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THE CHOLAS
20. The Chōḷas are represented by 76 inscriptions belonging to almost all
the kings of the dynasty, including a dozen records of kings bearing merely the
surnames Rājakēsarivarman and Parakēsarivarman, and they come from the
Trichinopoly and South Arcot districts.
Rajakesarivarman.
The earliest epigraph is No. 141 from Kumāravayalūr in the Trichinopoly
district, dated in the [3]1st year of a Rājakēsarivarman, and is paleographically
assignable to Āditya I. It registers a gift
of 30 kalañju of gold by the standard
weight called Viḍēlviḍugu-kal by a Vaiśya, who is stated to have belonged to
the Vaḷabhi-nāḍu and to the Vāḷabhya-gōtra. This suggests that he was a settler
in this region from the north. Viḍēlviḍugu was a well-known surname of
Nandivarman III and Nṛipatuṅga, and the standard weight which was named
after one of them continued to be in vogue in the reigns of the early Chōḷa
kings also. A later inscription of Rājakēsarivarman (No. 269) from Maṇakkuppam in the
Tirukkoyilur taluk of the South Arcot district, which can be assigned to the 10th century A.D., is
dated in the 16th year of the king. It records a gift of sheep for a lamp in the temple at Viḷinallūr
(Maṇakkupam) by a certain
chief Kīrttimāttāṇḍa-pēraraiyan. From the Karhad plates* of Kṛishṇa
III and No. 382 of 1905, it may be in ferred that Kīrttimārttāṇḍa was a title of
that king, and as he had been in occupation of these parts, we may suppose that
the donor must have been called so after the surname of Kṛishṇa III. Hence the
Rājakēsarivarman of the present record may be identified with Sundara-Chōḷa.
Parantaka I.
21. Of the inscriptions of Parakēsarivarman No. 219 from Karaḍi in the
South Arcot district is dated in his 23rd year, and the script of the record makes
it assignable to Parāntaka’s period. In this
records as well as in Nos. 220 and 221 which
are dated in the 40th and 41st years of Parāntaka himself, the village is called
Ravikulachūḷāmaṇi-chaturvēdimaṅgalam. It is very probable that the village
was called after a surname or title of either Āditya I or Parāntaka. These two
latter inscriptions, mention two of the wives of prince Gaṇḍarāditya, Vīranāraṇiyār and
Śembiyanmādēviyār as donors of a lamp to the temple, while in
No.220 the prince is said to be the son of queen Śōlamādēviyār. We learn from
No. 149 dated in the 41st year of Parāntaka ‘ who took Madurai and Īlam’ that
the Madhyastha of the village Nandivarmamaṅgalam named Nālāyirattu-munnūrruvan alias
Chandraśēkharan Aramayindan presented to the temple at Vayalūr
for singing the Tiruppadiyam hymns and to serve as kavarippiṇā to god Paramēśvara, his
women-servants whom probably he had acquired as kūllāḷ earlier
in the 35th year of the king. This practice of dedicating women for the service
of waving fly-whisks (kavarippiṇā) to the deity is referred to in two other inscrip
tions (No. 117 of 1910 and Ep. Carn., Vol. IX, Bn. 66). Another record of
Parāntaka (No. 95) is found engraved on a slab of stone lying made by a certain
Āchchiyan Bhaṭṭan alias Vāsudēvan-Chakrapāṇi of Peruveṅgūr, a brahmadēya in
Viḷā-nāḍu, for the Paṅguni festival in the temple. It may be mentioned that the
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* These mention the temple of Kāḷapriya built by Kṛishṇa.
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