THE WORLD'S LONGEST RULING DYNASTY

We have absolutely no authentic information regarding the origin of the name Chola. Col. Gerini connected the word with Sanskrit Kala (black) and with Kola which in the early days designated the dark-colored pre-Aryan population of southern India in general.

Bhandarkar connected it with Sanskrit ‘Chora ‘(thief) while it has been connected with ‘Colam’ which means millet in Tamil. Killi, Valavan and Sembiyan are the other names of the Cholas.

The Cholas adopted the tiger as their crest which figured on their banner.

The Chola dominion came to be known as Tondaimandalam or Cholamandalam in early medieval times with the capital at Uraiyur in Tiruchirapalli district and subsequently at Kaverippumpattinam or Puhar founded by the Chola king Karikal, a contemporary of the Chera King Perunjeral Adan.

In the middle of the 2nd century BC, it seems that a Chola king called Elara conquered Sri Lanka and ruled over it for nearly 50 years.

Karikala, the foremost among the Sangam Cholas, was the son of Ilanjetcenni. Karikala means ‘the man with the charred leg’. It is said that in his early life he was kidnapped and imprisoned by his enemies, who subsequently set the prison on fire.

While he was passing through the fire, his leg was caught in the flames and charred and so, it is said, he was called Karikala.

In later times, under Sanskritic influences, the name was explained as Death (Kala) to ‘Kali’ or death to (‘enemies’) elephants.

Karikala Chola was a very competent ruler and a great warrior. He fought a great battle at Venni in which the Pandyas and the Cheras both suffered crushing defeats. In this battle eleven minor chieftains were also uprooted. He again defeated a confederacy of nine minor chieftains in a battle at Vakaipparandalai.

With this victory, he established his hold over the entire Tamil country. Karikala maintained a powerful navy, which he used to conquer Sri Lanka, from where he brought a large number of prisoners of war whom he used for building a huge embankment of 160 km to the Kaveri River.

This was built with the labour of 12,000 slaves brought as captives from Sri Lanka. He made Puhar or Kaverippumapattinaml important port and an alternative capital of Chola kingdom.

After the death of Karikala, his dominion steeped in utter confusion as a result of a strife in the Chola family.

Perunarkilli was another Chola king who is only one among the Sangam kings who perform the Rajasuya sacrifice attended by Chera M Venko and Pandya Ugra Peruvaludi.

Koccenganan became the next Chola king, generally known for his religious zeal. The Next Chola king was Ilanjetcenni who captured the fortresses (Seruppali and Pamulur) from the Senganan, the Chola king famed in legend for devotion to Siva, figures as the victor in battle Por against the Chera Kanaikkal Irumporai. Senganan Chola is said to have built 70 fine temples of Siva. With the rise of Pallavas, the Choi became only a marginal force in South Indf history.

The Cholas enjoyed a lot of power and prestige during the Sangam age; the Sangam literature de-scribes a number of Chola princes of exemplary character. Gradually, however, they declined in strength and were relegated to the status of a feudatory.

They became subordinate to the Rashtrakutas, the Chalukyas and the Pallavas. Around the middle of the ninth century, they asserted their independence, revived their strength and made a determined bid to become the chief power in the South.

Their efforts were successful and their empire contained all the territories to the south of the River Tungabhadra along with a number of islands in the Arabian Sea. For more than two hundred years, they were the supreme power of South India influencing the politics, the arts, and the culture of the region.

The founder of the later Chola empire was Vijayalaya, who was at first a feudatory of the Pallavas. He captured Thanjavur in 850.

By the end of the ninth century, Vijayalaya’s successor, Aditya I Chola, wiped out the Pallavas of Kanchi and weakened the Pandyas, thus bringing the southern Tamil country under his control.

In the beginning, the Cholas were hard put to defend their position against the Rashtrakutas, but towards the end of the tenth century Chola power rapidly rose. Parantaka I (907-955) captured Madurai but was defeated by the Rashtrakuta ruler, Krishna III, at the battle of Takkolam, and he lost Tondaimandalam. But his grandson, Sundara-Chola, overcame the Rashtrakuta ruler and wrested Tondaimandalam from him.

After this the empire began to shrink. By 1118, the Chola Empire was confined to the Tamil region and a relatively small area of the adjoining Telugu districts. Kulottunga III (1178-1210) was the last great Chola monarch, who remained involved in the Pandyan wars of succession and sacked the Pandya capital in 1205.

The Chalukyan Empire disappeared at the end of the 12th century and the Chola Empire tottered at the beginning of the 13th century. The place of the Cholas was taken by the Pandyas and the Hoysalas in the south, and that of the later Chalukyas by the Yadavas and the Kakatiyas. For a century thereafter, the history of South India is the history of these four kingdoms and their mutual antago-nisms.

Minor powers like the Telugu-Cholas of Nellore played their part as auxiliaries to the chief powers. The period was marked by no striking developments in polity or society, although industry, trade and the arts continued to flourish with their normal vigor.

The Muslim invasions of the Deccan which began towards the end of the thirteenth century upset all the four kingdoms and caused a period of confusion terminated by the rise and expansion of the Bahmani and Vijaynagar kingdoms in the second quarter of the 14th century.

There is not much information about the history of the Chera country during 850-1200. There are inscriptions of the several kings of the ninth century of whom Sthanuravi, a contemporary of Aditya I Chola, was the most important, and the Syrian Christian Kottayam copper plates are associated with him. He was perhaps succeeded by Vijayaragadeva.

Among the kings who followed, Bhaskara Ravivarman (1047-1106) deserves mention. Srivallabhan Kodai and Govardhana Martandavarman of Venad were his contemporaries.

Under Rajaraja I Chola and his successors, Chola rule extended over the bulk of Chera country. The region revolted during the troubles preceding the accession of Kulottunga I who reconquered the Chera country and established military colonies in south Chera country.

In the twelfth century there are inscriptions of the rulers of Venad, identified with Cheranadu; one of these rulers was conquered by Parantaka Pandya, a feudatory of Vikrama Chola (1118-35).

Sadly such a strong empire finds hardly any mention in our history books.

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