The Colas c23.50

c23.50

The campaign against Kongu culminating in the triumphal entry into Karuvūr and the celebration of the *Vijayābhiṣēka* in that city constitute another obscure episode of the reign. The entry into Karuvūr is, as we have been, mentioned for the first time in the sixteenth year of the reign,¹⁰⁵ and Kongu bears the name Vīra-śōḷa-maṇḍalam in a record of the twenty-sixth year.¹⁰⁶ If the Pudukkottah inscriptions, the only ones that contain a direct account of this war, may be taken to have arranged the events in the order of their occurrence, this campaign may be assigned to the years following the close of the second Pāṇḍyan war, to the years, say A.D. 1190-1194. The *Kulōttungan-Kōvai* also repeatedly mentions the war against the Cēra and Kongu; but neither the inscriptions nor the poem contain any clue to the causes or the incidents of the war. A number of inscriptions of the reign are also found in Karuvūr. Others are found elsewhere in the Kongu country, including Tagaḍūr, and in parts of Mysore, and clearly point to a recovery of Cōḷa dominion in this quarter, and a partial reversal of Hoysala expansion that began at the end of the reign of Kulōttunga I. We shall see that the Adigaimāns once more acknowledged the Cōḷa suzerainty in this reign, and the inscriptions of the Adigaimān who styles himself Viḍukādaḷagiya Perumāḷ suggest that he might have had a share in the restoration of Cōḷa dominion in this quarter.¹⁰⁷