Celebrate day as ‘water conservation day': Farmers
In an email sent to the Prime Minister's Office, Sangam leader N Veerasekaran said Chola kings like Raja Raja Cholan and Rajendra Cholan contributed to the construction of water bodies and channels to irrigate crops in the Cauvery delta region a thousand years ago. They also called for felicitating farmers, farmers' associations, and govt organisations which excel in water management on the day.
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The Print
2 hours ago
- The Print
Do Chola kings represent a culturally united Hindu India? It's a modern fantasy
To understand the recent political bonanza about the Cholas, first we need to understand what they've left behind—and the many ways in which we've understood this over the decades. Most of what we know about the Cholas derives from donative inscriptions that adorn the walls of medieval Tamil temples. There is a loud chorus, at least on social media, that the Cholas—and South India in general—haven't gotten their due in the national historical imagination. But there's more going on than meets the eye. The fact is that celebrating the conquests of the Cholas misses the woods for the trees. Rather than encourage a deeper understanding of regional histories, we are instead forcing a remarkable medieval society into today's culture wars. History has rarely been away from the headlines over the last few weeks, whether through the rewriting of NCERT textbooks or PM Modi's tribute to the Chola dynasty of medieval South India. The coming month will see the millennial celebrations of the 11th-century Chola emperor Rajendra I, specifically of his conquests in Southeast Asia. Interestingly, most Chola-period donative inscriptions were not commissioned by the Chola court, but a broad, shifting spectrum of Tamil-speaking society. Through these inscriptions, we can see broad social trends. As historians Noboru Karashima, Y Subbarayalu, and James Heitzman have shown, most temple affairs—and, by extension, village affairs—depended on local collectives, rather than royal officials. These might be collectives of Vellala cultivator families, or Brahmin landlords, or merchants. These collectives, as we'll see soon, were not mute recipients of royal commandments. Temple donors were fairly diverse in the early 10th century (when the Chola dynasty was rising), sometimes including shepherds and washer-people. Over time, temple activities were steadily taken over by men of elite martial or landed backgrounds, often linked to the Chola court. These families were progenitors of some dominant castes in Tamil Nadu today. Inscriptions also show growing discrimination against landless groups such as the Paraiyar, today a Scheduled Caste. Throughout this time, indeed well after the end of the empire, collective assemblies were a major social and political force in Tamil Nadu. Many temple inscriptions also included eulogies to Chola kings, especially at the height of expansion in the early 11th century under Rajaraja I and Rajendra I. To KA Nilakanta Sastri, grandfather of Chola studies in the 1930s, royal eulogies showing up in temple donations managed by local collectives proved the Chola court was centralised, competently led, and yet respectful of local self-government. This was very much the kind of independent Indian state envisioned by many freedom fighters at the time. In the decades after, however, rigorous epigraphical studies revealed a more surprising explanation. In particular, Tamil and French scholars at the French Institute of Pondicherry have noted that there are clear patterns to Chola royal eulogies. Philologist Whitney Cox, at the University of Chicago, has demonstrated that eulogies were constantly issued and updated by the court, portraying the king not just as a religious figure but also as a political and military one. Indeed, if you were to look at a Chola temple donation, you'd be struck by how most of the preambles describe the king's wars: in the medieval mind, royal devotion and battlefield success were intertwined. Cox also argues that the degree to which local collectives reproduced royal eulogies depended on their political equation with the Chola king—rather than blind devotion to royal authority. And so, Chola kings had to keep conquering so as to be able to make temple gifts, through which they ensured their subjects' support for the imperial project. Grand edifices such as Rajaraja I's Brihadishvara temple at Thanjavur received gifts of war loot from the king as well as a huge cross-section of elite Tamil society. Later Chola kings could rarely summon such a degree of support for their temples. In the constant push-and-pull between ruler and collective, in the entangling of temple patronage, war, caste and property, medieval Tamil inscriptions reveal a society of extraordinary dynamism. It is a dynamism that is being quickly forgotten. Also read: Cholas and Chaulukyas understood tariffs and taxes better than Trump does Evidence and beliefs If all this sounds surprising, it's because since Sastri's magisterial The Cōḷas (1935), the perception of the Cholas has been extensively shaped by Tamil pop culture, nostalgia, and politics—in which