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JAINA MEN OF ACTION
125 me' attacked and defeated with ease all the Sämantas, so that people said that the sword in the arm of Ganga Dan. dhādhipa caused the men of the army who were entering the camp (savanga) (?) to enter more, carried off the collection of their stores and vehicles and presented them to his own lord, who, being pleased with the prowess of his arm, said, 'I am pleased, ask for a boon !" But unlike ordinary men Ganga Rāja asked for a boon which we shall describe below.1
The importance of these victories won by General Ganga was incalculable. Inspite of the admirable campaigns of king Vişnuvardhana's predecessors, the Hoysala kingdom in the early years of that king's reign still formed a part of the Western Cālukyan Empire. As long as the Western Cālukyan supremacy lasted, so long was a Hoysala Empire merely a dream. Further, the firm hold which the Coļas had over Talakād likewise precluded any idea of a permanent Hoysala government in the south and the south-east. It was only when both these powers had been broken that king Vişnuvardhana could think of " bringing all the parts of the compass under his command."2 The crushing defeat which the Jaina general Ganga Rāja inflicted on the Cola Sämantas at Talakād and over the Ghats in A.D. 1117, and the signal success which he won in the attack on the Western Cālukyan Emperor himself in the next year, at once relieved the Hoysalas of the two worst enemies they had viz., the Colas and the Western Cālukyas. How spontaneously these victories were reflected in the architecture and literature of the times is another story which is outside our purpose. Suffice it to say that they fully justified the praise given to the great
1. E. C. II, 73, p. 39. See also. ibid., 125, text., pp. 49-50. 2. Ibid., 1', Bl. 58, p. 57.
