Reign of Rajendra I Chola

Rajendra was formally associated with his father as heir in 1012 and counted his regnal years from then. The Tamil eulogy (prashasti) that opens his inscriptions grew year by year with each new conquest, which lets historians date his campaigns with unusual precision. In his fifth year (1017–1018) he completed the conquest of Sri Lanka: according to the Culavamsa, the continuation of the Mahavamsa, the Cholas captured King Mahinda V, who died twelve years later in the Chola country, and carried off the royal regalia and the treasures of the island’s monasteries, while Polonnaruwa became the seat of Chola rule. He installed one of his sons as viceroy of the Pandya and Kerala countries with the title Chola-Pandya, and in 1018 made another son, Rajadhiraja, heir and co-ruler.

In the west Rajendra defeated the Western Chalukya king Jayasimha II at Maski, after which the Tungabhadra became the tacit frontier. In Vengi he supported his nephew Rajaraja Narendra against a rival backed by the Chalukyas, and from this campaign grew the famous march to the Ganges: a Chola general led the army through Kalinga and Orissa, defeated several kings of eastern India, among them Mahipala of the Pala dynasty (the Tiruvalangadu plates claim that the defeated kings were made to carry Ganges water to Rajendra, a boast Nilakanta Sastri thought probably unfounded), while Rajendra, encamped on the Godavari to secure the army’s way back, celebrated his nephew’s coronation on 16 August 1022. Nilakanta Sastri judged that this campaign of less than two years could hardly have been more than a hurried raid. Rajendra took the title Gangaikonda Chola and built Gangaikondacholapuram, with a great Shiva temple and a vast tank, the Cholagangam; the city does not appear in his inscriptions before about his 17th regnal year (1028/1029).

About 1025 a Chola fleet raided Kadaram and Srivijaya. The king of Kambuja — Suryavarman I of Angkor — sought Rajendra’s friendship by sending him a war chariot, and in 1033 an embassy from ‘Shi-lo-lo-cha Yin-to-lo-chu-lo’, Sri Rajendra Chola, reached the Song court. In his later years his sons fought risings in the Pandya and Kerala lands and in Sri Lanka, and from 1042 the new Western Chalukya king Someshvara I contested Vengi again. Rajendra died in 1044 — one of his queens, Viramadevi, apparently followed him in death as a sati — and was succeeded by Rajadhiraja I.