South India (800 – 1200)
The Cholas period of Indian history in South India (800 1200 AD) is hallmarked by a new culture and flourishing art. The temples and literature from this era are still standing testimony to the ecstatic times of India’s past and what happened to Cholas dynasty.
The Cholas
The Chola kingdom was a very ancient one. There is a reference to the Cholas in the Mahabharata. They are also mentioned in the account of Megasthenes and the inscriptions of Asoka. The Sangam literature refers to many Chola princes who were models of justice. The Periplus gives us information about the ports and inland towns of the Chola territory.
After their decline around the 3rd century AD, they became the feudatories of the Pallavas and also the Pandyas. The decline of both these powers paved way for the resurgence of the Cholas when Vijayalaya captured Tanjore and established an independent kingdom, and sought to establish his status by claiming descent from the solar race.
In 907 AD, the first important ruler of the Chola dynasty, Parantaka I, came to power and ruled for almost half a century. He secured the southern frontier of the kingdom by defeating the Pandyas and capturing their capital, Madurai. The later part of Parantaka’s reign saw Chola defeat at the hands of the Rashtrakutas, with the latter occupying many northern districts of the Chola kingdom. Then followed a period of thirty years in which a succession of weak kings brought about a decline in the power of the Cholas. Soon the pendulum was to swing the other way, for the Rashtrakutas were being harassed by their one-time feudatories and future overlords, the Chalukyas. In the confusion, the Chola territory lost to the Rashtrakutas was gradually recovered and Chola power became solidly established with the accession of Rajaraja-I (985-1014) and of his son and successor Rajendra, which allowed fifty years of consolidation and stabilisation.
The reigns of both father and son were taken up with extensive campaigns in almost every direction. Rajaraja began by attacking the alliance between Kerala, Ceylon, and the Pandyas, in order to try to break the monopoly of western trade held by these kingdoms. The Arabs were by now well-established as traders on the west coast of India and had the support of the rulers of Kerala. The Cholas were aware of Arab competition in the south-east Asian trade and tried to strike at the root of this competition by bringing Malabar under their control. At a later date, Rajaraja conducted a naval attack on the Maldive Islands, which had assumed importance in the Arab trade. The Cholas caused havoc in Ceylon with a devastating campaign in which the existing capital, Anuradhapura, was destroyed. Campaigns against the rulers of the Deccan states continued apace. The ghost of the old Pallava-Chalukya conflict over the rich province of Vengi reappeared in wars between the Cholas and the Later Chalukyas over the same area.
Rajaraja-I constructed the magnificent Siva or Brihadesvara (also known as Rajarajesvara) temple at Tanjore.’ Rajaraja-I encouraged Sri Mara, the Sailendra .ruler of Sri Vijaya (South East Asia), to build a Buddhist vihara at Nagapattinam. Rajaraja initiated the system of prefacing the stone inscriptions of the reign with an account of its chief events kept up to date by additions from time to time.
Rajendra-I raised the Chola empire to the position of greatness. He invaded and completed the conquest of Ceylon by defeating and imprisoning Mahindra-V. He annexed the territories of the Pandyas and Cheras, and made one of his sons the viceroy of both, with Madurai as capital. He defeated the Western Chalukyas who were trying to meddle in the succession dispute of Vengi, and installed Rajaraja, a nephew of his, on the Vengi throne.
Rajendra-I led a military expedition to the Ganga valley, which seems to have been a success, and constructed a new capital, Gangaikonda Cholapuram and a temple in celebration of the expedition. He also assumed the title “Gangaikonda”. His naval expedition to Southeast Asia was to teach a lesson to the rulers who obstructed Chola intercourse with China and it met with success. He sent two diplomatic missions to China for political as well as commercial purposes.
The successors of Rajendra were intensely involved in the conflict with the western Chalukyas for control over the kingdom of Vengi. Rajadhiraja defeated the western Chalukyas at Dhanyakataka and Pundur and later sacked Kalyani. But he was killed in the battle of Koppam righting against the Chalukyas though his son Rajendra-II won the battle for the Cholas.
The last important ruler was Kulottunga-l or Rajendra-II, the son of Rajaraja of Vengi and the Chola princess Ammangadevi, who took the step of uniting the Chola and Vengi thrones. Ceylon was taken away by its erstwhile ruler’s family but he maintained a strong grip over the mainland. but towards the end of his reign, he lost the Vengi and Mysore countries to Vikramaditya VI.
Kulottunga-I sent a large embassy of 72 merchants to China and also maintained cordial relations with Sri Vijaya, from whose ruler he received an embassy as well. He has been given the title of Sungam tavirtta’ (he who abolished the toll’s), for his attempts to encourage trade.
Kulottunga-I was succeeded by Vikrama Chola, Kulottunga-II, Rajaraja-II, Rajadhiraja-II, Kulottunga-III, etc., who were unable to check the growing independence of the feudatories and the Cholas were reduced to the status of local chieftains.
The Cholas Administration
The most striking feature of the administrative system of the Cholas was their autonomous village and town administration, there being no significant difference between the central and provincial administration of the Cholas and that of any other dynasty of early medieval India.
