The Colas c24.53

c24.53

Their differences over the Pāṇḍyan policy resulted, as we have seen, in hostilities between the Cōḷas and the Hoysalas in which the former were aided by the Telugu-Cōḍa Tikka I; this seems to have been, however, only a passing phase; the inscriptions of Sōmēśvara imply the resumption of friendly relations between him and Rājēndra, after a temporary estrangement, and this is confirmed by the inscriptions of Rājēndra in which Hoysala officers figure as donors as in those of Rājarāja III.⁸⁴ This friendship between the Cōḷas and the Hoysalas was continued up to and even beyond the death of Sōmēśvara. Two inscriptions from Tiruccatturai⁸⁵ in the Tanjore district are of great significance in this regard; one of them mentions the tenth year of Vīra Rāmanātha, the successor of Sōmēśvara in the southern half of the Hoysala kingdom, and records a sale of land effected in the twentieth year of Rājēndra (A.D. 1265-6), while the other couples the fifteenth year of Rāmanātha with the twenty-fifth of Rājēndra. These records attest the closest possible alliance between the two rulers, if not actually their joint rule over the territory where the inscriptions are found.⁸⁶