History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v1.c19.28

v1.c19.28

Parântaka or Vîranârâyana (*cir.* A.D. 907-946) advanced the Chola power and boasts of taking Madurâ from the Pândya king and the invasion of Ceylon,² as also of gilding the “Golden Hall” at Chidambaram, the then famed temple of his race. His son Râjâditya was killed in battle by the Râshtrakûta king Krishna III., and a period of civil war followed till 985, when Râjarâja secured the throne and carried his conquests as far as Kalinga on the north, to Kollam or Quilon on the west, and to Ceylon in the south.³ Though a Saiva, we have a long copperplate grant of the 21st year of his reign granting a village to a Buddhist temple at Negapattam built by a king of Katâha—apparently in the eastern peninsula⁴; but his great architectural monument was the Tanjor temple. For a century after Râjarâja I. the Cholas maintained the commanding position he had gained for his dynasty, but from the time of Vikrama Chola (1118-1135), their power gradually waned, and after this the rise of the Ballâlas in Mysore, and the revival of the Pândyas in the south, seem to have checked them to such an extent that they never regained their previous position.