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Ruler

Rajendra Chola I

Chola emperor who reached the Ganga and Srivijaya

Reigned 1014–1044 CE (co-regent from 1012)

Rajendra, son of Rajaraja, took the Chola empire to its height. His army marched to the Ganga and brought its water home; his fleet crossed the Bay of Bengal and struck Srivijaya; and he built a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the city of the Chola who took the Ganga.

01Ganga water in pots

Around 1019 to 1023 a Chola army went north through Kalinga and Odisha into Bengal, beating the Pala king Mahipala and the lords of Dandabhukti and Vanga. The Tiruvalangadu plates say the conquered kings were made to carry the Ganga’s water on their heads back to the Chola country. Rajendra took the title Gangaikonda Chola, built a new capital in the dry country north of the Kaveri, and dug a great tank there that the plates call the Cholagangam, a liquid pillar of victory. His temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram stands today, a little lower than his father’s at Thanjavur and softer in its curve.

02Across the sea

In 1025 his fleet sailed against Srivijaya, the Sumatran power that held the Strait of Malacca. His meykirti names the places taken one by one, Kadaram (Kedah), Srivijaya itself, Malaiyur, Ilangasoka, Tamralinga and others, and the capture of the king Sangrama Vijayottungavarman with his elephants and treasure. Earlier he had finished the conquest of Lanka, taking the Sinhala king Mahinda V captive with his crown and regalia. He also fought the Western Chalukyas on the Tungabhadra. He took the titles Kadaram Kondan and Pandita Chola.

Kingdom of Anuradhapura
Dynasty · 437 BCE–1017 CE (traditional founding)Kingdom of AnuradhapuraThe first great kingdom of Lanka, ruled from Anuradhapura for some fourteen centuries. Its kings received the Dharma from Ashoka’s son Mahinda and built the great stupas, while the island’s Shaiva shrines stood on its coasts.Read →

Battles

Rajendra Chola’s march to the Ganga

A Chola army marched a thousand miles north, beat the kings of Odisha and Bengal, and brought back Ganga water in pots. Rajendra built a new capital to mark it: Gangaikonda Cholapuram.

c. 1019–1023 CE

Battle of Maski (Muyangi)

The great battle of Rajendra Chola’s Deccan war, fought in the Raichur doab, where Chola and Chalukya would fight for the rest of the century.

c. 1019–1021 CE

Chola naval expedition to Srivijaya

Rajendra sent a fleet across the Bay of Bengal and struck the maritime empire of Srivijaya along the Strait of Malacca. It is the only overseas naval expedition by an Indian kingdom recorded in such detail.

1025 CE

Places

PalembangStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Palembang

The river city on the Musi that was the heart of Srivijaya, the Sumatran sea power that held the Straits of Malacca for centuries. Rajendra Chola’s fleet struck it in 1025.

Brihadeeswara Temple, ThanjavurStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Brihadeeswara Temple, Thanjavur

Rajaraja Chola’s Rajarajeshvaram, finished in the 25th year of his reign, with a granite vimana about 66 m high. A thousand years on, its walls still carry the king’s own record of every gift and every servant of the temple.

Kedah (Kadaram) and the Bujang ValleyExcavated
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Kedah (Kadaram) and the Bujang Valley

The Malay port the Tamils called Kadaram and Sanskrit texts Kataha, at the foot of Gunung Jerai, where dozens of brick and laterite shrines have been dug out of the Bujang Valley. Rajendra Chola’s fleet took it in 1025.

Gangaikonda CholapuramStanding
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Gangaikonda Cholapuram

The capital and temple Rajendra I built after his army reached the Ganga, the seat of the Chola empire for some 250 years. Only the temple survives of the city.

Evidence

Tiruvalangadu copper plates of Rajendra CholaInscription
c. 1018 CE (6th year of Rajendra I)

Tiruvalangadu copper plates of Rajendra Chola

The largest Chola copper-plate charter: a Sanskrit genealogy and a Tamil grant to the Shiva temple at Tiruvalangadu.

On the timeline

  • 1014 CE

    Rajendra Chola I takes the thronePolity

    Already co-regent, Rajendra succeeded his father and carried Chola arms to Lanka, the Ganga and across the sea.

  • c. 1017 CE

    All Lanka under the CholasWar

    Rajendra’s army took the south of the island and brought King Mahinda V captive to the Chola country, with the Lankan crown jewels.

  • c. 1019–1022 CE

    The Chola army reaches the GangaWar

    Rajendra’s generals marched through Kalinga, beat Mahipala of Bengal and brought Ganga water south in pots. The king took the name Gangaikonda, he who took the Ganga.

  • c. 1025 CE

    Rajendra’s fleet strikes SrivijayaWar

    Chola ships crossed the Bay of Bengal and took Kadaram (Kedah) and other ports of the Srivijaya king, who was captured, as Rajendra’s Thanjavur inscription lists port by port.

  • 1025 CE

    Rajendra Chola’s fleet strikes SrivijayaWar

    The Tanjore inscription of Rajendra I lists the ports his navy took across the Bay of Bengal, from Kadaram (Kedah) to the Srivijayan cities of Sumatra.