हिंदीOn this day

Battle of Koppam

VictorCholasRajadhiraja I; his brother Rajendra II
1054vs
SideWestern Chalukyas of KalyaniSomeshvara I

At Koppam a Chola king died on his elephant and his younger brother won the battle in the same hour, one of the strangest days of the Chola–Chalukya wars.

Date: 1054 CE (some date it 1052)Where: Koppam on the Krishna, probably Khidrapur, MaharashtraType: Battle
Photo: Sharad iragonda patil · CC BY-SA 4.0
Result

Rajadhiraja fell, but Rajendra II rallied the army, drove off Someshvara and was crowned on the field.

01Two kings in one day

Rajadhiraja I, son of Rajendra Chola, had spent his reign fighting the Chalukyas of Kalyani across the Tungabhadra and Krishna. At Koppam on the great river he rode into battle on his war elephant and was struck down by Chalukya arrows. The Chola ranks began to give way. His brother Rajendra, who commanded the reserve, took command, held the line and turned the fight, and Someshvara I left the field. Chola inscriptions of Rajendra II say he crowned himself king there and then, and list elephants, horses, treasure and even Someshvara’s queens taken as spoil.

02Where was Koppam?

The inscriptions place Koppam on the bank of a great river. J. F. Fleet identified it with Khidrapur on the Krishna, about thirty miles south-east of Kolhapur, where the Kopeshvara temple still stands; others look for it near Maski in Raichur district. The Chalukya side left no account of the day, so the story is told only from the Chola records. Rajendra II is said to have set up a victory pillar at Kolhapur afterwards.

Chalukyas of Kalyani
Dynasty · 973–c. 1189 CEChalukyas of KalyaniTailapa II, a Rashtrakuta feudatory, overthrew his overlords in 973 and revived the old Chalukya name. His line fought the Cholas for a century and ruled the Deccan from Kalyani.Read →
Why it matters

Koppam showed how close the Chola–Chalukya wars ran to ruin for both houses; it kept the Chola frontier on the Tungabhadra for another generation.