The Colas c33.25

c33.25

Another spasmodic outburst of anti-Vaiṣṇava feeling is much better attested than the persecution of Rāmānuja, which is so overgrown with legend that the real course of events seems to be lost beyond recovery. We refer to the deeds of Kulōttunga II in Cidambaram which are, as we have seen, clearly attested by contemporary inscriptions and literature. That Kulōttunga II was a fanatic Śaiva who wanted to upset the time-honoured disposition of the images of Śiva and Viṣṇu in the great temple of the holiest centre of South Indian Śaivism cannot be gainsaid. The balance of the two faiths, thus rudely upset by Kulōttunga, was redressed in later days by the Vijayanagar rulers, but once again, the old harmony has gone, and the attitude of the two groups of devotees that have to jostle in the premises of the temple is hardly as friendly as the relative positions of the deities they worship would seem to require.