English news media (outside of Tamil Nadu) were, until recently, largely uninterested. Indeed, despite Sastri's work being nearly a century behind the recent scholarship, he is still one of the bestselling historians of South India. As the distinguished contemporary Tamil historian AR Venkatachalapathy points out, Sastri wrote at a time when historical materials were not interrogated as they are today. Yet Sastri's work has continued to resonate with 20th and 21st-century nationalist yearnings. I will return to this point momentarily. First, I would like to ask the question: how were the Cholas remembered before 20th-century nationalisms? The picture of the Cholas in the Tamil tradition is complex and varied, depending on the social position of storytellers. Shaivite sources are extremely favourable to the dynasty, crediting them with establishing temples, settling Brahmins, rediscovering and promoting Shaivite texts. However, the Chola kings of the Shaivite tradition are a mix of both historical figures and culture heroes. Outside of the Shaivite tradition, the picture is somewhat darker. In the Mackenzie manuscripts of Tamil stories, collected in the late 1800s, one Chola king (Kulottunga I) is described as having either a dancing-girl or a demoness for a lover, and giving their son a kingdom. Srivaishnava legends accuse a Chola king of conspiring to kill the Srivaishnava saint Ramanuja. Another is believed to have killed the son of the famed poet Kamban, author of the Tamil Ramayana. And, as I've written previously in Thinking Medieval, a peasant tradition praises twin heroes who are believed to have killed a cruel Chola king. To be clear, many of these are literary or storytelling tropes applied generally to royal figures. But that is exactly my point: Before the 20th century, the Cholas were not totemic figures of an ethnic or cultural identity. And their seagoing expeditions played no role in popular culture. Indeed, as Dr Venkatachalapathy told me, when the first Indian steamship company was established by VO Chidambaram Pillai in 1906, the educated Tamil middle class had no idea that the Cholas were seafarers of any sort. All this changed from the 1930s onwards, when the Cholas received sustained academic and pop culture attention. Historians Nilakanta Sastri and RC Majumdar both saw the Cholas as representing an enlightened Indian imperialism with a sustained overseas presence—in stark contrast to the British Raj. Kalki Krishnamurthy, freedom fighter and author of Ponniyin Selvan, wrote of the Chola king Rajaraja I with 'the Mahatma's nobility, Nehru's charisma, Patel's steel, Rajaji's integrity, and the compassion of Buddha and Ashoka'. As noted above, the epigraphic corpus of the Chola period was picked up and studied by decades-long multinational academic collaborations, summarised in the previous section. Yet academic findings, especially the notion of critical interrogation of sources, did not percolate into pop culture. Within dominant Tamil media, the Cholas came to represent a politically-useful, 'perfected' notion of Tamil history: one where caste discrimination, temple politics, gendered violence, and warfare against other Indian states either didn't exist, or weren't that much of a problem. Dalit cultural figures who have questioned this depiction, such as director Pa Ranjith, have had to face court cases for outraging sentiments. The Cholas became foundational figures of Tamil legend, similar to Shivaji in Maharashtra. But while Shivaji has long been integral to Hindutva history as an opponent of the Mughals, the reinvention of the Cholas was largely confined to Tamil Nadu—until recently. Also read: A Chola queen shaped Hinduism like no one else. Yet you haven't heard of her Tribute or appropriation? I will try to summarise, as fairly as possible, the view of the Cholas now projected by the Union government. First and foremost, they were great Shaivite Hindu kings, exemplified by their massive temples, which were built for devotional purposes. Second, they conquered abroad and projected Indian influence into Southeast Asia. To do this, they used a large royal navy (on which, more in future). Third, they were patrons of the arts, responsible for divine bronzes as well as prestigious Tamil arts such as Bharatanatyam. Fourth, they were great administrators who ruled a fair and just system. It is impossible not to see the overlap between the Tamil nationalist view of the Cholas and the Hindutva view. Essentially, what we are seeing now is an attempt to integrate a regional nationalist narrative based on pop culture into a subcontinental nationalist narrative—which is based on a much more vociferous pop culture. There are, however, two important differences. Hardline Tamil nationalists reject the notion that the Cholas patronised Sanskrit learning or Brahminical institutions, though this does not find support in the evidence. (Teenage adherents of this view have commanded me on Instagram, in no uncertain terms, that Rajaraja I's imperial temple must be called only by the Tamil name, Peruvudaiyar, rather than the Sanskrit Brihadishvara—never mind that both of these mean the same thing and originated well after the end of the