History Optional (Chola Empire) by Shivlal Gupta

Model Answer

Question #1. Explain the growth of Chola influence during the reigns of Rajaraja and Rajendra I, and evaluate their cultural contributions to the Chola dynasty. 10 marks (150 words)

Approach

• The question focuses on the dimensions of 1)the growth of Chola influence during the reigns of Rajaraja and Rajendra I, 2)their cultural contributions to the Chola dynasty.
• Introduction (Summary of key demand of the question, along with necessary facts).
• Conclusion by summing up the gist of the answer.

The Chola dynasty, one of the most prominent and influential dynasties in the history of South India, experienced significant growth in both territorial expansion and cultural contributions during the reigns of Rajaraja I (reigned from 985 to 1014 CE) and his son Rajendra I (reigned from 1014 to 1044 CE). Their rule is often considered the zenith of Chola power and culture.

Growth of Chola Influence:

• Territorial Expansion:
• Rajaraja I: During his reign (985-1014 CE), Rajaraja I embarked on a series of military campaigns that expanded the Chola Empire significantly. His conquests included the Pandya Kingdom, parts of the Chera Kingdom, and the Chalukya territories in the Deccan.
• Rajendra I: His reign (1014-1044 CE) saw the continuation of Chola territorial expansion. Rajendra I's most notable achievement was the Gangaikonda Cholapuram Expedition, where he defeated the Pala Empire in Bengal and extended Chola influence up to the Ganges River in the north.
• Naval Dominance:
• Rajendra I: Rajendra I's naval expeditions strengthened Chola maritime influence. He built a powerful navy that dominated the Indian Ocean, allowing for trade and cultural exchange with Southeast Asian kingdoms and Sri Lanka.
• Administrative Efficiency:
• Rajaraja I: He introduced administrative reforms like the "Mahanadu" system, which improved revenue collection and governance. These reforms facilitated the efficient management of the expanded Chola territories.

Cultural Contributions:

• Temple Architecture:
• Rajaraja I: He constructed the Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur, one of the most magnificent examples of Chola temple architecture. This temple showcased the Cholas' architectural prowess, with its towering vimana (shrine) and intricate carvings.
• Rajendra I: He built the Gangaikonda Cholapuram Temple, another masterpiece of Chola architecture. These temples served as centers of both religious worship and cultural patronage.
• Bronze Sculptures:
• Both Rajaraja and Rajendra I: The Chola period is renowned for its bronze sculptures of Hindu deities. These sculptures, often found in Chola temples, displayed exceptional artistry and a high level of craftsmanship.
• Literature and Patronage:
• Rajaraja I: He was known for his patronage of Tamil literature and poetry. His court saw the composition of several literary works, including "Rajarajeswaram," which celebrated his reign.
• Rajendra I: He continued his father's patronage of literature. The Chola kings themselves were scholars and poets, contributing to the rich literary tradition of the time.
• Music and Dance:
• Both Rajaraja and Rajendra I: The Cholas were patrons of music and dance, contributing to the development of classical dance forms like Bharatanatyam. The inscriptions in the Brihadeeswara Temple reference various dance forms and music.

Cultural Exchange:

• Sri Lanka:
• Both Rajaraja and Rajendra I: Chola influence in Sri Lanka expanded significantly during their reigns. They established Chola-style temples on the island, which left a lasting impact on Sri Lankan culture and art.
• Historian Paranavitana in "Ceylon and the Cholas" discusses the impact of Chola rule on Sri Lanka, highlighting how Chola-style temples were established on the island, contributing to Sri Lankan art and culture.
• Southeast Asia:
• Rajendra I: His naval expeditions fostered cultural exchange with Southeast Asian kingdoms. Indian culture, religion, and art spread to places like Srivijaya, Cambodia, and Java, influenced by Chola cultural exports.
• Historian George Coedes in his book "The Indianized States of Southeast Asia" explores the influence of Indian culture, including that of the Cholas, on Southeast Asian kingdoms. He notes that Chola maritime activities facilitated cultural exchange with regions like Srivijaya.

