Rajaraja I

Under Rajaraja I the Chola kingdom of southern India grew from a regional power into the dominant state of the peninsula. Born in 947 as Arulmoli Varman, he was a son of the Chola king Parantaka II, also known as Sundara Chola. His path to the throne was indirect: his elder brother, the crown prince Aditya II, was murdered in obscure circumstances, and the throne passed first to his uncle Uttama Chola. Arulmoli succeeded in 985, taking the regnal name Rajaraja, "king of kings."

His reign of nearly three decades was filled with campaigns on every frontier. He broke the power of the Pandyas to the south and fought the Cheras of Kerala, claiming victory at Kandalur Salai in one of his earliest recorded exploits. In the north and west he annexed Gangapadi and Nolambapadi in present-day Karnataka, contesting the rise of the Western Chalukyas, and he intervened in the affairs of the Vengi kingdom to the northeast, drawing it into the Chola orbit through alliance and marriage. His armies invaded Sri Lanka, sacking the ancient capital of Anuradhapura and annexing the north of the island as a Chola province governed from Polonnaruwa. A naval expedition brought the Maldive Islands under his authority, signaling the maritime reach that his son would extend much further.

Rajaraja's most visible monument is the Brihadisvara temple at Thanjavur, the dynastic capital, completed around 1010 and dedicated to Shiva under the name Rajarajesvaram. Its vimana, rising over sixty meters, was the tallest structure of its kind in India, and the temple's walls carry long inscriptions recording the gifts, personnel, and revenues assigned to it, an exceptional documentary record of the period. His administration carried out detailed land surveys and audits of village assemblies, and the systematic engraving of official records on temple walls dates largely from his reign.

He associated his son Rajendra with the throne as co-regent in 1012 and died in 1014. His sister Kundavai, who appears prominently in his inscriptions as a donor, reflects the visible role of royal women at the Chola court. Rajendra I built directly on his father's conquests, carrying Chola arms to the Ganges and across the Bay of Bengal.