Legendary early Chola kings

Some historians consider these lists as comprehensive conglomerations of various Hindu deities and Puranic characters attributed to local chieftains and invented ancestry of dynasty attempting to re-establish their legitimacy and supremacy in a land they were trying to conquer.

Typical hero and demi-gods found their place in the ancestry claimed by the later Cholas in the genealogies incorporated into the copper-plate charters and stone inscription of the tenth and eleventh centuries.

The earliest version of this is found in the Kilbil Plates which give fifteen names before Chola including the genuinely historical ones of Karikala, Perunarkilli and Kocengannan.

The Puranas speak of a Chola king, a supposed contemporary of the sage Agastya, whose devotion brought the river Kavery into existence.

The genealogy of the Chola family conveyed by the Thiruvalangadu copperplate grant consists of names that corroborate the historic authenticity of legends.