The reigns of Rajaraja I and Rajendra I marked a period of unprecedented growth in Chola influence, both in terms of territorial expansion and cultural contributions. Their military conquests, naval prowess, administrative reforms, and patronage of art, literature, and religion left an enduring legacy in South Indian history. Furthermore, their cultural exchange with neighboring regions, particularly Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, contributed to the dissemination of Indian culture and Chola traditions, making them pivotal figures in the history of the Chola dynasty and Indian civilization. 

Question #2. Evaluating various theories regarding the Chola State, throw light on its village assemblies. 15 marks (250 words)

Approach:

• Briefly introduce the Chola
• Discuss various theories regarding the Chola
• Discuss village assemblies of the Chola
• Conclusion

Hints:

The Cholas were the most dominant rulers in South India (present day Tamil Nadu) in the early medieval period, from the 9thto the 13thcentury. The major core of the Chola political authority was in the Kaveri Basin, with secondary ‘central zones’ of the Chola state in other river valleys of the Southern peninsula: the Ponnaiyar and Cheyyar in the northern Tamil plain, and the Vaigai and Tambraparni valleys in the South. The Chola state is believed to have had an elaborate administrative structure which dealt with a large number of autonomous lower level political units such as the mandala –province, valanadu – district and nadu – group of villages.

• Highly centralised state
• The first systematic attempt to describe the nature of the Chola state was made by A.NilakantaSastri in the 1920s and 30s. He viewed the Chola state to be a  highly centralized, bureaucratic empire bulwarked by an efficient bureaucracy and sustained,  on one side, by a comprehensive revenue system and, on the other, by a strong coercive power. It was founded on the model of post Gupta north Indian kingdoms which had strong brahmanical elements and a well organized central, provincial and local administration. However, within this polity Sastri also identified a large number of autonomous villages. The accommodation of two contradictory forces i.e. imperial centralization and local autonomy suggests that his conception of the Chola state was not faultless.
• Feudal State
• Second state model is Feudal which was produced by S. Sharma and his follower such as D.N. Jha, B.N.S. Yadav and R.N. Nandi focusing on production relations in the fief and the decline of trade in medieval period. According to Sharma, a major cause of feudalism in India was the land grants to Brahmans, religious institutions and officials with the given the rights of ownership with the legal action and freedom from taxation. They encroached on communal lands of villages and slowly reduced these villagers to serfdom. This development was partly caused and further aggravated by a decline of urbanism and trade.

• Politically, this development was characterized by a continuous process of fragmentation and decentralization caused by the widespread practice of granting territories to vassals and officials who established themselves as independent Socially,  this  period was characterized by a proliferation of castes and the gradual decay of the economic and social status of the Vaishyas and Shudras. These two Varnas eventually became indistinguishable from each other, while the Kshatriyas and Brahmins became akin to the feudal lords of Europe.
• C. Sirkar critiques that the Indian Feudalism Model defended its argument that the Brahmins performed the same tasks as the military officials in Europe but only in a different approach. Thus, Brahmins provided legitimisation to their rulers in several ways.
• The Segmentary State
• The Segmentary State is an anthropological model developed by Burton Stein utilized this model to describe the state formation under the Cholas and the Pallavas. Southall describes the Segmentary State as a state where the spheres of ritual suzerainty and political sovereignty do not coincide. The former extends widely towards a flexible changing periphery. The latter is confined to the central core domain. The Stein divided into 3 zone- centre, intermediate and peripheral. He divides the entire territory on the basis of inscription.
• In this theory, the king as having enjoyed only limited territorial sovereignty. The element of centrality existed only in the core area even where the presence of semi-autonomous foci of administration was tolerated by the He had no political authority over the surrounding segments. The real foci of power are suggested to have been the locality level centres or Nadus. He also denied the existence of a Chola standing army, arguing that military power was distributed among various groups including peasants, merchants and artisans.
• Southall criticized the points of Stein’s denial of the king’s political authority over segments other than his According to him, a king has political authority was combined with his ritual authority in the case of Hindu Kingdoms. For e.g.the temple of Rajarajeshwara shows his own greatness and the unchallenged prestige of the state by building this temple.
• It depicts the ritual sovereignty of the king over the whole country. Rajaraja granted to the temple state revenue accruing from as many as 40 villages in Cholamandalam, the core area of the state and 16 villages in the conquered area (Karnataka, Sri Lanka). It shows also well- developed bureaucracy for revenue collection. The various departments called puravwari comprised various offices, functions and feature. They invoked the Siva cult by constructing temples across the
• He view that the peasant society of the Cholas, which was presented as united structured one, on the primary bonds being those of kingship and marriage, was in effect an extremely stratified society, vertically divided into numerous These segments created a highly pyramidal which encourage the series of relationships between the centre and the peripheries. Each of these segments had a specialised administrative staff. It also had a large amount of centres, and all the features of a dual sovereignty consisting of political as well as ritual sovereignty.
• Stein distinguishes sharply between actual political control on one side and ritual sovereignty on the other. All the centres of the segmentary state do exercise actual political control over their own parts or segmentary but only one centre of extending ritual sovereignty beyond its own
• Stein’s description of the early medieval south Indian state as a peasant state is even more questionable and seems to represent an extreme reaction to the idea of highly centralized monarch. The existence of corporate village organizations does not indicate that peasants exercised political power at a high level.

