History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.20

v1.c19.20

The Chola kingdom extended northward from the border of the Pândya country and the valley of the Kâverî and Kolerûn rivers, whose banks seem always to have been its principal seat, to the Pâlâr river or nearly to Madras, all along the eastern coast, called after them Cholamandalam or Coromandel. Westwards their kingdom extended into Mysore, but the boundaries varied at different periods, and, after the fall of the Pallavas of Kânchî, they advanced northwards to the limits of the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi. The date of the origin of their kingdom is not known, but the mention of Chola as a state in the Asoka edicts is proof of its antiquity. Their early capital was Uraiyûr, now a suburb of Trichinopoly. The earliest princes of the dynasty, whose position we can assign, belong to the 9th century, but it is only with Râjarâja I., who became king in 983, that any connected chronology commences. Their epoch of greatest glory was between the 10th and 12th centuries, when they seem to have conquered not only their neighbours the Pallavas, Pândyas and Cheras, but even to have surpassed the bounds of the triarchy, and carried their arms into Ceylon, and to have maintained an equal struggle with the Chalukyas in the north. Their capital during this period was at Kânchî, now Conjivaram, which they had wrested from the Pallavas. By the middle of the 13th century, however, their power had waned, and they sank step by step, first under the Muhammadans, from whom it passed to the Nâyyaks of Madurâ, and then to the Marâthas.