South Indian Inscriptions

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA

the dissensions among them, which were many, were allowed to continue. All things considered it will be natural to suppose that Kōpperuñjiṅga’s accession in A.D. 1212-3 synchronised with the end of Maṇavāḷapperumāḷ’s rule.

The signal defeat inflicted on the Chōḷa emperor Kulōttuṅga III in the closing years of his reign by the rising Pāṇḍya king Māravarman Sundara Pāṇḍya I caused the proud Chōḷa to beg for his crown and kingdom.^[1] It was then perhaps that the Kāḍava played the part of the sūtradhāra in the dramatic action resulting in the establishment of the Pāṇḍya kingdom (Pāṇḍyamaṇḍala-sthapana-sūtradhāra).^[2] A feeble attempt was made by the successor of Kulōttuṅga III. i.e., the effeminate Rājarāja III, which only resulted in the establishment of the Karṇāṭa in between the Chōḷa and Pāṇḍya territories in about A. D. 1222 and gave occasion for Narasiṁha II to assume the title Chōḷa-rājya-sthāpanāchārya. The events that led to the imprisonment of the Chōḷa emperor or, in other words, those that favoured the rise of the Kāḍava as an independent power, are clearly readable in the history that followed the crushing defeat of Kulōttuṅga III at the fag end of his reign.

The principal power against whom Rājarāja III wanted to fight in the early years of his reign after the demise of his father, was the Pāṇḍya. It is to be noted also that the Kāḍava is not stated anywhere as having been an enemy of the Chōḷa king at the time. On the other hand there was a conflict in A. D. 1222-23 between the Kāḍava and the Yādava chief Vīranarasiṁha in which it was the Kāḍava that was defeated. Narasiṁha II marched against Śrīraṅgam and succeeded in establishing an outpost at Kaṇṇanūr to checkmate the Pāṇḍya : and the Kāḍava rising against the Chōḷa authority was yet in the future. The Kāḍava rising probably followed immediately after Rājarāja’s defiance of the Pāṇḍyas. There is nothing to preclude the possibility of an independent enmity between the Hoysaḷa and the Kāḍava as well as between many other chiefs of the time. A record of Narasiṁha II dated in A. D. 1223 says “ Why describe his forcible capture of Adiyama. Chēra, Pāṇḍya, Makara, and the powerful Kāḍavas ? Rather describe how he lifted up the Chōḷa, brought under his orders all the land as far as Sētu”.^[3] The first interrogatory included in it some chiefs who were not at feud with the Chōḷa.

The Kāḍava who is said to have been wounded by the Yādava Vīranarasiṁha and to have been captured by the Hoysaḷa is in all likelihood Vāṇilaikaṇḍān Maṇavāḷapperumāḷ.

By about A. D. 1222-3, the Kāḍavarāya who was considered powerful by Narasiṁha II, must have made an attempt to become independent and was put down by the Hoysaḷa king. It is needless to say that both the attempts were undertaken on behalf of the Chōḷa. But the Kāḍava was not so easily to be baffled. In the cause of his father, Peruñjiṅga made a stronghold at Śēndamaṅgalam for his military operations, and commenced war against him. His Vailūr inscription^[4] tells us that he ‘conquered the Chōḷa king at Teḷḷāru, deprived (him) of all (royal) insignia (and after) imprisoning the Chōḷa (king) took the Chōḷa country’. Another verse in the same record states that his ‘prison-house was the abode of the lord of Poṇṇi, i.e., Rājarāja III, of his wife and of his ministers’. Speaking of the excellence of his army the record says that his invincible army fought with the army of Kannaḍar ‘who knew no retreat’. Even allowing for poetic excesses, there could be no doubt of Peruñjiṅga’s having captured and kept Rājarāja III in prison along with his wife and some ministers at Teḷḷāru. It is not unlikely that the Chōḷa king escaped or was let off from prison under some conditions, and was for a second time imprisoned at Śēndamaṅgalam. The details of what followed the second imprisonment of the emperor are narrated in the Tiruvēndipuram record of

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^[1]Above, Vol. XXII, p. 2.
^[2]Ibid, p. 45.
^[3]Ep. Carn., Vol. V, Cn. 203.
^[4] Above, Vol. XXIII, p. 180.