The Colas c23.43

c23.43

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of Rājarāja's reign we have come to that interval in the history of the Telugu country in which the Cōḷa power was withdrawn, and the Kākātīya power had not yet taken its place—a period of about a generation in which many minor dynasties like the Kōṭas, Cāgis, Kōnas and others divide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.