The Chalukya army was routed and the princes fled; a few years later Someshvara failed to appear for a second battle at the same place.
01The battle at the confluence
Eight years after Koppam, Someshvara I came south again. Virarajendra’s inscriptions describe the battle at Kudal-Sangamam in detail: the Chalukya commanders were routed, the princes Vikkalan and Singanan, as the Tamil records call Vikramaditya and Jayasimha, fled with their army, and the Cholas took elephants, horses and much of the camp. Kudal means a meeting of waters. Most historians place it where the Tungabhadra joins the Krishna, near Alampur; others put it at Kudalasangama on the Krishna in Bagalkot district.
02A challenge not kept
After Virarajendra became king, Someshvara sent word that he would meet him again at Kudal-Sangamam. Virarajendra came and waited, by his own records, for a month. The Chalukya king did not appear. Virarajendra scattered the forces that were there and set up a pillar of victory on the bank of the Tungabhadra. Someshvara was gravely ill. In 1068, Bilhana says, he went to the Tungabhadra at Kuruvatti and gave up his life in the river, a death by water that Bilhana honours as a yogi’s end.
Kudal-Sangamam was the last great Chola victory over Someshvara I; within a few years Vikramaditya VI, beaten here as a prince, married into the Chola house and became the Deccan’s leading king.