The Colas c25.4

c25.4

The period covered by the following survey extends over more than four centuries, *circa* A.D. 850-1270. Though, strictly speaking, it should embrace the whole of Southern India including the Telugu country which was, for the bulk of the period, an appendage of the Cōḷa empire, still the paucity of Cōḷa records outside the Tamil country proper, and the existence of the records of many local dynasties in these areas which have not yet been as fully studied as they deserve, render it necessary to confine this survey primarily to the Tamil land. The history of the Eastern Cāḷukyas for instance is a great chapter in the annals of the Telugus and their literature; it is hardly possible to do justice to it in what is essentially a study in Tamil history. And what applies to the Telugu area applies also, though not perhaps in the same measure, to the Kēraḷa and Karnāṭa countries. Though these districts may find mention off and on, especially in the study of the administrative system of the Cōḷa empire which embraced them all alike, the following account of social life makes no claim to any approach to fullness with regard to these areas.