Battle of Vallala

01A family quarrel

Aditya I, the Chola king who won Thondaimandalam, had a son by a Rashtrakuta princess, daughter of Krishna II. When Aditya died the throne went instead to Parantaka I. Krishna II invaded on behalf of his grandson Kannaradeva, with the Bana chiefs of the Andhra border as allies. The Udayendiram plates of the Ganga Prithvipati II, Parantaka’s ally, say he won the title Hastimalla by his part in the victory at Vallala.

02After Vallala

Parantaka followed up by taking the Bana country and giving it to his Ganga ally. Chola records call him the destroyer of the Banas. The quarrel did not end. A generation later Krishna III, determined to put the Rashtrakuta-born Chola line on the throne, came south again and won the great victory of Takkolam in 949, where Parantaka’s son Rajaditya fell. Vallala itself was remembered in the Chola country; Tiruvallam’s temple of Shiva carries inscriptions of the Banas and of the Cholas who displaced them.

Dynasty · c. 350–1004 CEWestern Ganga dynasty of TalakadThe Western Gangas ruled Gangavadi in southern Karnataka for six and a half centuries, first on their own and then as the right hand of the Rashtrakutas. Their minister Chavundaraya raised the colossus of Gommateshwara at Shravanabelagola; the Cholas ended the kingdom by taking Talakad about 1004.Read →