A Highlight · History
The Chola Empire
South India's great maritime power — temple-building, a navy that reached Southeast Asia, and the longest-lived dynasty in Indian history.
Overview
Regional Chola lines
- Early CholasThe early Cholas were one of the three crowned dynasties of the Tamil country in the Sangam age, ruling the Kaveri delta from Uraiyūr and the port of Puhār, and are known chiefly from Tamil poetry rather than from inscriptions.
- Nellore CholasThe Nellore Cholas ruled southern Andhra between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, and their court supported Tikkana, one of the three poets who rendered the Mahābhārata into Telugu.
- Pottapi CholasThe Pottapi Cholas were a Telugu Choda branch ruling from Pottapi in the Cuddapah country between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries.
- Renāṭi CholasThe Renāṭi Cholas ruled the Cuddapah country from the sixth to the eighth century, and their inscriptions are the oldest known writing in the Telugu language.
- Telugu CholasThe Telugu Cholas were a group of related dynasties in the Andhra country claiming Chola descent, whose branches ruled from the sixth to the fourteenth century and left the earliest inscriptions in the Telugu language.
- Velanāṭi CholasThe Velanāṭi Cholas governed coastal Andhra for the Chola empire from the late eleventh century and ruled independently after it withdrew, until the Kākatīyas absorbed them.
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