The Cholas: Kingdom that had ruled south east asia

When we listen about medival india the only things that come to our mind is delhi sultanate and the Mughals. But we often ignores the some great kingdoms in indian peninsula.

South India had been ruled by some great kingdoms in medival period I.e The Chalukya(defeated Harsh Vardhan and stopped his southern expension, defeated Arabs and ended their probability of expension of Indian Empire),The Cholas,The Rashtrakhutas,and The Vijaynagar Empire.

The Chola kingdom was founded by Vijaylay in 850 CE and ruled for about 400 years. By the end of 9th century Cholas had capturad Kanchi which was under pallavas and slowly expended their Empire. Rajraj(985-1014) and Rajendra 1st(1014-1044) where the two most famous Kinga of the dynesty.

Rajraj
Rajraj is considered as the first great ruler of the kingdom and United the entire Tamil region including the delta of Kavari into a powerful state. He had developed a powerful neval force and controlled the entire trade from the area. He sent a mission to srilanka and captured its northern part. His Maldives victory was one of exploit of his neval forces.He too had defeated the gang and vengi of karnatak.

Rajendra 1st
Before sitting on the throne he become the prince and gained much experience in empire and continued the expension of the empire. He sent another mission to srilanka and captured the entire island. As a mark of his victory, several temples of Shiva and Vishnu were built at various places.  The most famous of these was the Rajarajeshwara Temple of Thanjavur which was completed in 1010.  The Chola kings practiced the practice of writing inscriptions on the walls of these temples.
His most famous work was to win Ganga valley in Bengal  in 1022 and adopted the title of Gangaicondchol. He setup his new capital near kavari delta and named it as Gangaicondcholpuram. His another famous work was to win the East Indies (Malaya, Indonesia,and costal region of mayanmar) which was ruled by the SHYLANDRA RULERS. The Chola neval forces were so powerful in the region that for some time the Bay of Bengal became a lake of Cholas.

Cholas kings made many temples in South and the Dravidian style temples had started during their rule. Many of their temples are still alive which tells us the prosperity of the dynesty. Till the beginning of 13th century the kingdom blooms but declined after that due to internal reason.

The kingdom was succeeded by small kingdoms which was Trampled by Delhi sultanate.

This was the end of one of the most famous kingdoms of Indian peninsula.

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