In 1025 a Tamil King Sent a Navy Across the Bay of Bengal. His Own Stone Inscription Lists the Places He Took

On the 242nd day of his nineteenth year as king, Rajendra Chola ordered two thousand measures of paddy a year for a priest. The order was cut into the south wall of his father's temple at Thanjavur. Before the gift, as every Chola order did, it recited his victories. The last was new: he had "dispatched many ships in the midst of the rolling sea", caught a king called Sangramavijayottungavarman "along with his rutting elephants", and taken thirteen named places, ending with Kadaram. For twenty-seven years nobody knew where Kadaram was, and it took sixty to place the rest. This Investigation opens the inscription, the Leiden plates and the Song annals, and follows the names across the sea.