The Colas c23.49

c23.49

For the rest of his reign, Kulōttunga had no trouble from the Telugu-Cōḍas, though in the last few years, when the Cōḷa monarch had to meet a powerful enemy in Māṟavarman Sundara Pāṇḍya, they seem to have made another and a more successful effort to assert their independence. But Kulōttunga is seen fighting once more in the north some time about A.D. 1208. In this campaign he claims to have subdued the fierce Vaḍugas (Telugus), established his supremacy over Vēṅgī and entered Uṟangai. Who were the fierce Vaḍugas and where was Uṟangai? Is there any reason to suppose that Vēṅgī was regained for the Cōḷa empire by Kulōttunga even for a short while? In the absence of a single Cōḷa record of this period to the north of Nellore, it is not difficult to answer the last question in the negative. And if we recall the fact that the power of the Kākatīyas had been growing for some time and spreading over the ancient kingdom of Vēngī, imposing a new suzerainty over the chieftaincies that had emerged there after the withdrawal of Cōḷa power from the region, and that the greatest monarch of this line, Gaṇapati, had come to the throne by A.D. 1199, the most natural way of interpreting Kulōttunga's claim seems to be to suppose that he warred with that Kākatīya ruler and entered Warangal, his capital, sometimes called Orungallu,¹⁰⁴ a name which is easily Tamilised into Uṟangai. But of such a war ending so favourably for the Cōḷa monarch, we have no indications except the vague statements of the two Pudukkottah records. No details of this campaign are forthcoming, and the Cōḷa entry into Warangal, if that is the real meaning of these inscriptions, must be held to be a case of fabrication. In the present state of the evidence, we could not even say if there was any basis in fact for the tall claims set up on behalf of the Cōḷa monarch in the records of his reign.