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THE CHOLAS
earliest inscription so far found at Śrīraṅgam is dated in the 17th year of
this king. The latter as well as four other records of kings Parakēsari and
Rājakēsari are found engraved on the two jambs of an entrance in the granary (nellukkaḷañjiyam) situated in the south-west corner of the fourth prākāra of
that temple. Since the granary appears to be a later construction, the door-jambs
which must have originally been near the central shrine appear to have been
removed thence and inserted in their present position during subsequent repairs.
Mummuḍi-Chōḷa Gaṇḍarāditya, his feudatory Siddhavaḍavan.
22. The Jaina sculptures on the hill at Chōlavāṇḍipuram have, as already
noted in para. 8 above, been referred to as the work of a certain Vēḷi-Koṅgaraiyar
Puttaḍigaḷ, who probably flourished in the
first half of the 10th century A.D. (No.
251). On another boulder on the same
hill is a long inscription in verse (No. 252) dated in the 2nd year of Gaṇḍarāditya
with the surname Mummuḍi-Chōḷa which occurs also in another inscription,
No. 444 of 1918. This record gives an elaborate panegyric of a feudatory chief
of the locality named Siddhavaḍavan, and states that he was of the lineage of
Ōri of the Chēdi country, who took in marriage the daughter of Pāri of old who
is known from literature as the chief of Parambu and a patron of poets. Siddhavaḍavan is called the ‘ ruler of Kōval (the modern Tirukkōyilūr), the protector of
the Tamil people, the terror of his enemies, who vanquished the several opposing
armies on the battlefield at Vīraśōlapuram, and who captured the fierce bulls of
his opponents by the strength of his broad arms’. He bears the surname Malayakulōdbhava and Raṇabhīma ‘ famed in all the eight directions’. The names of the
enemies with whom he fought at Vīraśōlapuram are not given. Vīraśōlapuram
is a village about 12 miles from this place, from which was secured last year an
early inscription of the Chōḷa king Tañjaikoṇḍa Parakēsari, i.e., Vijayālaya (No.
51 of 1935-36). Siddhavaḍavan is evidently identical with the Milāḍu chief Narasiṁhavarman, also known as Śaktinātha and Siddhavaḍavan, who figures as a
subordinate of Rāshṭrakūṭa Kannara in a record of his 17th year (A.D. 955) at
Tirukkōyilūr (Ep. Ind., Vol. VII, p. 135). The chief mentioned simply as Siddhavaḍattadigaḷ in No. 193 of 1930-31 and figuring as a contemporary of UttamaChōḷa (Ep. Rep. for 1930-31, part II, para. 9) may have been the same chief or his
successor. His wife Chēdimādēviyār figures in an inscription of the 11th year of
Parakēsarivarman, probably Uttama-Chōḷa (No. 151 of 1927-28), as making a
gift of sheep to the Śiva temple at Tiruppalanam in the Tanjore district.
The Jaina monk Guṇavīra-Bhaṭāra of Kuraṇḍi.
The present record registers a grant of the village Panappāḍi by the chief
Siddhavaḍavan for the worship of the deity Piṇḍikkaḍavuḷ (Jaina Tīrthaṅkara)
enshrined on the hill at this place, and for
the maintenance of the ascetics (mātavar) of the place. The village is said to have been left in the charge of Guṇavīra-
Bhaṭāra of Kuraṇḍi. Kuraṇḍi has been identified with a village of the same
name in the Agastivaram taluk of the Travancore state (Trav. Arch. Series, Vol.
IV, p. 146) ; but as in No. 428 of 1914 it is stated to be in Veṇbu-nāḍu it can with
more probability be equated with Kuraṇḍi in the Aruppukkottai taluk of the
Ramnad district, especially since, at this place, there was in the olden days a Jaina
temple called Tirukkāṭṭāmbaḷḷi. A certain Jaina ascetic known by the name of
Guṇavīra-muni figures in a record dated in the 21st year of Rājarāja I from Tiru-
malai, a famous Jaina centre in the North Arcot district close by (S. I. I., Vol. I,
p. 94) ; but considering the great interval of more than half a century between
these two records, we cannot be sure if the two Guṇavīras mentioned in them are
identical
Aditya II.
23. No. 248 which belongs to the 5th year of the king ‘who took the head
of the Pāṇḍya’, viz., Āditya II, records the construction of an ambalam (hall)
at Timiśūr in Timuśūr-nāḍu and an endow-
ment made for its maintenance by a certain
Mummuḍiśōla-Kāḍupaṭṭi, who is also said to have built a temple of Piḍāri in
the same village. To judge from his name the donor appears to have been a
subordinate chief or officer under Mummuḍi-Chōḷa, by which surname king
Gaṇḍarāditya was known.
Uttama-Chōḷa.
24. No. 151 from Kumāravayalūr dated in the 15th year of Parakēsarivar-
man is in the same script as Nos. 138 and 139 of the time of Rājarāja I and may
therefore be of about the same period and
may be assigned to Uttama-Chōḷa. It
gives us the interesting information that a certain lady by name Śēndan Kāri
who got some land from her two brothers as strīdhana, set up an image of Uma.
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