page_title: Kulottunga I
section_title: Western Chalukya conflicts
hierarchical_section_title: Kulottunga I / Military campaigns / Western Chalukya conflicts
caption_attribution_description: English: A distant view of KudalaSangama temple.It is in Bagalkot district of Karnataka,India.This is the place where a renowned Kannada poet and revolutionist "Krantiyogi" Basavanna achieved his "Samadhi".
context_page_description: Chakravarti Kulottunga Choladeva was an 11th-century monarch of the Chola Empire of South India. He was one of the sovereigns who bore the title "Kulottunga", literally meaning "the exalter of his race" in Tamil. He did not belong to the main line of Cholas but was rather a prince of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty. His mother, Ammangaidevi, was a Chola princess and the daughter of emperor Rajendra Chola I. His father was king Rajaraja Narendra of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty who was the nephew of Rajendra Chola I and maternal grandson of Rajaraja Chola I. According to historian Sailendra Nath Sen, his accession marked the beginning of a new era and ushered in a period of internal peace and benevolent administration.
  Kulottunga had diplomatic relations with the north Indian city Kanauj and also with distant countries like Cambodia, Sri Vijaya, Khmer empire, kingdom of Pagan and China. He established Chola overlordship over the Sri Vijaya province Kedah in Malaysia. An inscription in a Taoist temple in Guangzhou, dated to 1079 AD, declares Kulottunga, King of Chulien to be the supreme chief of the Land of San-fo-tsi.
context_section_description: The Western Chalukya-Chola rivalry goes back to the beginning of the 10th century. The Western Chalukyas waged many wars with the Chola emperors and on each occasion the wars ended with the Cholas chasing their rivals, the Chalukyas, out of the battlefield, occupying their capital, with death of their generals or feudatories and levying tribute. Tailapa II and his son Satyashraya, who were opponents of Raja Raja Chola I and Rajendra Chola I, ended up being defeated at Annigeri and at Kogali respectively, Jayasimha was defeated in Kadambalige, Ahavamalla Someshwara I suffered defeats many a time at the hands of Rajadhiraja Chola, and lost his brother Jayasingan in battle with Rajendra Chola II.
  After Rajadhiraja Chola I and Rajendra Chola II, their brother Virarajendra Chola defeated Ahavamalla Someshwara I on not less than five occasions. Virarajendra Chola also put to flight the latter's two sons, Vikkalan (Vikramaditya VI) and Singanan (Jayasimha III), multiple times in the battles of Kudala sangama. Virarajendra Chola also defeated the eldest son of Ahavamalla Someshwara I, and crown-prince Someshwara II  in Kampili, and spoiled his coronation ceremony. Ahavamalla Someshwara I seems to have died in the reign of Virarajendra Chola as there is no mention of him in Kulottunga's records. This is evident from a record of Virarajendra Chola, who in his fifth year states that unable to bear the disgrace of his earlier defeats, Ahavamalla Someshwara I wrote a letter to the Chola calling for war, but in the end never showed up and instead fled and plunged himself into the ocean. This is conceded in Bilhana's Vikramakadevacarita, a work on the life of Vikramaditya VI who claims that Ahavamalla Someshwara I died around this time by committing ritual suicide by drowning himself in the Tungabhadra. Upon his father's death, Vikramaditya VI approached Virarajendra and sued for peace and the Chola agreed as he saw in him an ally to counter and nullify the crown-prince Someshvara II. Accordingly, the Chola offered his daughter's hand in marriage, bestowed upon him the Rattapadi-seven-and-a-half-lakh country and made him the Vallabha (Chalukyan king). Vikramaditya readily accepted the deal for he had his own plans to overthrow his elder brother, which he would eventually accomplish and then usurp the throne. There was also another contender, Vijayaditya, on whom Virarajendra had bestowed Vengi towards the end of his reign. Some historians identify this Vijayaditya with the Eastern Chalukyan prince and half-brother of Rajaraja Narendra while others like Venkayya suggest that this person was yet another younger brother of Vikramaditya VI. That this Vijayaditya was an ally of Vikramaditya VI is evident from an inscription of Rajadhiraja Chola I. So at the end of Virarajendra's reign, Kulottunga found himself facing Vikkalan (Vikramaditya VI), the latter's younger brother Singanan (Jayasimha), their elder brother Someshwara II and their younger brother or ally Vijayaditya.
  It was clear from the time Kulottunga ascended the throne that a confrontation with the Western Chalukyas was imminent as Vikramaditya VI could never accept the union of the Chola and Vengi kingdoms under the same ruler, let alone Kulottunga's accession, for it simply meant an enemy too powerful. Kulottunga knew this from the very beginning and accordingly made preparations for the showdown. In 1075-76 AD, the war began with the incursion of the Chalukyan forces into the Chola territories and the two armies met in the Kolar district. What followed was the Chola counter-attack popularly known as the Nangili episode. In the ensuing battle, the Chalukyan army was completely routed and chased by the Chola forces from the rocky roads of Nangili all the way to the Tungabhadra via Manalur. Vikramaditya is said to have retreated hastily and fled, leaving behind the corpses of his dead elephants along the way. Kulottunga captured a thousand elephants at Navilai and conquered two provinces the Gangamandalam (the province of the Western Ganga dynasty) and Singanam as a direct resul
caption: Kudala sangama, the site of many a battle between the Cholas and Chalukyas during the period of Virarajendra Chola
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot S5 IS", "Image Orientation": "0", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:11:02 09:29:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3578", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4287", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1000", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:11:02 09:29:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:11:02 09:29:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "319/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "197/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1600", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1200", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3430", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "81920/9", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1536000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Landscape", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "913ee2d91377bc97f4f493a4e5fb31b0"}