Central Administration
The Chola political system was the only one that maintained contact with the cultivator on a wide scale and retained characteristics of a centrally organised administration. The Chola kings assumed titles such as Chakravartigal (emperor, the equivalent of the northern Chakravartin). The cult of the god-king was encouraged through the worship of images of the deceased rulers in temples built for the purpose.
The political role of the purohita (priest) as known to northern Indian politics underwent a modification in the Chola system. The raja-guru (royal head priest) of the Cholas became a confidant and confessor in addition to being the adviser to the king in all matters, temporal and sacred. For further advice, there was an assembly of officers (Udankuttam) whom the king could consult, but there is no record of a regular ministerial council.
The administration was carried out by a well-integrated body of officials. The system of recruitment is not described, but presumably, it did not differ in essentials from the north Indian system, where the selection was based on a judicious balance of birth, caste, connections, and qualifications. Orders were issued by the king orally in the first instance and were later recorded, and in the case of a contract were attested to by a series of officers.
Provincial and Village Administration
The Chola kingdom was divided into provinces (mandalam), there being generally eight or nine of these. Each mandalam was divided into valanadus or districts. These in turn were subdivided into groups of villages, variously called kurram, nadu or kottam. Occasionally, a very large village was administered as a single unit, and this was called a taniyur.
The last administrative unit was the village and the degree of autonomy at the village level was something quite remarkable for the times. The basic assumption in the type of village autonomy emerging at this period was that each village should be administered by the villagers themselves. To this purpose, a village assembly was formed, and authority was vested in this assembly. A village could be divided into wards and each ward could call an assembly of members to allocate various duties to them.
The general assemblies included most of the local residents and were of three categories: the ur’ consisted of the tax-paying residents of an ordinary village; the ‘sabha’ was restricted to the brahmans of the village or was found in villages gifted to brahmans; and, finally, the nagaram was found more commonly in trade centres, as it represented mercantile interests.
The working of these assemblies differed according to the local conditions. The UR was open to all the male adults of the village but in effect the older members took a more prominent part, some of them forming a small executive body for routine matters. The Sabha had the same system and in addition, had the power to constitute smaller committees of any size from amongst its members for specialised work.
Election to the sabha appears to have been by lot from amongst the eligible, though amendments to the working of the sabha were made whenever was necessary. An inscription from the temple wall at Uttaramerur (a village of branmams) about how the local sabha functioned. It dates back to the tenth century.
The great assembly was summoned by the beat of a drum and generally met in the precincts of the temple. The village assembly was responsible for collecting the revenue of the entire village for the government. The activities of the assembly included the keeping of records, particularly those pertaining to charities and taxes, and the settling of agrarian disputes such as conflicts over tenures and irrigation rights. The larger assemblies kept a small staff of paid officers, but most of the work was done on a voluntary basis in the smaller villages.
Revenue Administration
A well-organised department of land revenue was in existence. All cultivable land was held in one of the three broad classes of tenure which may be distinguished as peasant proprietorship, service tenure, and tenure resulting from charitable gifts. The first type was the ordinary ryotwari village of modern times, having direct relations with the government and paying a land-tax liable to revision from time to time.
All land was carefully surveyed and classified into tax-paying and non-taxable lands. Taxable land was classified into different grades according to its natural fertility and the crops raised on it Besides land revenue, there were tolls on goods in transit, taxes on professions and houses dues levied on ceremonial occasions like marriages, and judicial fines.
There are two types of lands that were immune from taxation. The brahmadeya were given to the brahmans as they were the guardians of the intellectual traditions. The next category was the devadana grants which were given for the maintenance of temples. The next category was the devadana grants which were & these lands also were administered by Brahmans. But the recipients of these lands were secular landowners where any question of tenure was involved.
Military Administration
The soldiers of the Cholas generally consisted of two kaikkolar who were royal troops receiving regular payments from the treasury, and the hands were the soldiers employed only for local defence. The kaikkolar comprised infantry, Cavani elephant corps and navy. The Cholas paid special attention to their navy. Within the Kaikkola, the velaikkarars formed the elite troops in the royal service, ready to defend the king with life. Attention was paid to the training of the army and cantonments, called kadagams, existed.
The Cheras
The Cheras also formed an important kingdom during the Sangam Age with its capital at Vanji. The kingdom was prosperous because of its trade with the Roman empire and had famous ports like Muziris and Tyndis. The most important Chera king during the Sangam Age wąs Senguttuvan who is associated with the Pattini cult or the worship of Kannagi, the goddess of chastity.
The Cheras, during the medieval period, were the contemporaries of the Cholas. The Chera kingdom had little political ambition, except possibly during the reign of Ravivarman Kulashekhara at the end of the thirteenth century, who set out unsuccessfully to acquire a kingdom for himself from the ruins of the existing southern kingdoms. Nor was there any economic pressure to encourage territorial conquest, as the Malabar coast was naturally rich in produce and obtained an adequate income from western trade. In the tenth century, another group of people of Jews came to India. A charter of the king of the Cheras granted land to Joseph Rabban – the earliest evidence of a Jewish community settling in India, although tradition mentions an earlier settlement in Cochin in the first century A.D. The Travancore Jews, as the descendants of Joseph Rabban were called, split into two groups: one preserved its Jewish identity with great rigidity and the second mixed with the local population through continuing to call itself Jewish.