Vijayanagara Absorption of the Chola Heartland

By the late 13th century, the Chola Empire that once launched naval raids on Srivijaya and filled the Kaveri delta with towering stone temples had shrunk to a sliver of its former self. This episode explores the final decades of Chola sovereignty: the rise of the Pandya kings, the devastating Khalji invasion from the Delhi Sultanate that swept through Tamil country in 1311, and the gradual absorption of Chola territories into the emerging Vijayanagara Empire under Harihara and Bukka. We read from the Maduraivijayam, a Sanskrit poem by Gangadevi that celebrates the conquest, and examine copper-plate grants that chart the transfer of temple patronage from Chola to Vijayanagara. The episode closes on a Chola prince, Rajendra IV, vanishing from inscriptions after 1289 — a quiet end to a dynasty that ruled for nearly four centuries. This is not a story of a single dramatic battle, but of a slow, piecemeal dissolution. #CholaEmpire #Vijayanagara #Pandya #DelhiSultanate #KhaljiInvasion #Maduraivijayam #Gangadevi #Harihara #Bukka #RajendraIV #TamilNadu #MedievalIndia #KaveriDelta #CopperPlates #TemplePatronage #SouthIndianHistory #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo