VELLORE: A team of archeaology and heritage enthusiasts have stumbled upon a Chola Era stone inscription in Vellore.
The team comprising M. Gandhi, former Curator, Government Museum, Vellore, Dr. P. Venkatesan, retired headmaster and Er. R. Mani, former conservation assistant of Archaeological Survey of India, deciphered the inscription found on a stone slab in front of the Saptamatha shrine at Puttuthakku, a village located along NH-48.
“The slab was chilled with Parthivendrathivarman’s inscription. He was a vassal in Tondaimandalam region,under the Chola emperor Sundara Chola. His reign was between AD 957-70,” according to Gandhi.
He added during the reign of Adithya Karikala Chola, Kodumbalur Velputhi Vikramakesari and Prthivendrathivarman invaded the Pandya country and brought under the Chola control. In this battle they Chopped Virapandyan's head. Therefore, Parthivendrathivarman was called as “Pandyan thalaikonda Parthivendrathivarman, he explained.
This stone record was inscribed in Parthivedrathivarmana’s eighteenth regnal year in ten lines. A queen named Pandarakutti Periyanayan wife of a Lankan king, paved stone slabs in the temple of Vad Vallanthal temple. Kongalavan Gamundan alias Thiruvan had safeguarded this donation.
Sapthamatrika temple of Puttuthakku might had been called Vallanthal. On the opposite bank of Palar river in Vilvanathar temple Vallambigai shrine is located.
“We learn from this inscription that in the middle of the tenth century AD a good relationship existed between Lanka and Tondaimandalam”, Gandhi noted.