empire.) More broadly, and with more evidence, Tamil nationalists have also never seen the Cholas as anti-Muslim figures, whether as part of a cultural competition or as rivals to Muslim powers. In recent weeks, however, a bestselling North Indian writer of mythological fantasy, with ties to the ruling establishment, has announced a work of 'speculative' fiction where the Cholas undertake a surgical strike against Mahmud of Ghazni. Since this is 'speculative', one can hand-wave away the strong-arming of this remarkable medieval power into modern political buzzwords. One can ignore the fact that Chola inscriptions show absolutely no interest in happenings in North India. One does not need to address the unique structure of Tamil society and its amazing political dynamism. Instead, we can indulge in the modern fantasy of the Cholas as ideal kings with bulging biceps, representing a culturally united Hindu India, and beating up the 'bad guys' of Hindutva history. We are also treated to North Indian politicians tweeting photos of Chola temples, claiming that the South has been ignored—with vociferous support from dominant caste Tamil influencers. Personally, much as I would like to delight in regional histories getting the spotlight, I am not sure whether this is a 'celebration' of Chola history, or yet another reinvention. The fact is that what's happening to the Cholas isn't particularly new. Chest-thumping about medieval royalty, fantasy fiction, and textbook rewriting have long been used by regional political parties to promote linguistic pride and secure votes. But this comes at a cost. In twisting the medieval 1 per cent into today's culture wars, the medieval 99 per cent, with all their foibles and uniqueness, are simply flattened into an undifferentiated mass of devotees and willing foot soldiers for military and cultural projects that appeal to dominant interests. The stories we tell of the past always say more about us than they do about our ancestors. Indian democracy could easily fund studies and exhibitions about medieval architects; conduct ground-penetrating LIDAR scans of medieval settlement mounds; excavate known Chola palace sites to learn about daily life; or sponsor multinational studies of medieval Tamil diaspora sites. There are plenty of ways to pay tribute to history that allow history to be history, instead of a warped and fractured rehash of our own culture wars. What does it say about us that we choose, again and again, to celebrate warrior-kings and their temples? Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of 'Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire' and the award-winning 'Lords of the Deccan'. He hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti and is on Instagram @anirbuddha. This article is a part of the 'Thinking Medieval' series that takes a deep dive into India's medieval culture, politics, and history. (Edited by Theres Sudeep)
Indian Express
2 hours ago
- Indian Express
Revisiting Chola dynasty and Rajendra I's achievements: Insights into governance, society, architecture, and more
UPSC Issue at a Glance is an initiative by UPSC Essentials aimed at streamlining your UPSC Current Affairs preparation for the prelims and mains examinations by focusing on issues making headlines. Every Thursday, cover a new topic in a lucid way. This week, we explain to you the Chola dynasty from a broader perspective. Let's get started. If you missed the previous UPSC Issue at a Glance | Mangroves in focus: Understanding significance, threats and conservation from the Indian Express, read it here. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Gangaikonda Cholapuram in Ariyalur district, which was once the Chola capital, on July 27 to unveil a commemorative coin and inaugurate an exhibition on Rajendra Chola's northern conquest. The Union Ministry of Culture also hosted a four-day festival in the town commemorating 1,000 years of Rajendra Chola's maritime expedition to Southeast Asia and the commencement of the construction of the Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple. In this context, let's take a closer look at key aspects of the Chola dynasty and the legacy of Chola emperor Rajendra I. (Relevance: UPSC Syllabus General Studies-I: Indian Heritage and Culture, History , Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.) The Cholas are considered as one of the longest recorded dynasties in world history. The earliest references to the Cholas date as far back as the third century BCE and appear in the inscriptions of Mauryan emperor Ashoka. However, very little evidence exists about the early Cholas, apart from the early Tamil literature of the third Sangam and the references made about them in an ancient Graeco-Roman periplus written in the early centuries of the Common Era. After a long eclipse, the Chola Empire emerged sometime in the mid-ninth century under King Vijayalaya Chola. The successors of Vijayalaya conquered neighbouring regions, and the kingdom grew in size and power. The Pandyan and the Pallava territories to the south and north were made part of this kingdom. Notably, Rajaraja I, born to King Parantaka II in 947 CE, is considered the most powerful Chola