Chola Empire
State | Defunct
848 CE to 1025 CE
The Chola dynasty is one of the longest-ruling dynasties in the history of southern India.
The earliest datable references to this Tamil dynasty are in inscriptions from the third century BCE left by Asoka, of the Maurya Empire.
As one of the Three Crowned Kings, the dynasty continues to govern over varying territory until the 13th century CE.The heartland of the Cholas is the fertile valley of the Kaveri River, but they rule a significantly larger area at the height of their power from the later half of the 9th century until the beginning of the 13th century.
The whole country south of the Tungabhadra us united and held as one state for a period of two centuries and more.
Under Rajaraja Chola I and his son Rajendra Chola I, the dynasty becomes a military, economic and cultural power in South Asia and South-East Asia.
The power of the new empire is proclaimed to the eastern world by the expedition to the Ganges which Rajendra Chola I undertakes and by the occupation of cities of the maritime empire of Srivijaya, as well as by the repeated embassies to China.
During the period 1010–1200, the Chola territories stretch from the islands of the Maldives in the south to as far north as the banks of the Godavari River in Andhra Pradesh.
Rajaraja Chola conquers peninsular South India, annexes parts of which is now Sri Lanka and occupies the islands of the Maldives.
Rajendra Chola sends a victorious expedition to North India that touches the river Ganges and defeats the Pala ruler of Pataliputra, Mahipala.
He also successfully invades cities of Srivijaya.
The Chola dynasty goes into decline at the beginning of the 13th century with the rise of the Pandyas, who ultimately cause their downfall.
The Cholas leave a lasting legacy.
Their patronage of Tamil literature and their zeal in the building of temples has resulted in some great works of Tamil literature and architecture.
The Chola kings are avid builders and envision the temples in their kingdoms not only as places of worship but also as centers of economic activity.
They pioneer a centralized form of government and establish a disciplined bureaucracy.
According to the Malay chronicle Sejahrah Melayu the rulers of the Malacca sultanate claim to be descendants of the kings of the Chola Empire.
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Vijayalaya, a Chola chieftain, attacks the city of Tanjore, apparently with the approval of the Pallavas, his nominal overlords.
With the critical military assistance of the Velirs of Kodumbalur, he captures the city from his rivals, the Muttaraiyars, in approximately 850.
The region of Madras (Tamil Nadu), in southeast India located on the Coromandel coast of the Bay of Bengal, becomes, from 850, the seat of the independent Chola state inaugurated by Vijayalaya.
The independent Chola kingdom, centered in the Kaveri delta, has by the end of the ninth century, grown northward and southward along the Coromandel coast to fill the power vacuum that has been created by the decline of the neighboring Pallavan and Pandyan states.
Parantaka I ascends the Cholan throne in 907.
Parantaka, soon after ascending the Chola throne, assumes control of the remnant Pallavan lands coveted by the more southerly Pandya dynasty of Madura.
The Pandyas, allied to a small south-central Indian dynasty called the Ganga, unsuccessfully contest the Cholan land grab in 910.
The ten-mile-long Veeranam Dam in South India, created by Rajaditya Chola, son of Parantaka I, and built from 907 to 955, represents a climax of earthen dam technology, employing hewn stone to face the steeply sloping sides.
The Cholas, despite many skirmishes with the Pallavas and the eastern Chalukyas, have from 926 to 942 gained influence (but incompletely control) the entire southern tip of the Indian subcontinent.
Under their king Parantaka I, the Cholas have begun to annex former Pallavan lands adjacent to their kingdom and coveted by Rashrakuta, ruled by Krishna III.
The Cholans had taken Nellore from the Rashrakutans in 940.
The Rashtrakutans defeat the Cholans in a series of campaigns beginning in 948, taking the Vengi plain and in 949, dealing the expansionist Cholas a disastrous military setback.
Srivijaya's decades of warfare with Java and its devastating defeat in 1025 at the hands of the Chola, a Tamil (south Indian) maritime power, has weakened the Malay by the early eleventh century.
As Srivijaya's hegemony ebbs, a tide of Javanese paramountcy rises on the strength of a series of eastern Java kingdoms beginning with that of Airlangga (r. 1010-1045), with its kraton at Kahuripan, not far from present-day Surabaya, Jawa Timur Province.
Sanskrit is the language of learning and theology in South India, as it is in the north, but the growth of the bhakti (devotional) movements enhances the crystallization of vernacular literature in all four major Dravidian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, and Kannada; they often borrow themes and vocabulary from Sanskrit but preserve much local cultural lore.
Examples of Tamil literature include two major poems, Cilappatikaram (The Jeweled Anklet) and Manimekalai (The Jeweled Belt); the body of devotional literature of Shaivism and Vaishnavism—Hindu devotional movements; and the reworking of the Ramayana by Kamban in the twelfth century.
A nationwide cultural synthesis has taken place with a minimum of common characteristics in the various regions of South Asia, but the process of cultural infusion and assimilation will continue to shape and influence India's history through the centuries.