Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.114

c7.114

Kāñcī which he made new with gold." Neither gives the source on which he bases the statement. Dr S. K. Aiyangar is more cautious on the subject;* apparently inclining to the same view, he does not commit himself to a categorical statement that Karikāla held Kāñcī or renewed that city. Under his successors Kāñcī passed under the Kiḷḷis (Cōḷas) as the Maṇimēkalai testifies; but that is altogether another matter. Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar writes:† "Kanakasabhai assumes that Iḷandiraiyan usurped the throne of Kāñcī during Karikāla's boyhood; but as there is absolutely no evidence for the statement, it deserves no consideration." We agree. But he proceeds, "it is but a bad guess and no more. As Iḷandiraiyan was a contemporary of Karikāla, he must have been appointed ruler of Kāñcī after Karikāla's conquest of the place and continued so after Karikāla's death." So the flaw in Mr. Kanakasabhai's position is not that he was guessing, but that he did not guess like some one else. Now all that we know of Iḷandiraiyan is what the Perumbāṇ tells us. We have already remarked in this poem the same poet sings the praise of Iḷandiraiyan with quite as much eclat as he does that of Karikāla in the Paṭṭiṉappālai, and even says that the Tiraiyaṉ was superior to the three crowned kings of the Tamil Country. Surely, the guess that he usurped Kāñcī when Karikāla was a baby is by no means less plausible than the one that he 'must have been appointed ruler of Kāñcī after his conquest of the place.' For our part we have already indicated our position. We prefer to reject both these guesses alike and to treat Iḷandiraiyan and Karikāla as contemporary rulers of neighbouring states, which is the normal conclusion that flows from the facts set forth in the two poems in the *Pattuppāṭṭu* by a single poet.∗