ruler. Records from copper plate inscriptions have revealed that upon his birth, he was named Arulmozhivarman. Upon accession to the throne in 985 CE, he adopted the regnal title 'Rajaraja' or king of kings. At the time he came to power, Rajaraja I had inherited a tiny kingdom centred around the Thanjavur-Tiruchirapalli region that was still recovering from the disasters of the Rashtrakuta invasions. Under the new king, though, imperial expansions of the Cholas took a whole new turn. The doyen of South Indian history, Nilakanta Sastri, has written in his book The Cholas (1955) that the first military achievement of Rajaraja I's reign was the campaign in the Kerala region. Under his rule, the Chola Empire expanded all along the eastern coast, up to Kalinga in the north. The Cholas soon gained the upper hand over the Pandyas, who were another great dynasty in the Tamil region at the time and one of their biggest rivals. Consequently, the Cholas emerged as the primary power in the northern and eastern parts of the Tamil country. Yet another hallmark of the rule of Rajaraja I was the predominance of maritime trade. Over the next 10 years, Rajaraja I established himself as one of the most astute and sharp political leaders to have emerged in South India. He managed to take over all Pandya territories and then moved to Sri Lanka, where he ransacked several Buddhist Viharas and built Shiva temples in their place to establish the reign of the Cholas. Sastri, in his book, mentions that by the end of his rule, the Chola kingdom had grown ' to be an extensive and well-knit empire efficiently organised and administered, rich in resources, possessed of a powerful standing army, well-tried and equal to the greatest enterprises.' The personal abilities of Rajaraja I laid the foundation for the achievements of his son and successor, Rajendra Chola, also known as Rajendra the Great. Rajendra had inherited an extensive empire comprising the whole of present-day Chennai and Andhra Pradesh and parts of Mysuru and Sri Lanka. He had benefited from a well-established, powerful bureaucracy, a strong army, and a flourishing trade system. Sastri in his book noted that 'during the thirty-three years of his reign, Rajendra turned these initial advantages to the best possible use and succeeded in raising the Chola Empire to the position of the most extensive and most respected Hindu state of the time, and one which possessed though perhaps only for a time a not inconsiderable dominion over the Malay Peninsula and the Eastern Archipelago.' The Chola kingdom stretched across present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and parts of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. During the Cholas' rise and fall (around the 9th to 12th centuries AD), other powerful dynasties also emerged and declined in the region, such as the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan, who at times defeated the Cholas, and the Chalukyas of the Andhra region, with whom the Cholas frequently engaged in battle. At the peak of their rule in the ninth and tenth centuries, the entire area south of the Tungabhadra River was brought together as a single unit under the Cholas. They were perhaps the only dynasty from Southern India to have moved north, marching into Eastern India, where Rajendra Chola is known to have defeated the Pala king Mahipala of Pataliputra. They were also the first empire with grand commercial and territorial ambitions outside of the Indian subcontinent. The Chola dynasty left many stone inscriptions and copper plate records, which have become key sources for understanding their history in recent decades. Archeometallurgist Sharada Srinivasan in conversation with Adrija Roychowdhury of The Indian Express suggested that, 'There is a profusion of inscriptions that give meticulous details about administration, social life, and material culture… The Brihadeshwara Temple alone that was consecrated in 1010 CE by Rajaraja I has nearly a hundred inscriptions.' Regarding the local administration, the Chola copper plate mentions the following entities involved in executing land grants: Nattar, Brahmadeyakkilavar, Devadana, Palliccanda, Kanimurruttu, Vettapperu-Urkalilar, and Nagarattar. Nattars were the representatives of nadu (locality). The brahmadeyakkilavars were the brahmana donees of brahmadeya (lands given to the brahmanas). Nagarattars comprised the trading community and belonged to the nagaram (settlement of a group of traders). Devadana, palliccanda, kavimurruttu, and Vettaperu have been identified as a tax-free village. As a constituent of administrative structuring the nadu was important, but it incorporated and represented the urs (vellanvagai villages). Thus, in the territorial sphere, nadu comprised vellanvagai villages. Nattars were the important members (landholders) of the nadu (locality). There are very few inscriptions related to the vellanvagai villages. It seems that the ur being the common populace represented the section that was not literate. However, the inscriptional evidence related to Ur, which is found in the temples, is attributed to literate groups. The functions of the ur included: supervision of village lands viz. activities