The Cholas were one of many Tamil dynasties to rule in Medieval South India. But, in the 1020s, they were without a doubt the masters of the region. With an empire stretching from Sri Lanka up the coast of the Bay of Bengal and west into the Deccan plateau and the Malabar coast, the Chola dynasty had a powerful aura which could be felt far beyond. But how did the empire work? And why did the king, Rajendra Chola, wage so many wars? Well, in this video, we're going to try to answer these questions as we explore the Chola empire 1000 years ago.

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Recommendations for further reading:
Balambal, V. Studies in Chola History (1998)
Kulke, Hermann, K. Kesavapany, Vijay Sakhuja, eds. Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa: Reflections on the Chola Naval Expeditions to South East Asia (2009)
Sastri, K.A. Nilakantra. The Cholas (1935) (most of Sastri's ideas have been built upon in the other readings, so I would avoid only reading this one)
Spencer, George. "The Politics of Plunder: the Cholas in eleventhcentury Ceylon," in Journal of Asian Studies 35, no.3 (1976)
Stein, Burton. Peasant, State, and Society in Medieval South India (1980)
Subbarayalu, Y. South India Under the Cholas (2012)
Vasudevan, Geeta. The Royal Temple of Rajaraja: an Instrument of Imperial Cola Power (2003)

All images used in this video are either my own, in the public domain, or under creative commons (whence they shall be credited appropriately)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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Outro music: Laid Back Guitars by Kevin MacLeod, CC BYSA 4.0
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty...

#history #india #tamilnadu #tamil #educational #southindia #medieval #medievalhistory #chola #indianhistory #southasia #middleages #medievalindia #globalmiddleages #choladynasty #cholaempire #rajendra #hindu #rajarajacholan