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THE CHOLAS
Bhaṭṭārakī in the local temple, and ‘adopting the goddess as her daughter’ performed her marriage with the god and made an endowment of land for offerings
during the midday service in the temple.
Rajaraja I.
25.Seven inscriptions from Kumāravayalūr (Nos. 144, 147, 148, 152, 153, 154
and 156) dated in the 6th and 7th years of Rājakēsarivarman are all in the same
script as Nos. 138 and 139 from the same place, one of which is dated in the 3rd
year of Rājarājakēsarivarman, and the other, of Rājakēsarivarman ‘ who des-
troyed the ships at Śālai’, and hence can with certainty be assigned to Rājarāja I’s
reign.
No. 138 dated in the 3rd year of Rājarāja (I), registers a sale of land
by the ūrār of the place to a merchant named Perumān Viṭaṅkan a sale of land
tenance of a lamp in the maṇḍapa named
‘ Aiññūrruvan’ built by the donor in the
manram (open meeting place) of the village. This name ‘ Aiññūrruvan’ denotes
that it was given after the merchant-guild of that denomination. In another
inscription (No. 139) dated 10 years later we find the same donor, who is here
called by the additional name Tiruveḷḷarai Māyilaṭṭi, making an endowment of
land for the proper upkeep of the same maṇḍapa, after purchasing the land for
the purpose from the Ūrār. No. 146 dated in his 24th year records an endowment
of land for the maintenance of hymnists singing the Tiruppadiyam in the temple
by a certain Tiṇaiyān Ūrān alias Vayalūr-Tiṇai, probably a revenue official,
after purchasing the necessary land from the Ūrār who made it fit for cultivation,
for some consideration obtained from the donor. The last inscription of the king is
No. 222 dated in his 27th year recording a gift of land to the temple of Mahādēva
named Tirumāḍappārai-Ālvār at Kaḍari alias Ravikulachūḷāmaṇi-chaturvēdi-
maṅgalam in Vāṇagappāḍi, a subdivision of Jayaṅgoṇḍachōḷa-maṇdalam.
Kulōttuṅga-Chōḷa I.
26. The next king represented is Rājakēsarivarman Kulōttuṅga-Chōḷa I
whose inscriptions range from his 15th year to the 43rd. Of these No. 15 from
Śrīraṅgam records a sale of temple lands to
a certain Rājarājan Madurāntakan alias
Vatsarāja, who reclaimed them from sand with which they had lain covered for
a hundred years previously, and besides paying a specified quantity of the produce
therefrom annually to the temple, endowed a portion of the reclaimed land for
worship and offering to the deity on the day of Mṛigaśiras, which was his natal
star, and for feeding Srīvaishṇavas in a maṭha called Madurāntakadēvan-maḍam
on two of the festival days. This donor is evidently identical with the Vatsarājan
occurring in No. 526 of 1912 from Ūṭṭattūr in the Trichinopoly district and prob-
ably was an officer or a local chief under the king. The inscription incidentally
mentions as the owner of some boundary land a certain Jayaṅkoṇḍaśōlach-chēnā-
mukha-Mūvēndavēḷār. The name Jayaṅkoṇḍaśōlach-chēnāmukha suggests the
existence of a military cantonment called after a title of Rājarāja I. Sēnā-
mukha as the technical name for a military station has already been noticed in the Epigraphical Report for 1927-28, p. 53.
A clash between the Right and Left Hand communities.
27. No. 31 from Śrīraṅgam dated in the 11th year of the king is an interesting record. On its margin it is noted that this kalveṭṭu. (epigraph) belongs to
A clash between the Right and Left Hand com- Rājamahēndra-chaturvēdimaṅgalam. This
munities. village is stated to be situated in Nitta-
vinōda-vaḷanāḍu comprising the modern
taluks of Nannilam and Papanasam in the Tanjore distrcit. In fact from a record
from Nellitope in the Papanasam taluk (No. 539 of 1921), it can be inferred that
Rājamahēndra-chaturvēdimaṅgalam was close to that village. As such it is not
clear why a record of that village should have been engraved in the Śrīraṅgam
temple. It registers the decision of the sabhā of the village Rājamahēndra-chaturvēdimaṅgalam remitting the taxes on some lands belonging to the temple of
Mummuḍiśōla-viṇṇagar-Ālvār of their village for the consideration of a lump
sum of 70 kalañju of gold. We learn from the record that in the 2nd year of the
king, there was a clash between the Right and Left Hand communities, in
which the village was burnt down, the sacred places destroyed and images of
deities and the treasury in the temple looted by robbers. The articles that escaped their spoliation could not be probably secured in the temple. Hence as
the village had to be rehabilitated, the temples renovated and reconsecrated and
new walls had to be built for the prākāra, the sabhā took a loan of 50 kalañju of
gold which is stated to have been half a carat less in fineness than the Rājēndra-
śōlan-māḍai, from the temple. The interest on this accumulated to 25 kalañju in one year, and out of the total of 75 kalañju, 5 kalañju was spent towards the
renovation and reconsecration of the temple in the 3rd year, and the balance of
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