The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c13.s2.t3: Rājarāja Narendra
The Early History of the Deccan (Parts I–XI) v2.c13.s2.t3
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Rājarāja Narendra
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The reign of Rājarāja, which had thus begun inauspiciously with a civil war, was throughout a period of continuous political unrest. During his long rule of forty-one years he was constantly beset with difficulties and had more than once to flee the country, unable to withstand the opposition of his enemies. His half-brother Vijayāditya, though vanquished in fight, never gave up his designs upon the throne, and was unceasing in his efforts to bring about the downfall of his rival. The first few years of Rājarāja’s reign after his coronation appear to have been peaceful; but he became involved once again about A.D. 1030 in a struggle with Vijayāditya who drove him out of the kingdom and crowned himself king on 27 June A.D. 1031, assuming the official name of Viṣṇuvardhana Vijayāditya.¹ The circumstances under which Vijayāditya managed to oust his brother and seize the throne are shrouded in mystery. He had probably received help from the Western Chālukya court, where he later found asylum. How long after his coronation Vijayāditya managed to keep himself in power, it is not possible to discover; but an inscription at Bhīmavaram in the Cocanada tāluk of the East Godavari district which is dated in Rājarāja’s 16th regnal year (A.D. 1035) shows clearly that some time before that year he returned from exile and recovered his kingdom.²
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¹ JAHRS, ii, 287, l. 63.
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² 482 K of 1893, SII, v, no. 82.
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But Rājarāja was not allowed to remain long in undisturbed possession of his realm. In the last years of the reign of Rājēndra Chōḷa, about the year A.D. 1042, the Western Chālukyas invaded Vengi. The circumstances under which this invasion took place are not quite clear, but we may suppose that the new ruler of Kalyāṇī, Somēśvara I, had begun to pursue an aggressive policy. The news of this Western Chālukya invasion quickly reached the Chōḷa capital Gaṅgāpurī. Rājarāja very probably went in person to his uncle’s court to seek help. Rājēndra was then too old to take the field himself, and his sons were in the extreme south of his dominions with the greater part of the army. Nevertheless, he gathered together such forces as were available and dispatched them to Vengi under his Brāhman general Rājarāja Brahmamahārāja, accompanied by two other commanders, Uttama Chōḍa Milāḍuḍaiyān and Uttama Chōḍa Chōḍakōn. The Chōḷa army soon reached Vengi and immediately engaged the enemy. A sanguinary battle took place at Kaliḍinḍi in the neighbourhood of the city of Vengi in which the commanding officers on both sides perished.³ The issue of the battle was indecisive.
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³ CP, no. 5 of 1937-8; ARE, 1937-8, pt. ii, para. 14; Bhārati, xx, 439.
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There was perhaps a lull in the warfare after the battle of Kaliḍinḍi, and during this time Rājēndra Chōḷa died, being succeeded by Rājādhirāja I. Rājādhirāja I, who was eager to restore the Chōḷa power over Vengi to its former absolute state, led an expedition into the coastal Telugu country as soon as he was firmly established as supreme ruler of the Chōḷa empire. Inscriptions dated in his 27th regnal year (A.D. 1045) refer for the first time to the earliest of his wars with Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara I. It is there stated that Rājādhirāja advanced at the head of his army, slew the Western Chālukya commanders, Gandappayyayan and Gangādharan, in a battle fought at Dhannāḍa (Dhānyakaṭaka) on the Kṛṣṇa, and compelled Vikki (Vikramāditya) and Vijayāditya (the rival and half-brother of Rājarāja) to retreat in disorder. He then penetrated into the Western Chāḷukya dominions and set fire to the important fort of Koḷippākai (Kulpak in the Hyderabad State) which stood on the frontier between the territories of Kalyāṇi and Vengi.