related to sale, purchase and gift. An important prerequisite for becoming a member of the ur was to be a holder of land. Nadu: a locality consisting of many settlements, in early medieval south India Nagaram: market or commercial centre in early medieval south Induia Nagarattar: the corporate organization of the nagaram. Nattar: leading men of the nadu in early medieval south India Mandapika: a local entre of exchange, in between small periodic markets and larger trade entres. Various kinds of taxes existed in the Chola dynasty. NCERT textbook mentions, 'The inscriptions of the Cholas who ruled in Tamil Nadu refer to more than 400 terms for different kinds of taxes. The most frequently mentioned tax is vetti, taken not in cash but in the form of forced labour, and kadamai, or land revenue. There were also taxes on thatching the house, the use of a ladder to climb palm trees, a cess on succession to family property, etc.' Alongside this complex taxation system, temples played a crucial role in the Chola economy and society, acting as hubs that supported both religious and everyday life. Temples were the nuclei of settlements which grew around them. These were centres of craft production. Temples were also endowed with land by rulers as well as by others. The produce of this land went into maintaining all the specialists who worked at the temple and very often lived near it – priests, garland makers, cooks, sweepers, musicians, dancers, etc. In other words, temples were not only places of worship; they were the centres of economic, social and cultural life. While temples anchored the Chola economy and society on land, their naval strength extended their influence far beyond the subcontinent. Their naval might, allowed them to go as far as Malaysia and the Sumatra islands of Indonesia in their conquests. While the extent of this domination is disputed, the Cholas had strong ties with merchant groups and this allowed them to undertake impressive naval expeditions, historian Anirudh Kanisetti told The Indian Express. Maintaining a strong army and naval resources made sense for the Cholas, because, 'The period from 9th to 10th century was a violent time, where kingdoms would go to war with each other frequently,' he added. Chola's naval power can also be seen in the invasion of Anuradhapura in 993 CE by them. 'Anuradhapura, a Ceylonese political and religious capital that flourished for 1,300 years, was abandoned after an invasion in 993 CE. Hidden away in dense jungle for many years, the splendid site, with its palaces, monasteries and monuments, is now accessible once again,' the UNESCO website says. Notably, Anuradhapura is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Chola art and architecture make it one of the most prominent and culturally rich dynasties in Indian history. Archaeometallurgist Sharada Srinivasan in conversation with the Adrija Roychowdhury of The Indian Express suggests that in 'terms of the scale of accomplishments in art and architecture and the wealth of writing and epigraphic records, the Cholas would come across as one of the richest dynasties in South Indian history.' The large volume of unique art and architectural feats left behind by Cholas well represents the wealth and prominence attained by them. A number of stone shrines associated with the Chola dynasty stand in the Kaveri basin, between the historical regions of Tondaimandalam and Madurai. Their territory is widely recognised as Cōl̥amaṇḍalam, 'the land of the Cholas'. From the 10th century onward, the Cholas prominently started making structural temples. A standard Chola temple was configured along an east-west axis, consisting of an entry hall (mukhamaṇḍapa), a pillared hall (ardhamaṇḍapa), a vestibule (antarāl̥a), and a sanctum (garbhagṛha) sheltered by a Tamil Draviḍa–style superstructure. Sculptures in stone and bronze, and murals adorned the exteriors and interiors of the Chola temples. However, they lacked the rhythm and flexibility of the early corpus, partly because of their large dimension. The sculptural remains in various media were not only aesthetic and religious in nature but also carried strong political connotations. As Devdutt Pattanaik writes in The Indian Express, 'Around the 10th Century Chola period, the bronze Natarajas emerged, mobile sculptures that are made using the lost wax method. Recent research has shown that the copper for these came from Sri Lanka which is possibly why the Cholas constantly fought with Sri Lanka formerly called Thambapanni, the copper land.' Additionally, the Chola era also saw some notable works in literature. Notable texts, including Periapuranam, Virasoliyam, and Jivaka-chintamani, were produced, alongside significant contributions in grammar and epic poetry. Poets like Kamban, Jayamkondar, and Ottakuttan flourished, and major grammatical works like Nannul were written. Three royal temples – the Tanjore Brihadēśvara, Gangaikoṇḍacōl̥apuram, and Darasuram Airavatēśvara – built between the 11th and 12th centuries CE, are the finest examples of the Cholas' artistic brilliance. These temples were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as the 'Great Living Chola Temples' in 1987. These state temples were laid out in a manner that they served as focal points of their capitals. These shrines not only outweigh the earlier shrines in terms of their spatial elaboration, but also in their overwhelming monumentality. Tanjore Brihadēśvara Rājarāja's Brihadēśvara temple at Tanjore of the 11th century CE is constructed on elevated ground encircled by a moat. It consists of a mukhamaṇḍapa (entry hall), an ardhamaṇḍapa (pillared hall), an antarāl̥a (vestibule), a two-levelled shrine with a circumambulatory path, and a fourteen-tiered tower, originally crowned by a gold-plated stupi (finial), and a copper kalaśa. The vimana (shrine plus superstructure) of the Brihadēśvara measures approximately 60 metres, twice the size of its predecessors. The large courtyard also features a Nandi maṇḍapa, two large gopurams (gateways) of three and five storeys, topped by a barrel-vaulted roof (śālā), the now absent brick palace of Rājarāja – which was once connected to the main temple on the north – and the allied shrine of Candēśvara. In its transition from the Pallava tradition, where gopurams served as an entrance to the temple complex, the Brihadēśvara gopurams began reflecting the aesthetics of the shrine and eventually surpassed them in size. The Brihadēśvara temple is also called Rājarājēśvaram-uṭaiyar after its patron king. It features 38 depictions of Śiva as Tripurāntaka, the four-armed, bow-wielding cosmic warrior. Of these, 37 are stone sculptures, and one is a mural. These are located on the two-storey walls, base, and gopuram of the temple. Gangaikoṇḍacōl̥apuram The Gangaikonda Cholapuram Shiva temple is often considered the pinnacle of Chola architecture, a triumphant declaration of the might and magnificence of an empire that at its peak stretched from near the banks of the Ganga in north India to parts of Sumatra, Malaysia, and Myanmar. Rājarāja's heir, Rajendra Chola I, who reigned for 30 years (1014 to 1044 AD), built Gangaikonda Cholapuram as his capital after his Army marched right up to the Ganga river, defeating the Pala kingdom of Bengal, and returned victorious. In this new town, he built a grand water tank and a Śiva temple similar in form to Tanjore Brihadēśvara. The tank, Cholagangam, was meant to be a 'Ganga-jalamayam jayasthambham', or 'a liquid pillar of victory'. Notably, where the Tanjore Brihadēśvara temple has a straight, proud tower rising up, the Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple has softer lines and curves, proclaiming more assured power and the luxury of beauty and grace. The temple today is the site of the annual Aadi Thiruvadhirai festival. Aadi is the name of the month, and Thiruvadhirai is a nakshatra (arrangement of stars and planets) linked to Lord Shiva, also believed to be the king's birth star. Traditionally, the festival involves therukoothu or road shows enacting Rajendra I's achievements. The king's statue is offered new silk robes. Darasuram Airavatēśvara The Airavatesvara temple, situated in Darasuram near Kumbakonam, was built in the 12th century CE by Rajaraja Chola II. Architecture, sculptures, paintings, bronze casting – the temple reflects the rich cultural heritage of the Chola dynasty. The temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, is named after 'Airavat', the majestic white elephant of Lord Indra. Built in the Dravidian architectural style, the maṇḍapa of temple features several Tripurāntaka images on its walls, pillars, and base. This temple, ingeniously conceived in the form of a chariot (rathamaṇḍapa), features the Tripurāntaka imagery and myth. The entire temple complex is filled with rich carvings and inscriptions that narrate stories from ancient Indian Puranas. Another important part of the temple is the musical steps. These 7 singing steps that lead to the altar are intricately carved and represent seven musical notes. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27 unveiled a commemorative coin and inaugurated an exhibition on Rajendra Chola's northern conquest. Rajendra I, the maritime monarch of the Chola dynasty, inherited a powerful kingdom from his father Rajaraja I and expansion of the Chola empire continued under him. To commemorate his successful northern expedition, Rajendra Chola, also known as Rajendra the Great or Gangaikonda Chola (the Chola who conquered Ganga), established Gangaikonda Cholapuram and ceremonially poured Ganges water brought back by his army into a vast man-made reservoir known as the Cholagangam tank, locally referred to as Ponneri. After establishing his dominance within India, Rajendra Chola I then led several successful maritime campaigns, extending the boundaries of his empire and the reputation of his dynasty as one of the foremost Naval powers of India. He has campaigns from the Ganga to Suvarnadwipa (an ancient term for islands in Southeast Asia, including Java and Sumatra) that turned the Cholas into a pan-Asian maritime empire. Arun Janardhanan of The Indian Express explains Rajendra I's naval expedition: 'In 1025 CE, he launched a naval expedition against the Srivijaya empire, targeting present-day Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand to assert trade dominance over the Malacca Strait. As