The Colas c23.22

c23.22

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