Revisiting Chola dynasty and Rajendra I's achievements: Insights into governance, society, architecture, and more

Indian Express

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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, egyankosh.ac.in, NCERT, .tamilnadutourism.tn.gov.in, whc.unesco.org, Rajaraja I and Rajendra Chola, Art and Culture with Devdutt Pattanaik | What sculptures tell us about Indian culture)
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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: [e-mail] ... Read More