historian Hermann Kulke has observed in Nagapattinam to Suvarnadwipa, the campaign was not a sporadic act of aggression but a deliberate assertion of maritime dominance and prestige.' Rajendra was also one of the only Indian monarchs to conquer territory outside the Indian subcontinent. In 1025 CE, he sent a naval expedition to Indochina, the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia. His expansion to Southeast Asia was crucial in establishing trade and cultural links with the region. Hence, influence of the Cholas can be seen in language and society of large parts of Southeast Asia as well. The deification of kings in Cambodia and Thailand as incarnations of Brahmanical Gods, for instance, is a most evident imprint of the Cholas. Prelims 1. Which Chola King returned with the water of the Ganga to sanctify and commemorate his victory at a new capital in his homeland, called Gangaikondacholapuram, after his successful campaign in the north? (a) Rajaraja I (b) Rajaraja II (c) Rajendra I (d) Rajendra II 2. Which of the following parts of a temple structure is not correctly matched? (a) entry hall : mukhamaṇḍapa (b) pillared hall : ardhamaṇḍapa (c) vestibule : gopuram (d) sanctum : garbhagṛha 3. Which of the following temples of South India is known as Dakshina Meru? (a) Kailasanathar Temple at Kanchipuram (b) Airavatesvara temple at Tanjavur (c) Brihadisvara temple at Gangaikondacholapuram (d) Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavur Mains Chola architecture represents a high watermark in the evolution of temple architecture. Discuss. (UPSC CSE 2013) (Sources: PM Modi at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, How successful were the Cholas as empire builders, Ponniyin Selvan:1 puts focus on Cholas: what happened during their rule?, Why Chola architecture represents a high watermark in the evolution of temple, NCERT, . Rajaraja I and Rajendra Chola, Art and Culture with Devdutt Pattanaik | What sculptures tell us about Indian culture) Subscribe to our UPSC newsletter. Stay updated with the latest UPSC articles by joining our Telegram channel – Indian Express UPSC Hub, and follow us on Instagram and X. 🚨 Click Here to read the UPSC Essentials magazine for July 2025. Share your views and suggestions in the comment box or at Roshni Yadav is a Deputy Copy Editor with The Indian Express. She is an alumna of the University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, where she pursued her graduation and post-graduation in Political Science. She has over five years of work experience in ed-tech and media. At The Indian Express, she writes for the UPSC section. Her interests lie in national and international affairs, governance, economy, and social issues. You can contact her via email: ... Read More
News18
14 hours ago
- News18
Why PM Modi's Visit To Gangaikonda Cholapuram Irks Dravidian Exclusivists
Because the Shiva temple and lost city are a testament to the greatest southern emperor Rajendra Chola's reverence for the sacred northern river Ganga Before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Brihadeeswarar temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram last weekend, how many Indians knew about its existence? How many clever ones thought he had visited the one in Thanjavur (with the same name) and just got his geography mixed up? How many know/knew that Emperor Rajendra Chola had conquered territories northwards right up to the Ganga and built a temple and capital to commemorate it? Cheerleaders of the cynical ideological campaign to assert that north and south India have no common cultural and religious beliefs and were only artificially united by the Mughals and then the British would want ignorance to prevail. They would want more people to believe that there was no 'India" before the British—or at least not before the Mughals. Modi's visit there, however, has turned the spotlight on some facts that bust that long-standing divisive narrative. Gangaikonda Cholapuram, even though it is now just a nondescript town in Tamil Nadu with one majestic temple jutting out into the sky, is a testament to the importance of Ganga—a sacred north Indian river and deity—even in Dravidian south India. The current dispensation in Tamil Nadu will also not be pleased by Modi focussing attention on a place and a king whose reverence for a northern Indian entity bespeaks a cultural confluence contrary to its political stance. But while it was there, it was magnificent. There are references in Tamil literature of multistoried palaces, grand gateways, avenues, and even highways named after Rajaraja and Rajendra Chola connecting the city with other parts of the kingdom. And every Chola ruler thereafter was crowned there, even if he decided to rule from elsewhere for some time. And the grandest assertion of the widespread power of the Chola dynasty was the creation of Cholagangam. KA Nilakanta Sastri, in his seminal book The Cholas, cited the Tiruvalangadu Copper Plates to assert that Rajendra Chola commissioned a 'liquid pillar of victory"—Ganga-Jalamayam Jayastambham—in his new capital in the form of the tank, which came to be known as Cholagangam. Contemporary Tamil literature chronicles