The Colas c24.39

c24.39

Rājēndra, who, as we have seen, was recognised as heir apparent in a.d. 1246, was an abler prince than Rājarāja III. His inscriptions contain a Sanskrit *praśasti* which records his efforts to restore to the Cōḷas at least a part of their ancient power and prestige which they had lost so completely owing to the utter incapacity of Rājarāja. For fourteen years after his right to the succession was recognised, Rājarāja continued to rule in name, but there can be little doubt that during all this period, and perhaps even for some years before, the substance of power lay in the hands of his abler colleague. The inscriptions of Rājarāja diminish in their number and range in the closing years of his reign, particularly from the thirty-fourth regnal year, when they are confined practically to the two modern districts of North Arcot and Nellore. In the same period, the inscriptions of Rājēndra, on the other hand, are relatively more numerous and come from practically all parts of the Cōḷa kingdom. This can hardly be an accident, and must be ascribed to some definite understanding by which the baneful effects of Rājarāja's political incompetence were circumscribed. There is no evidence that Rājarāja and Rājēndra were ever engaged in a civil war, as has sometimes been thought, or that there was a formal division of the kingdom, or finally, that Rājarāja was murdered by Rājēndra.⁶⁷