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KARIKALA AND HIS TIMES
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a place of importance till the 15th century A.D. Then it ceased to be such, partly owing to the silting up of the Kaveri. and partly also to some other causes. The sandy mounds found scattered over several places near the villages of Talsichehengadu, Shiyali and Mélaipperumpallam amply testify to the inundations of the sea. The fragments of brick and tile strewn over the fields near the now insignificant villages round the ruins of Kávérippatanam indicate the remains of the town founded in later times. Colonel Yule identifies Partinam with Fattan of the Mabammadan historian Rashiduddin. If anything like the remains of the original city referred to by Ptolemy in the 2nd century A. v. and said to bave been destroyed five centuries later, is to be traced at all, it must be by the axe and spade. In other words, it is only excavation on a large scale conducted in a scientific and systematic method, a thing much to be desired, that would enable us to have a peep into the past greatness of the city,
The name Pallavanisvaram, by which one of the temples at Kavirippumpattinam was called in the middle of the 7th century A. D., suggests that it should have been either built by a Pallava king or that it came into existence during the time of a Pallava, whose sway was acknowledged in that part of the country where the village was situated. It is even probable that the temple was founded sometime carlier, and in this case, it must have existed in an insignificant form before its construction on a grander scale was undertaken by the Pallava king. We do not know to which of the Pallavas the construction of the temple of Pallavanisvaram should be ascribed, but we can assigo it with a good deal of probability to Narasimhavarman I., the contemporary of Nanasambandar, because excepting him none other of the line claims to have conquered the Cholas.
Sach have been the fortunes of the city, which, at the time of Karikala, one of the greatest sovereigns of the Chola dynasty, became the principal town of the empiro. This king was not unaware of its advantageous position for trade. Accordingly, he appears to have improved it to a considerable extent by building warehouses and appointing officers to collect the dues to government on the articles exported from and imported into the country. It is not unlikely that the seat of Government was removed by Karikala to this place from Uraiyûr, which he is said to have abandoned, finding perhaps that it was not a central place and had not so much in its favour to be the capital of the empire as the flourishing port of Kavirippûmpattinam. Karikála was certainly one of the most powerful Choļa kings that ruled from the city and his name is even to the present day known throughout the Tamil country, and even in the Telugu districts that of a great monarch who looked to the welfare of the subjects entrusted to his care and as a patron of letters.
Inscriptions that mention nim are indeed very few, but certainly not fewer than those that refer to the other great kings of the line. Except for the mere mention of him, Chola inscriptions do not throw much light on the events connected with his reign. This is because we have not as yet obtained any copper-plate grant relating to the dynasty to which Karikala belonged, all the charters discovered hitherto being only those of the revived Chola line started by Vijayalaya in about the 9th century A. D. Nor are we in possession of the facts which brought an end to the earlier line. It is not even known who the last great sovereign was. But there is not much doubt, however, that the Pallava expansion in the south and the establishment of the Chalukyas were some of the causes which might have contributed to this end, not to say the effeminacy and weakness of some of the Chôļa kings, who do not appear to have persisted in maintaining their ground against the advancing northern powers. The Udayê adiram plates of the Ganga-Biņa king Prithivipati II. Hastimalla placo Karikála
+ Above, Vol. VII p. 10.
• See Patt 'n appotai.
