Chola Empire's Anuradhapura War and the Sacred Tooth Relic

In this episode of The Chola Empire, Lucas and Luna explore the violent 11th-century conflict between the Cholas and the Sinhalese kingdom of Anuradhapura. When Rajaraja Chola I invaded Sri Lanka around 993 CE, he sacked the ancient capital and seized the most prized Buddhist relic in the island — the Sacred Tooth of the Buddha. Lucas walks us through the political background: the Anuradhapura king Mahinda V's flight to Rohana, the Chola establishment of a capital at Polonnaruva, and the 40-year occupation that followed. But the heart of the conversation is the Tooth Relic itself — what it meant to Sinhalese kingship, how the Cholas (devout Shaivites) handled a Buddhist sacred object, and whether they destroyed it, kept it, or lost it. Luna asks the sharp questions: was this a war of religion or politics? Did the Cholas return the relic? And what does the contemporary Chola source — the Tiruvalangadu plates — say about the campaign versus the later Sinhalese chronicle, the Culavamsa? The episode ends by following the relic's later journey to Kandy and its present-day home at the Temple of the Tooth. A story of empire, sacrilege, and the strange survival of a symbol. #Chola #Anuradhapura #SacredToothRelic #RajarajaCholaI #MahindaV #Polonnaruva #Culavamsa #TiruvalangaduPlates #SriLanka #Buddhism #Shaivism #IndianOceanHistory #MedievalEmpires #SouthAsia #LankanHistory #History #FexingoHistory #Podcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo