01Vatapikonda
Pulakeshin II had marched to the walls of Kanchi. Narasimhavarman turned the tide; the Kuram copper plates of his grandson say he beat the Chalukya at Pariyala, Manimangala and Suramara, writing the word victory on the enemy’s back. In 642 his army, led by tradition by the general Paranjoti, took Vatapi, and he took the title Vatapikonda, conqueror of Vatapi. An inscription in Pallava Grantha letters cut on a rock at Badami records the victory in his thirteenth year. The Periya Puranam remembers Paranjoti as the Shaiva saint Siruthondar, who left the army after Vatapi to serve devotees.
02Ships to Lanka, chariots of stone
The Lankan prince Manavarma, an exile at Kanchi, fought beside him; the Culavamsa records that Narasimhavarman sent two naval expeditions to put him on the throne of Lanka, the second succeeding. Xuanzang reached Kanchi around 640 and found a large city with many Deva temples. At Mamallapuram the five monolithic temples called the Pancha Rathas, each a different temple form cut from one outcrop, are attributed to his reign, along with several of the cave halls of the town.
