The Colas c24.48

c24.48

The growth of differences between Sōmēśvara and the Cōḷas on their Pāṇḍyan policy forced the latter to seek other allies for themselves. The Telugu-Cōḍas of Nellore had attained considerable power and were ruling over an extensive territory in the Nellore, Chingleput and Cuddapah districts. We have seen that these rulers were on the whole more friendly with the Cōḷa monarchs of the south and ready to acknowledge their formal suzerain position. Tikkanṛpati alias Gaṇḍagōpāla⁷⁹ was the contemporary ruler of Nellore and there is clear literary evidence of his friendship with the Cōḷas and his hostility to the Hoysalas. In the introductory verses to his *Nirvacanōttara Rāmāyaṇamu*, Tikkana has given a fairly complete and sober account of the achievements of Tikka, the father of his patron Manmasiddha. From this account we learn that Tikka fought against Śamburāja and other enemy *maṇḍalikas* and that he compelled Kāñcī, Cēdimaṇḍala and the Kāḍavapati to acknowledge his supremacy. The importance of these successes was that they checked the predatory activities of the turbulent Kōpperuñjinga and his confederates and thereby strengthened the position of the Cōḷa monarch. The presence of Gaṇḍagōpāla's inscriptions dated about A.D. 1230 and later⁸⁰ in Kāñcīpuram and its neighbourhood, and the fact that many of them are dated in the regnal years of Rājarāja corroborate the statements of Tikkana Sōmayāji on the relations between Tikka and the Cōḷas. The same poet also states expressly that Tikka subdued the Karṇāṭa ruler Sōmēśvara and thereby easily established the Cōḷa in his position and earned for himself the title *Cōḷasthāpanācārya*. This is again confirmed by a Hoysala inscription of Ś. 1162 (A.D. 1240)⁸¹ which mentions an expedition of Sōmēśvara against the Gaṇḍagōpāla. Once more the date of the Hoysala record indicates that Rājēndra's activities for the restoration of Cōḷa power were begun some years prior to his formal installation as heir-apparent. We thus see that the accession of a weak Pāṇḍyan ruler, the commencement of Rājēndra's campaign of recovery, the estrangement between the Cōḷas and the Hoysalas, and the alliance of the Cōḷas with the Telugu-Cōḍas all hang together and constitute a revolution in the political condition of South India. In fact it was an age of rapid changes in the political map of South India. The particular phase that was created by the advent of Rājēndra and has just been described furnishes, it may be noted in passing, a very good example in practice of the diplomatic theory of the *maṇḍala* developed in the scholastic treatises on Hindu polity. The Cōḷa kingdom is surrounded by enemies on all sides, and its only ally is a ruler whose territory lies beyond that of a neighbouring enemy.⁸²