Chola Empire
South Indian kingdom (848 CE–1070 CE)
The Chola Empire (Tamil: [t͡ʃoːɻɐɾ, soːɻɐɾ]), which is often referred to as the Imperial Cholas, was a medieval thalassocratic empire based in southern India that was ruled by the Chola dynasty, and comprised overseas dominions, protectorates and spheres of influence in southeast Asia.
The power and the prestige the Cholas had among political powers in South, Southeast, and East Asia at its peak is evident in their expeditions to the Ganges, naval raids on cities of the Srivijaya Empire on the island of Sumatra, and their repeated embassies to China. The Chola fleet represented the peak of ancient Indian maritime capacity. Around 1070, the Cholas began to lose almost all of their overseas territories but the later Cholas (1070–1279) continued to rule portions of southern India. The Chola Empire went into decline at the beginning of the 13th century with the rise of the Pandyan dynasty, which ultimately caused the Chola's downfall.
The Cholas established a centralized form of government and a disciplined bureaucracy. Their patronage of Tamil literature and their zeal for building temples resulted in some of the greatest works of Tamil literature and architecture. The Chola kings were avid builders, and regarded temples in their kingdoms as both places of worship and of economic activity. A prime example of Chola architecture is Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which the Rajaraja commissioned in 1010. They were also well known for their patronage of art.
“Chola Empire” enters the record as south Indian kingdom (848 CE–1070 CE). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chola, Empire and South can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6806806. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1070, 1279 and 1010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Chola Empire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.