The Colas c34.4.1

c34.4.1

The names of some works have been preserved casually in the inscriptions; these works are altogether unknown otherwise; they were once considered worthy of public recognition, but having no access to the works themselves, we are not in a position to decide if the recognition was a homage to their literary excellence or was the result of other causes, local or personal. However that may be, the names of these works and the occasions for their being mentioned in inscriptions give us some idea of the extent of popular interest in literary productions and of the types of literature that commanded popularity. Rājarāja I, perhaps the greatest emperor of the line, was the subject of two works, a drama and a *Kāvya*. They are the *Rājarājēśvara-nāṭakam* and the *Rājarāja-vijayam*;¹ the former was to be enacted in the great Tanjore temple during festivals and the latter was to be read in the temple at Tiruppūndurutti, and endowments were created to provide for both. It is not certain if these works were in Tamil or Sanskrit; it seems probable that the *nāṭakam* was not a drama based on Rājarāja's life, but rather a dramatic representation of the construction of the great temple itself, if it was not merely an attempt to popularise some Śaiva legends. The *Rājarāja-vijayam* might have been a quasi-historical poem treating of Rājarāja's reign.