Studies in Cola History and Administration c14.64

c14.64

We shall now examine how far the statements in the *ulā* receive epigraphical confirmation. It may be observed at the outset that these four lines of the *ulā* have more information packed into them than is furnished by all the sixty odd *veṇbās* of the Cidambaram and Tiruvadi inscriptions taken together. Of these inscriptions, the Tiruvadi record contains no reference whatever to any campaign besides that in the Southern country—Pāṇḍya country, and the Cidambaram inscription, while it seems to furnish some details of the southern campaign, makes only vague references to campaigns * against the northern kings (*vaḍamaṉṉar*). Thus the inscriptions now considered contain little which might enable us to control the cryptic references in the *ulā* to the part played by Naralōkavīra in the campaigns in Koṅgam and Iraṭṭam, the Rāṣṭrakūṭa country called Iraṭṭapāḍi in Cōḻa inscriptions. The *ulā* states that this chieftain fought in Vēṅgai (Veṅgi) and Oṭṭa, the Orissa country, and this, as we have just seen, receives some confirmation from the vague statements of the Cidambaram record about the northern kings being defeated and their treasures being captured by Naraḷōkavīra. We also find the name Kāḷingar-kōṇ repeatedly applied to him. In the absence of more precise information, it is not easy to fix the period of Naraḷōkavīra’s activity in Veṅgi and Oḍra. From the accession of Kulōttuṅga I, the Veṅgi and Cōḷa kingdoms were administered as parts of a single empire, and it is quite possible that the campaign referred to here was undertaken during the first war against Kaliṅga that was waged about 1090-1095 A. D. in Kulōttuṅga’s reign.*