Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.104

c7.104

versions—that the kingdom was Karikāla’s birth-right; for this is how, as it appears to me, the lines, *tāy-vayirirundu tāyam eydi* of the *Porunarārruppaḍai* and “*uru keḷu-tāyam-ūḷineydi*” of the *Paṭṭiṉappālai* must be understood.* One simple way of reconciling the two apparently divergent, but professedly contemporary versions, suggests itself easily. It is that Karikāla inherited his estate as a child; that, for a time, he was kept out of it by the machinations of his elder male relatives perhaps of collateral lines until, aided by his friends, he was able to effect his escape from confinement and make himself king; and that the author of one of these two poems passed over this unhappy incident of the king’s youth, or refused to recognise that he had ceased to be king even while he was in prison. On this assumption the enemies of Karikāla would be, not the Cēras or any others who were strangers to the Cōḷa dynasty, but some relatives of Karikāla himself. The tradition of Karikāla having been helped by Piḍarttalai, who is described as his maternal uncle in the commentary on the *Paḷamoḷi* verse 239, becomes easy to understand and may be a correct tradition.