Rájarája (1022-62), who also married a princess of the Chóla royal house. This king fixed his capital at Rajahmundry, and it was during his reign that the Mahábhárata was translated into Telugu.*[1]
His son Kulóttunga was afterwards the famous Kulóttunga Chóla I, who, though belonging on his father's side to the ancient line of Vengi, claimed to succeed to the Chóla throne at Tanjore through his mother and his grandmother, and ultimately founded a new Chóla dynasty in the south. While heir-apparent to the Vengi throne he distinguished himself by capturing elephants and defeating a king, but when his father Rájarája died he was ousted from the succession by his paternal uncle Vijayáditya VII.
The latter's rule appears to have been disturbed by invasion. The Western Chálukya kingdom had revived after the fall of the Ráshtrakútas, and its great monarch Vikramáditya VI (whose capital was at Kalyáni, north-west of Hyderabad) was by this time harassing both the Chóla and the Vengi countries. He twice invaded the latter,†[2] but was, however, defeated by the Chóla king, who re-established his authority in Vengi and restored Vijayáditya VII to his throne there.'‡[3] ' His elephants drank the water of the Gódávari. He crossed even Kalingam, and beyond it despatched for battle his invincible army as far as the further end of Chakrakótta. He reconquered the good country of Véngai and bestowed it on Vijayáditya, whose broad hands held weapons of war and who had taken refuge at his lotus feet.'§[4]
About 1069 the then Chóla king died, and his son secured the throne with the help of the Western Chálukya king Vikramáditya VI. The Kulóttunga already mentioned claimed, however, to succeed as both grandson and adopted son of a former Chóla ruler. He took up arms, slew the new king, and entered on a fierce conflict with Vikramáditya VI. The accounts given by the two monarchs of the events which followed are widely different; but victory finally rested with Kulóttunga, who made himself king of the Chóla country and overlord of Vengi, and ruled till II18 with the title of Kulóttunga Chóla I.
He magnanimously allowed his uncle Vijayáditya VII, who had before supplanted him, to continue in charge of
- ↑ * Ep. Ind., V, 31. He is well known to local tradition to this day under the name Rajaraja Narendra. Cf. Mackenzie MSS., Local Records, ii, 231; xix 75; and Ix, 24.
- ↑ † S. Ind. Inscr., iii, 37.
- ↑ ‡ Dr. Hultzsch in S. Ind. Inscr., iii, 128.
- ↑ § His inscription quoted in the Government Epigraphist's report for 1898.
