He is credited with the construction of the flood banks of the river Kaveri and conquest of Tamilakam, Andhra and Sri Lanka.

Paṭṭiṉappālai, Poruṇarāṟṟuppaṭai and a number of individual poems in the Akanaṉūṟu and Purananuru have been the main source for the information that is attributed to Karikala.

There are many inscriptions and records found both in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh which mentions Karikala and his conquests and the construction of flood banks along the Kaveri river.

Many rulers and petty chiefs who came after him claimed him as their ancestor and decorated themselves as belonging to the Chola clan of Karikala and of the Kashyapa gotra.

[7] The name Karikalan has been held to mean "the man with the charred leg" and perpetuates the memory of a fire accident in the early years of his life.

Poruṇarāṟṟuppaṭai describes the back-formed origin legend of this incident as follows:The king of Uraiyur (Tiruchirappalli) Ilamcetcenni married a Velir princess from Azhundur and she became pregnant and gave birth to Karikala.

Karikala's leg was scorched in the fire and from thence Karikala became his name.Old Sangam Age inscriptions and also sthala puranam of great ancient Saiva shrine at Parasalur, near Mayavaram says that in order to escape the murder plot hatched by conspirators Karikal Valavan stayed there in disguise of a vedic and agama sastra lecturer for eight years.

Paṭṭiṉappālai, written in praise of Karikala also describes this incident, but without mention of the fable of the burnt limb: Once, in a dense forest, a young tiger cub was captured by hunters and locked in a wooden cage.

Overpowering them with its newfound strength and skill, it leapt into the jungle and reclaimed its freedom, thriving in its rightful domain.According to the Poruṇarāṟṟuppaṭai, Karikala Chola fought a great Battle of Venni in which both Pandyan and Cheran king Uthiyan Cheralathan[8] suffered a defeat.

[10] Besides the two crowned kings of the Pandya and Chera countries, eleven minor chieftains took the opposing side in the campaign and shared defeat at the hands of Karikala.

Venni was the watershed in the career of Karikala which established him firmly on his throne and secured for him some sort of hegemony among the three crowned monarchs.

The inscriptions also says that Karikala ordered Trilochana Pallava to come and assist him in building the flood banks along the Kaveri river.

[9][11][16][17] The raising of the banks of the river Kaveri by Karikala is also mentioned by the Malepadu plates (seventh century CE)[18] of the Telugu Chola sovereign of Renadu, Erigal-Mutturaju Punyakumara, who claims descent from Karikala: karuna – saroruha vihita – vilochana – pallava – trilochana pramukha kilapritvisvara karita kaveri tira (he who caused the banks of the Kaveri to be constructed by all the subordinate kings led by the Pallava Trilochana whose third eye was blinded by his lotus foot).

[22][2] After his victory over the Northern kingdoms of Vatsa, Magadha and Avantika, Karikala returned to Tamil land and worshipped Lord Shiva at the Perur Pateeswarar Temple located at the banks of river Noyyal in present-day Coimbatore.