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THE CHOLAS
Vallāḷadēvan proceeded to (?) Śaṇbai’. As the inscription stops with the mention
of Śaṇbai we are puzzled as to the result of the fight. But the death of Vallāḷadēva
at the hands of Gaṇḍagōpāla is an important piece of information. The date of
the record precludes the possibility of its reference to Ballāḷa II or III. As the
dynasty itself came to be called ‘Ballāḷa’ after the glorious reign of Ballāḷa II,
we can only take Vallāḷadēva of the present inscription to refer to a Hoysaḷa
king, who, at his time, could be no other than Narasiṁha II. Thus we may
take A. D. 1238-39 as the date of this king. It is the fall of his father at the
hands of Tikka that should have been the immediate cause of Sōmēśvara’s expedition against that chief.
Rājēndra-Chōḷa III.
43. Of Rajendra-Chōḷa III there are only 3 inscriptions in the collection
dated in the 3rd , 4th and 6th year of his regin (Nos. 29, 27 and 73). In the first
of these he is merely called Tribhuvanachakravartin, the second begins with an
introduction of which portions are lost and gives the king the surname Parakēsarivarman. No 73 dated in his 6th year calls him Tribhuvanachakravartin Rājēndra-Chōḷadēva ‘who revived the Manu dynasty and wore the legitimate
(or righteous) crown’. It records an endow-
ment of land after purchase made for worship and other requirements in the temple of Śrīdēvīśvaramuḍaiyār at Tiruveḷḷarai
by Śiṅgaṇṇa-Daṇḍanāyaka who had consecrated the image of the god
therein. This Śiṅgaṇṇa is perhaps the same as the general of Sōmēśvara
who is stated in an inscription at Vēdāraṇyam in the Tanjore district (No. 501) of
1904) to have made an inroad into the Chōḷa territory in A. D. 1241, as a
consequence of which worship was stopped in the temple of Kōḍikkulagar but was
revived some time later. Now the construction of a temple by the same chief
in the Chōḷa territory and provision for worship therein suggests that Rājēndra-Chōḷa’s overlordship was acknowledged by Sōmēśvara and that the former had
sufficiently consolidated his position and recovered the prestige lost during the
time of his predecessor. This is also indicated by the titles Manukulameḍutta and Nerimuḍi-śūḍiya assumed by him, as stated above.
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