royal and non royal contemprories of rrc as well as great events that took place in the world at that time should give us a picture of the world around our hero
one of them is al biruni who first calculated the radius of the Earth to be 6,339.6 km (this result was replicated in the West in the 16th century).
Abu Raihan Biruni (September 15, 973 - December 13, 1048) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, physicist, scholar, encyclopedist, philosopher, astrologer, traveller, historian, pharmacist and teacher, of Central Asian origin, who contributed greatly to the fields of mathematics, philosophy, medicine and science.
He also travelled to India with Mahmud of Ghazni, who also became his patron, and accompanied him on his campaigns there, learning the language, and studying their religion and philosophy, and wrote Ta'rikh al-Hind ("Chronicles of India").
The table in the bottom lists the northern empires during the cholas as Pala empire and the solankis of gujrat. Not sure.
Also they are asking for more information on the cholas section. I think someone in this list can take this up, I guess. Wikipedia is one of the most famous web encyclopedias and so will get a lot of eyeballs if there are more information...