The Colas c25.51

c25.51

Chau Ju-kua, the Chinese writer of the early thirteenth century, who has so often been cited above, has this to say on the Cōḷa system of justice:¹⁴¹ 'When any one among the people is guilty of an offence, one of the Court Ministers punishes him; if the offence is light, the culprit is tied to a wooden frame and given fifty, seventy, or up to an hundred blows with a stick. Heinous crimes are punished with decapitation or by being trampled to death by an elephant.' rhetoric and gives no incident which might furnish a clue to the identity of the king concerned. The first describes the monarch as Parakēsari Tribhuvanacakravartin Parāntakadēva; and the other calls him Rāja-kēsari Cakravartin Parāntakadēva, and both records bear the regnal year 9. They come respectively from Koyil-Tēvarāyan-pēṭṭai (Tj.) and Tiruvaḍatturai (SA). It does not seem likely that they belong either to Parāntaka I or Parāntaka II. Palaeographically, 261 of 1923 is earlier and may be assigned to the time of Rājarāja I, while the other record is much later, say 12th or even early 13th century. Ante p. 140 and *n.* 1. No. 135 of 1941-2 of Kannaradeva (Yr. 25) also gives him a *praśasti*, *ARE.* 1939|40—43|3, II, 23.