Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.125

c7.125

To return to Karikāla’s relation to Kāñcī, Mr. P. T. Srinivasa Aiyangar, like us, rejects the account of the *Śilappadikāram* which makes Karikāla’s sway extend into Northern India. But he finds other evidence for the rule of Karikāla over the Pallava country and the Ceded Districts, and it is necessary to examine this briefly. We may remark at the outset that though we may not follow him in his method, we have nothing to oppose to the inferences he draws on this subject from the late Telugu-Cōḍa inscriptions and the Local Records in the Mackenzie Collection. The exact degree of importance that should be attached to such belated testimony to occurrences in a more or less remote past is a matter of opinion; and there is a point, which is reached very soon, beyond which differences on such matters are hardly worth arguing about. We shall confine ourselves to an examination of the evidence cited by Mr. Srinivasa Aiyangar from early Tamil literature in support of his view, for it is our main object to disentangle Karikāla as he appears in this literature from the weeds of legend that have grown so thick around him, and to determine the residue of authentic history that is left behind after criticism has done its work.