Studies in Cola History and Administration c7.61

c7.61

These extracts from the triad of *ulās*, specially (*b*), show distinctly that in the stanza from the *Paraṇi* (VIII 20) we have clearly one of the earliest statements, if not the earliest, about the three-eyed foe of Karikāla. He is called Mukari in the *Paraṇi*, and an elaborate attempt † has been made to connect him with the Maukharis of Northern India on the strength of the northern expedition of Karikāla to which the *Śilappadikāram* makes such detailed reference. Great as is the value of some of the results obtained by Mr. T. G. Aravamuthan in the course of his investigation; his conjecture about the identity of Mukari and Maukhari would seem to lack enough support. The weakness of his argument on this head is recognised by the author himself. ‡ We have evidence of a clan of Maukharis in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B. C. and of a line of kings, Maukharis, from the 5th or the 6th century A. D. There is nothing but surmise to guide us in the great stretch of time that intervenes. While the *Śilappadikāram* which gives the earliest detailed account of Karikāla’s northern expedition makes no mention of Mukari though it knows about a king of Magadha who was subjugated by the southern ruler, it is difficult, on the evidence of an obscure stanza in a work of the late 11th century A. D., to take him to have been a Maukhari of the I or II century A. D. On the other hand, there is no lack of other literary evidence from the Tamil and Telugu countries that establishes conclusively the identity of Mukari of the *Paraṇi* with the Mukkaṇṭi or Triṇētra who figures in Telugu epigraphy as the contemporary of Karikāla in the celebrated formula:—