The Colas c25.35

c25.35

The same officers are mentioned in similar connections in many other records. The Tirumukkūḍal inscription of Vīrarājēndra,⁸⁸ for, instance, records the following stages: the monarch's oral order is written out (*eḻuttu*) by a *tirumandira-ōlai*, and compared (*oppu*) by the three officers called *tirumandira-ōlaināyagam*, before it is entered (*pugunda*); three other officers, one of them a *viḍaiyil adigāri*, order the entry of this in the *vari*, and then, six officers of the *uḍankūṭṭam*, twenty-eight of the *viḍaiyil*, and four of the *naḍuvirukkam* cause this to be done; nine superintendents (*kaṇ-kāṇi*) of the *puravu-vari tiṇaik-kaḷam*, one *varippottagam*, eleven *mugaveṭṭis*, three *variyilīḍus*, two *varippottagak-kaṇakkus*, and one *paṭṭōlai* attest the entry in the *vari* in token of their presence when the order was read out and entered in the proper register. We are not, of course, to imagine that every order required the presence of such a host of officials to be put through; the occasion recorded in this inscription was no doubt an exceptional one and there were a very large number of details to be settled and properly recorded. In fact this inscription is among the longest stone inscriptions in the world. But most of these offices, under the same or similar names, survived to the end of the reigns of Rājarāja III and Rājēndra III.