Page:The Tamils Eighteen Hundred Years Ago.djvu/87

Rh honey collected by the busy bees. No longer the farmers plough their fields. No more is there any festive gathering on village lawns. Like the sun who sets behind the hills, when the full moon rises in all its splendour, our valiant King wounded on the back by a rival Monarch, has laid aside his sword in disgrace. (and seeks death by starvation) alas! HQW sad and cheerless are these days.”

Another bard Vennil-Kuyathiyar who was with the Chola King, appears to have been also struck with the unlucky fate of the Chera and addressed Karikal as follows. “Oh! descendant of that warrior who sailing on the wide ocean compelled the winds to fill the sails of his ships. Oh! Karikal Valava. Lord of mighty elephants! Who hast displayed thy valour in this battle. Is not he, even nobler than thee, who ashamed of the wound on his back, starves, without food, to gain a glorious death?”

Karikal defeated a confederacy of nine princes in another battle. He rooted out the line of Shepherd Kings, and brought under his sway all the tribes of the Oli-Nagas and AruValar. He subdued the Kurumbar a nomadic tribe. His kingdom extended beyond Kanchipuram, which town he enlarged and beautified. He is said to have been in terms of friendship with the Kings of Avanthi, Vajra and Magadha? Later poets in their dreamy eulogies of this great King credit him with the feat of having carried his arms up to the golden Meru, and planted his tiger standard on the summit of that mountain, which is spoken of in Indian legends as the centre of the Earth. The periodical freshes in the Kaviri river used to inundate a great portion of the Chola country; and so frequently did this happen, that it was known as the Punal-Nadu or the “land of floods.” Karikal who had defeated his enemies and consolidated his empire, now turned his attention to the improvement of his dominions. He formed the grand plan of controlling the frequent floods which wrought much damage in Punal-Nadu. He commenced at once