A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c14.4

c14.4

THE emergence of the Chola power from obscurity, its rise to an imperial position and its conflicts—first with the Rāshtrakūtas from beyond the Tungabhadra and later with their successors, the Chālukyas of Kalyāni—form the dominant features of the history of the next 350 years (850-1200). The whole country south of the Tungabhadra was united and held as one state for a period of two centuries and more. The power of the new empire was proclaimed to the eastern world by the celebrated expedition to the Ganges which Rājendra I undertook and by the overthrow after an unprecedented naval war of the maritime empire of Śrī Vijaya, as well as by the repeated ‘embassies’ to China. In their wars with their enemies across the Tungabhadra, the Cholas were generally aided by the Eastern Chālukyas, a dynasty which drew closer and closer to the Cholas by marriage alliances until at last, in 1070, one ruler occupied both the Chola and the Vengi thrones. The result of this union was an intensification of the hostility of the Western Chālukyas. Towards the close of the twelfth century, the two major powers had become thoroughly exhausted by their conflicts and were on their decline. Smaller powers standing in a subordinate relation to them were beginning to show new vigour and getting ready to take advantage of the weakening of their suzerains and proclaim their independence—the Pāndyas in the extreme south, the Hoysalas in Mysore, and the Yādavas and the Kākatīyas in the northern Deccan.