________________
120
MEDIÆVAL JAINISM tier of Gangavādinādu above the Ghats, refused to surrender the nādu which Coļa had given, saying—' Fight and take it !'-marched (against him) with the desire of victory, and the two armies met..."1 Talakād fell into the hands of the daring Jaina general. We prove this from another record assigned to A.D. 1135 which says that he “seized Talakādu.”.
What happened to the chief city of the Gangas after its capture is related in a stone inscription found in the Narasimha temple at Belūr and dated A.D. 1117. This epigraph suggests that the Hoysala monarch took a severe step against the ancient Ganga capital. For it says thus : That king Vişņu "First taking into his arms the wealth of the Poysala kingdom which was his inheritance, as his power increased " captured Talakād, and "burnt the chief city of the Gangas." The effect such a stern step had on his enemy king Rājendra Cola is described further in the same epigraph. “Behold, in order that Rajendra Cala, disgusted at the water of the Kāverī suddenly becoming polluted, should be suddenly driven to the use of the water from the wells in the city, Vişņu by the power of his arm threw the corpses of his army into the stream of the river, and caused his valour to shine forth.”3 Since we know from other inscriptions that it was the Ganga general who actually stormed Talakād, we have to assume that he burnt the city after defeating the Coļa Samanta Adiyama, at the orders of his monarch.
This assumption is proved by the Aļēsandra stone record dated A.D. 1184 which states that "cutting down the hostile kings, he (Vişnuvardhana) planted the fence of his valour all around, and burning Talakād (for manure), ploughed it
1. E. C. II, 240, p. 102. 2. Ibid., 384, p. 166. 3. Ibid., V., Bl. 58, p. 57.
