Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.152

c7.152

current and frequently mentioned in the inscriptions of many families of petty rulers in the Telugu country from the 11th century. The ubiquitous nature of the story which so forcibly impresses this critic is in our opinion a strong reason for our not accepting it as history. Dr. Venkata Ramanayya is also apt to exaggerate the antiquity of the epigraphs mentioning the Trilōcana-Karikāla synchronism. He says that the inscriptions "belong to different ages from the 7th to the 13th century A.D." The only seventh century inscription mentioned in his tables at the end of the book is the Nellore record (D 2) of Cāḷukya Vikramāditya which, as has been pointed out already, has no bearing on the subject. The date of the next earliest record* he cites is Ś 864, A.D. 942, but this only gives the name of Trilōcana and has nothing to say of Karikāla, and the regular series does not commence till a century later. The lateness of the testimony to the Karikāla-Trilōcana story, and the mention of Trilōcana in the records of many families in the Telugu country, often without any relation to Karikāla, alike point to a conclusion very different from that of Dr. Venkata Ramanayya on the historicity of Trilōcana.