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JAINA MEN OF ACTION
131 mother of Boppa wielded will be made clear in a later context.
Ganga Rāja's gallant comrade was General Puņisa. He was descended from a family of ministers. His father was called Punisa Rāja Daņdādhiša, and he had the biruda of Sakala-śāsana-vācaka-cakravarti (Universal emperor of those who read (interpreted] the orders of the king). To Punisa Rāja Camūpa and his wife Põcale were born three sonsCāvana or Cāma Rāja, Korāpa or Kumārayya, and Nākaņa or Nägadeva. The children of the eldest Cāvana by his wives Arasikabbe and Caundale were Puņisamayya and Bițţiga respectively. Of these the former Puņisamayya is the general in question, and he was the Sandhi-vigrahika (Minister for Peace and War) of the king Vişnuvardhana. This pedigree of General Punisa is repeated in two inscriptions--one dated A.D. 1117 and found in the Pārsvanātha basti at Chāmarājanagara, and the other undated record found on the capital of the pillar in the Keśava temple at Belūr.1
General Puņisa's conquests did not certainly open an epoch in the history of Karnāțaka as those of Ganga Rāja had done. Nevertheless his victories were very important, since they gave to the Hoysalas the key to the south and prepared the way for the sweeping campaigns of king Vişnuvardhana Deva. We have to remember the policy of that ruler which we have outlined in the previous pages. The great enemy of the Hoysalas in the south were the Coļas. While General Ganga Rāja was actively engaged in subverting the Coļa power in Talakāờ, Puņisa was deputed to the south there to crush the allies of the Tamil monarch—the Kongāļvas, the Kodagas, the Todas, and the Keraļas. And in the same year (A.D. 1117) when Ganga Rāja stormed Talakād, General Punisa also conquered the gateway to the south-Nīlādri (mod.
1. E. C. IV, Ch. 83, p. 10; M. A. R. for 1934, pp. 83-84.
