The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c13.s2.t1.1

v2.c13.s2.t1.1

The accession of Śaktivarman I opens a new epoch in the history of Vengi. Though he succeeded in regaining his ancestral kingdom he had had to pay a heavy price to attain his object. The alliance with the Chōla monarch through whose help he managed to overthrow his enemies involved the sacrifice of national independence. He had to submit to Chōla authority, and acknowledge the Chōla as his overlord and sovereign. Vengi ceased to be an independent kingdom and became a protectorate of the Chōla empire. The formation of the Chōla-Chālukya alliance and the establishment of Chōla ascendancy over the entire coastal Telugu country upset the political equilibrium of the Southern Deccan and plunged the land into interminable dynastic wars. The Chāḷukyas of Kalyāṇī who succeeded to the power of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas in the Deccan challenged the Chōḷa supremacy over the Telugu country of the maritime plain, and Vengi became the theatre of a long war which lasted, with a few brief intervals, for the next 135 years; the history of Vengi during this period is a history of this war; the Eastern Chāḷukyas, the rulers of the country, recede into the background, leaving the Chōḷas and the Kalyāṇī Chāḷukyas to dispute the field.