges of Maṭṭiyūr and Kaḷikkōṭṭai—places not yet identified—the defeat of the army of the Maṟavas and the specific act of vandalism, the demolition of the coronation-hall of the Pāṇḍyas, may well be accepted as facts. This harshness on the part of Kulōttunga proves his consciousness of the increasing weakness of his own position in contrast to the growing strength of the Pāṇḍyas. It also accounts for the retaliation that followed some years later when Māṟavarman Sundara Pāṇḍya, who must have suffered along with his brother on the occasion of Kulōttunga's invasion, assumed the rôle of aggressor and carried fire and sword into the Cōḷa country, and performed a Vīrābhiṣēka in the coronation hall of the Cōḷas at Āyirattaḷi *alias* Muḍigoṇḍaśōḷa-puram.⁷⁹

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The wars waged in the north by Kulōttunga are mentioned for the first time in the Śrīrangam inscription of the nineteenth year in the following terms:

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‘(He) despatched matchless elephants, performed heroic deeds, prostrated to the ground the Kings of the North, entered Kacci when (his) anger abated, and levied tribute from all the kings there.’

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The Pudukkottah inscriptions, dated more than ten years later, add the following:

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‘having subdued the Vaḍugu (Telugus) who were fierce in war and (thus) brought Vēngai-maṇḍalam under his sway, he was pleased to shower gold and enter the golden city of Uṟangai.’

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The incidents thus recorded in Kulōttunga's inscriptions cannot be understood without a brief résumé of the political changes that were taking place outside the Cōḷa Kingdom. Towards the close of the life of Rājarāja II, the Velanāṇḍu kings felt themselves equal to the task of asserting and maintaining their independence against their Cāḷukya-Cōḷa suzerains. This was the period when the Kākatīyas were coming up in the north, while in the west the Cāḷukyas, having suffered a defeat from Kākatīya Prōla, were thrown into the shade by the usurpation of Bijjala. The consequent weakness of the W. Cāḷukya kingdom gave the occasion for the Hoysalas to rise to the rank of an independent power; at the same time the Telugu-Cōḍas and the Velanāṇḍu rulers, who had till then been either subordinate to the Cāḷukyas or had lived in fear of them and therefore in subordinate alliance with the Cōḷas, breathed more freely and soon began to entertain plans of aggrandisement. It is remarkable that few inscriptions of Rājādhirāja II have been found in Nellore or the Circars. And it appears that perhaps Gonka II at the close of his reign, and certainly his son Rājēndracōḍa, assumed the titles and insignia of independent status.⁸⁰ In fact with the close of Rājarāja's reign we have come to that interval in the history of the Telugu country in which the Cōḷa power was withdrawn, and the Kākātīya power had not yet taken its place—a period of about a generation in which many minor dynasties like the Kōṭas, Cāgis, Kōnas and others divide the country and owe no allegiance to a common power. About the same time the Telugu-Cōḍas rise into prominence farther south in the districts of Nellore, Cuddapah, Chittoor, North Arcot and Chingleput, and it is to them that the Cōḷas lost Kāñcīpuram and from them that Kulōttunga III recovered the city.

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