Tribes in Ancient India c47.6

c47.6

The Cōḷa country was thus drained by the river Kāverī and comprised the districts of Trichinopoly and Tanjore.³ The river Kāverī is often alluded to and associated with the name of the Cōḷas in South Indian inscriptions. Thus we learn from a South Indian inscription⁴ that Hara asked Gunabhara: ‘How could I, standing in a temple on earth, view the great power of the Cōlas or the river Kāverī?' From another inscription we learn that the Cālukya king Pulakesin II crossed the river Kāverī with his victorious army to enter the Cōla country when 'the Kāverī had her current obstructed by the causeway formed by his elephants'. The glory of the Kāverī forms an inexhaustible theme of early Tamil poetry. According to the *Maṇimēkhalai*,¹ this noble stream was released from his water-pot by the sage Agastya in response to the prayer of the king Kānta and for the exaltation of the 'children of the sun'. She was the special banner of the just race of the Cōlas, and she never failed them in the most protracted drought. The yearly freshes in the Kāverī formed the occasion of a carnival in which the whole nation from the king down to the meanest peasant took part.² The origin of the name Cōla is uncertain. The *Parimēlaḷagar* is inclined to make it the name, like Pāṇḍya and Cēra, of a ruling family or clan of antiquity. The story of the eponymous brothers Cēran, Śōḷan and Pāṇḍiyan is indeed suggestive. The name Cōla, however, indicated from the earliest times the people as well as the country subject to the Cōla dynasty of rulers. Col. Gerini wrongly connects the word Cōla with the Sanskrit Kāla (black) and with Kōla which denoted in the early days the black or dark coloured pre-Aryan population of Southern India in general. The effort to derive it similarly from Tamil 'Cōḷam' (millet) or Sanskrit 'Cōra' (thief) seems unsound. Other names generally used for the Cōlas are Kiḷḷi, Vaḷavan and Śembiyan. Kiḷḷi probably comes from 'Kiḷ' (dig) meaning a 'digger'; this word forms an integral part of early Cōla names like Neḍungilli and so on which is not found in later Cōla names. Vaḷavan probably comes from 'Vaḷam' (fertility) and means owner of a fertile country, like the land of the Kāverī. Śembiyan is generally taken to mean a descendant of Śibi, a legendary hero whose self-sacrifice in saving a dove from the pursuit of a falcon figures among the early Cōla legends and forms the theme of the *Sibi Jātaka* among the Jātaka stories of Buddhism.³