Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.109

c7.109

We have seen that the strictly contemporary sources do not lead us to suppose that Karikāla's sway extended outside the Tamil country. If we may believe the testimony of the contemporary author of the Paṭṭiṉappālai, Kāñcīpuram with the surrounding district of the Toṇḍaināḍ was ruled in Karikāla's time by a king called Toṇḍaimāṉ Iḷandiraiyan who is praised by him as even superior to the three crowned kings of the Tamil land. * And yet, somehow, this evidence has been either generally ignored, or circumvented by means of fanciful hypotheses. This persistent tendency has, it seems, been the result of some circumstances which have checked the free play of criticism on our sources. First, there has been a general feeling that Karikāla whose name looms so large in later times must have been a great and powerful king. Thus we are assured by one modern author † that Karikāla "was certainly one of the most powerful Cōḷa kings that ruled from the city (of Puhār) and his name is even to the present day known throughout the Tamil country, and even in the Telugu districts (as) that of a great monarch who looked to the welfare of the subjects entrusted to his care and as a patron of letters." Then, it has been the rule for a long time to accept all the statements in the *Śilappadikāram* about Karikāla as a contemporary account of the transactions of his reign. Again, great confusion has resulted from mixing up the origin of the family of the Tiraiyar as given by Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar in his gloss on *Perumbāṉ-āṟṟuppaḍai* l. 31 with another legend in the *Maṇimēkalai* which, while it differs in important respects from the story of Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar, may yet have suggested to him his celebrated comment on the origin of the Tiraiyar. However that may be, the connection between the Tiraiyar and the Cōḷas rests on the sole authority of Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar. There is nothing in the poem *Perumbāṉ* to justify this explanation. And even Nacciṉārkkiṉiyar only talks vaguely of the ‘Cōḷa of Nāgapaṭṭiṇam’ as the progenitor of the Tiraiyar and does not bring either Karikāla or any known relation of his into the story. Lastly, the statements in the Cōḷa charters and inscriptions of the Vijayālaya line and in the Telugu Cōḷa inscriptions of the 12th century and later have had a large share, on account of their persistence and universality, in disarming criticism. It seems necessary, therefore, to examine somewhat more carefully the nature of the evidence for some of the events usually recorded in the history of Karikāla’s reign. This may be done under some convenient heads: his connection with Kāñcīpuram, his Northern Expedition, his contemporaneity with Trilōcana-Pallava and the construction of the embankment of the Kāvēri.