that representatives of all the kingdoms he conquered were ordered to bring Ganga water in golden pots and pour it into the vast tank. The sanctified tank was created to serve the new imperial city, fill its protective moat, and irrigate nearby fields by diverting water from the Kollidam River. When full, it used to have a water spread of 130 sq km, but the grand manmade lake, the largest in the subcontinent for many centuries and a shining example of Chola engineering and water management, has now been bifurcated by a state road and lies depleted and choked due to neglect from the colonial era onwards. So it was no coincidence that a few days before last week's visit by the PM, Tamil Nadu's chief minister MK Stalin, suddenly woke up to Rajendra Chola's 'birth anniversary", celebrated as the Aadi Thiruvathirai festival, to announce a Rs 19 crore project to revive the water body and build tourism infrastructure there! The PM then also released a commemorative coin at Gangaikonda Cholapuram and announced statues of the father-son duo, Rajaraja I and Rajendra Chola. An imminent tug of war over the Chola legacy seems inevitable between the Centre and the aggressive Tamil Nadu state government, determined to assert Dravidian exclusivism and encourage a disconnect from all things north Indian. What the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK)'s ideologues will find tough to brush under the dhurrie, though, is the huge importance of north India's premier and revered river Ganga for Rajendra Chola and all his descendants. For, as long as the Chola dynasty lasted—for the next 256 years—there was a powerfully symbolic Ganga in the south, albeit as a tank, in its capital city. And many copper plates and stone inscriptions of Chola rulers—and even those of the Pandya and Vijayanagara rulers who came later—record villages handed over for tax-free maintenance of the Gangaikondacholiswarar temple in the now-razed city. The lake was renamed Ponneri ('golden") later, during the Vijayanagara era. Shiva as Gangadhara—holder of the Ganga—has been praised in Tamil literature of that time, notably in the Thiruvisaippa compositions of Karuvur Devar, who lived during the reigns of Rajaraja and Rajendra Chola. Interestingly, in the war poem Kalingattuparani by Jayan Kondar, based on the victorious Odisha campaign of Kulottunga I (Rajendra Chola's grandson) in 1110, Gangaikonda Cholapuram is mentioned simply as Gangapuri. The river and the city were inseparable. There is no clarity on what or who caused that imperial city to be razed except for the temple, but more was lost than just fine examples of Chola architecture, obviously. Some will believe that the Pandya who vanquished the last Chola ruler and retook control of the region in 1279 destroyed the city, but why then would there be inscriptions of later Pandya donations to the temple? And why is there no epigraphic evidence of such a vengeful act by any of the Pandya rulers? A more plausible explanation, at least for the initial decimation of the temple capital, could be the marauding Islamic armies of the rising Delhi Sultanate, first by Malik Kafur in 1311, Khizr Khan in 1314, and then Mohammed bin Tughlaq in 1327. Even if everything had not been flattened, the temples and palaces would have been impoverished by the invaders carrying off their riches, and their primacy would never have recovered despite some later donations from the Vijayanagara monarchs. By the time the Nawab of Arcot's armies reached there during the 18th century, the magnificent multi-storied Chola palaces, commercial buildings, and public infrastructure had become mere piles of stones. No wonder the British East India Company's army used the temple premises as a garrison and also helped themselves later to the giant stones of the temple's periphery, the city's boundary fortification, and even the bund wall for their own engineering projects. The Tamil Nadu government is conducting excavations in the area surrounding the Gangaikondacholishwarar temple—now called Brihadeeswarar, like the one in the earlier Chola capital, Thanjavur—in Ariyalur to unearth the city Rajendra Chola built after capturing the Ganga. This probably has much to do with the designation of both Brihadeeswarars along with Airavateshwara in Darasuram as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as they are 'Great Living Chola Temples". top videos View all Hopefully, more inscriptions will also be found to add to the information already garnered from those on the walls of the Gangaikondacholishwarar temple and throw some light on how, when, and why the city around it was destroyed and/or left to crumble. And also, perhaps, reveal why the Cholagangam—a holy tank befitting its consecration by Ganga water—became merely Ponneri (golden) in a millennium, thereby obliterating a very evocative north-south cultural bond. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18's views. tags : Chola Dravidian ganga Tamil Nadu view comments Location : New Delhi, India, India First Published: July 31, 2025, 03:56 IST News opinion Opinion | Why PM Modi's Visit To Gangaikonda Cholapuram Irks Dravidian Exclusivists Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
