Rajaraja Chola turned a small Tamil kingdom into an Indian Ocean power
In 985 a prince named Arulmozhi Varman took the Chola throne and the title Rajaraja, King among Kings. He inherited a modest realm around Thanjavur still recovering from invasion. Within three decades his armies and navy reached northern Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and his great temple at Thanjavur still stands.
Rajaraja was born around 947, the son of King Sundara Chola; the Tamil Nadu government marks his birthday as 3 November. His path to power was tangled. An elder brother, Aditha II, died in murky circumstances, possibly assassinated, and a cousin reigned first as Uttama Chola. Only after that cousin's death, in mid-985, did Rajaraja become king, taking over a realm centred on the Thanjavur and Tiruchirappalli region.
His earliest inscriptions celebrate a victory around 988 at Kandalur Salai in present-day Kerala, likely involving the navy. Campaigns followed against the Pandya kingdom, whose capital Madurai was destroyed, and against the Cheras, earning him the title Mummudi Chola, Three Crowned, for mastery over three Tamil kingdoms. In Sri Lanka, a long mercenary revolt had weakened the Anuradhapura kingdom, and in 993 the Cholas sacked Anuradhapura, took the north of the island and set up a provincial capital at Polonnaruwa. Chola power also stretched to Lakshadweep, parts of the Maldives and north to the Tungabhadra River.
At home he left enduring monuments. The Rajarajeshwaram Temple in Thanjavur, which he commissioned, is counted among the finest examples of medieval South Indian architecture. During his reign the devotional hymns of poets including Appar and Sundarar were gathered into a single collection, the Thirumurai, which earned him a title meaning the one who found the Thirumurai.
He also reformed administration. In 1000 he launched a survey and assessment of land that reorganized the Tamil country into units called valanadus. When Rajaraja died in early 1014, the throne passed to Rajendra Chola I, a son who had already led some of his campaigns.
Source: Rajaraja I
