The Colas c24.38

c24.38

For all its weakness, the Cōḷa power maintained the appearance of sovereign rule over a considerable territory almost till towards the end of Rājarāja's long reign. This becomes clear from a review of the inscriptions dated in his regnal years and issued by rulers who still called themselves vassals of the Cōḷa emperor. Even the notorious Kōpperuñjinga was no exception. We have seen that the attempt of this chieftain to throw off his allegiance to his Cōḷa overlord was suppressed in 1230-31 by the intercession of Vīra-Narasimha. The inscriptions of Kōpperuñjinga, however, show that he had a rather long and stormy career, and that in the political confusion that prevailed in the period, he found it easy to set himself up as a more or less independent ruler and pursue a policy of his own towards the neighbouring states. He counts his regnal years from A.D. 1243 and inscriptions citing these years run in a series up to the thirty-sixth year, c. A.D. 1279, i.e., almost to the end of the period covered by this chapter. It is needless to follow here the details of his career. His conflicts with the Hoysalas and the Kākatīyas whose supremacy he had to acknowledge in the north,⁵⁹ the attack on his capital Sēndamangalam delivered by Jaṭāvarman Sundara Pāṇḍya, and the numberless gifts made and constructions undertaken by Kōpperuñjinga at various places in the whole area extending from Tanjore as far as Drākṣārāma and Tripurāntakam—these do not properly belong to Cōḷa history. It should, however, be noted that as late as A.D. 1246 and 1247 we find the officials and relatives of Kōpperuñjinga, if not the chieftain himself, acknowledging the overlordship of Rājarāja III.⁶⁰ Among the other feudatories, the Telugu-Cōḍas, of whom something has been said already, may be noted first. Manumasiddharasa who had the title Cāḷukya-nārāyaṇa and made a gift to the great Śiva temple at Kañcīpuram in A.D. 1218;⁶¹ Madhurāntaka Pottappiccōḷa Erasiddharasa, gifts from whose officials and relatives are recorded in Rājarāja's inscriptions from Kañcīpuram and Nellore between his fifth and eleventh regnal years;⁶² Malamādēvarasa and Puḍōliyarasa mentioned in records of the sixth and eighth years of Rājarāja from the Chittoor district;⁶³ and the great Tikka I himself who figures under the name Gaṇḍagōpāla along with his queen and his officials in a large number of Rājarāja's inscriptions,⁶⁴ are the chief among the Telugu-Cōḍas who flourished in this reign. Likewise we find a number of Yādavarāyas, Śāmbuvarāyas and Cēdiyarāyas also among the feudatories, particularly in the earlier years of the reign; it is not necessary to repeat the names of these chieftains which may be gathered by a perusal of the inscriptions of the reign; but the fact that so many of these well-known local dynasties continued to acknowledge the Cōḷa overlordship till so late in the reign of Rājarāja is of some significance in the history of the decline and fall of the Cōḷa empire. Some of the names show that chieftains of Bāṇa, Vaidumba, Nuḷamba and Ganga extraction were also counted among these feudatories. We have already mentioned Hoysaḷa generals citing the regnal years of Rājarāja while recording their gifts in' Kāñcīpuram, Karuvūr⁶⁵ and other places. Even a Kaliṅga ruler Aṇiyaṅga Bhīmadēva Rāhuta adopts this course in making an endowment in Kāñcīpuram in the twentieth year of Rājarāja, a.d. 1236.⁶⁶ These facts show that the hold of the Cōḷa empire on the imagination of the people was still great, even after the disasters brought on it by the incompetence and cowardice of Rājarāja III.