Vijayalaya's Gambit

Around 850 CE an obscure Chola feudatory named Vijayalaya seized the town of Thanjavur from the Pallavas' shadow and built a shrine to the goddess Nishumbhasudini. From that single foothold his heirs — Aditya I and Parantaka I — broke the Pallavas and the Pandyas and turned a captured town into the seed of an empire.