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This victorious expedition of Rājādhirāja must have cleared the Western Chāḷukya armies from Vengi and enabled Rājarāja to reaffirm his power over the entire kingdom. The relief, however, was only temporary, for the Western Chāḷukyas soon reappeared on the scene and compelled him to submit to their authority. Several Western Chāḷukya records of the time refer to Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara’s rule over Vengi. In an inscription dated A.D. 1047 he is said to have subdued the kings of Vengi and Kalinga; his eldest son Bhuvanaikamalla Sōmēśvara II is spoken of as Vengīpuravarēśvara in a new series of records ranging in date from A.D. 1049 to 1054,¹ and Kuppama, the daughter of Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa, one of his pradhānis resident in the Eastern Chāḷukya court, makes a gift in A.D. 1055-6 to the temple of Śiva at Drākshārāma in the East Godavari District.² This record is corroborated by the evidence of the Kanyākumārī and Chārla inscriptions of Vīrarājēndra in which it is explicitly stated that ‘the countries of Vengi and Kalinga which had been in the possession of his family, being abandoned by his two elder brothers, were in the occupation of the enemy.’³ It is evident that Vengi and Kalinga were lost by the Chōḷas during the reign of Rājādhirāja I, and that they passed into the hands of the Chāḷukyas who held them almost up to the closing years of Vīrarājēndra’s reign. Nevertheless Rājarāja was not driven from his kingdom, but continued to rule, excepting perhaps for a short interval of two or three years, until the end of his reign in A.D. 1061.⁴ He probably left his kingdom for a little while immediately after the Western Chāḷukya conquest and repaired to the Chōḷa court in search of help;⁵ but being unsuccessful in his mission, he appears to have gone back to Vengi and made peace with the Western Chāḷukyas. It is difficult to understand why Rājādhirāja suddenly lost interest in the affairs of Vengi and thus allowed that country to fall an easy prey to the hereditary enemy of his family. He was no doubt engaged in intermittent warfare with the Western Chāḷukyas during the remaining years of his reign, but it is yet strange that he never seems to have made any attempt to re-establish his authority in the Telugu country.
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¹ BK, xi, pt. i, no. 84; EI, xvi, no. 9 A, pp. 55-7; BK, xi, pt. i, no. 90.
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² SII, iv, no. 1010.
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³ EI, xxv, 262.
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⁴ 183 of 1893; EI, iv, 300; 663 of 1920, 468 of 1893, 671 of 1920.
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⁵ An epigraph in the Siva shrine at Tiruvaiyāru in the Tanjore Dt. (221 of 1894; SII, v, 520) refers to two gifts of money by him to the temple in the 31st (A.D. 1049), and 32nd (A.D. 1050) regnal years of Rājādhirāja I. Such gifts to distant temples are usually made on the occasion of the visit of the donors.
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Rājarāja reconciled himself to the new situation, and accepted the Western Chālukyas instead of the Chōḷas as his overlords. He appears to have maintained friendly relations with the court of Kalyāṇi. Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa, one of the Pradhānis of Āhavamalla Someśvara I, was a permanent resident in his capital. He was a distinguished scholar and he assisted Rājarāja’s court poet and *purohit* Nannaya Bhaṭṭa in the composition of his Telugu *Mahābhārata*, for which the king rewarded him by the grant of the village of Nandampūṇḍi as *agrahāra* in A.D. 1051.¹
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¹ 183 of 1893; *SII*, iv, no. 1010.
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The reign of Rājarāja came to an end with his death in A.D. 1061. Vijayāditya thereupon seized the throne and established himself permanently in the kingdom.² Vijayāditya, it may be noted, was a feudatory vassal of Āhavamalla Sōmēśvara I, whom he had served loyally for several years since the time of his accession. He would obviously not have made any attempt to seize Vengi without the consent of his suzerain, and the death of Rājarāja offered thus another opportunity to the Kalyāṇi court of strengthening its hold on Vengi.
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² *CP*, 8 of 1924-5; *JAHRS*, ix, pt. i, pp. 24 ff.
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During his long reign of forty-one years Rājarāja rarely enjoyed peace. The sinister designs of his half-brother coupled with the conflicting ambitions of the rival imperial powers converted his fertile kingdom into a cockpit. Rājarāja was indeed the helpless victim of a capricious fate. He lost and regained his kingdom only to lose it finally; he became the dependent by turns of the Chōḷas and the Chālukyas of Kalyāṇi; and he perhaps ended his long and chequered career in exile and relative obscurity. Though subjected to the buffets of misfortune, he seems to have borne his lot with patient resignation, and to have submitted to the inevitable when it proved no longer possible for him to hold his own. Rājarāja was an enlightened and tolerant monarch. Though himself ardently devoted to the worship of Śiva, he yet extended his patronage to the followers of all sects. He was fond of learning, and encouraged poets and scholars with munificent gifts. At his instance his chief court poet Nannaya Bhaṭṭa began to compose the *Andhra Mahābhārata* based on Vyāsa’s great epic, which he, however, left incomplete owing perhaps to the sudden termination of his master’s reign and the consequent loss of his patronage.
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Rājarāja married his cousin Ammangai, the daughter of his maternal uncle Rājēndra Chōḷa I, and had by her a son, Rājēndra, named after the great Chōḷa emperor.