• Hermann Kulke has questioned Stein’s concept of ritual sovereignty. According to him, in a traditional society, particularly in India, ritual sovereignty seems to be an integral part and sometimes even a pace maker of political power. These inscriptions were documents of a systematic ritual policy which was as much a part of the general “power policy” as for instance, economic or military
• A key of the segmentary state theory was also the so called Brahaman peasant alliance at the The peasant is always known to have been exploited by the Brahaman and Kshatriya combination. The creation of Valanadu (larger than the nadu but smaller than a mandalam) by RajaRaja and kulottunga I is an indicator of the administration innovation and hence direct intervention by the Chola Central authority.
• Integrated polity model
• Another model proposed by D. Chattopadhyaya was called the integrated polity model. In this model, he interprets the early medieval period as a ‘period of state formation’ not disintegration. It means the transformation of pre-state polities into state polities, thus the integration of local polities into structures that transcended the bounds of local polities.
• This integrative development was based on and accompanied by a series of processes like peasantization the emergence and spatial extending of ruling lineages by processes called Kshatriya; interspersing the dynastic domain and its hinterlands with network of royally patronized religious institutions and land assignments to officials, Moreover, state formation implies that there was an existence of resources capable of generating surplus.
• Chattopadhyaya further argues that while land grants were important in country, they did not represent a complete breakdown of imperial authority. He further argued that land- grants gave too much importance under the Indian Feudalism model while other factors such as the frequent invasions and continuing authority of the kings had been
• According to Hermann Kulke, The multiplicity of local and regional power is the result of the extension of monarchical state society into areas and communities tribal, non-monarchical
• Alternative model:
• Noboru Karashima and KesavanVeluthat have attempted an alternative model for understanding the nature of the Chola They have attempted a systematic application of the idea of feudalism to the socio-economic formation in the early medieval period in south India and have called it a “Feudal State”. The research of Karashima indicates that several titles in Chola inscriptions refer to administrative offices and that the Chola kings made certain attempts to centralized their administration.
• James Heitzman and Y. Subbarayaluhas preferred to call the Chola state an ‘Early State’. According to this model, the Chola state was a centralised socio-political organisation, in a complex stratified and extremely unequal society, which consisted of the rulers and  the Heitzman says that royal political unification took place under the Cholas. The Chola kings remained ritual leaders but aspired to be managers in the Arthashastra style.

Heitzman says that the success of royal integrative policies depended on local variables of geography. The most striking feature of the Chola rule was the rapid decline of royal influence with increasing trend towards decentralized. James Heitzman elaborates that the underlying dynamics of state formation rested on the ability of these agencies to give direction to the aspirations of the village elite. Political and economic leadership, within a predominantly agrarian economy, rested on the possession of land or came from control exercised over profits accruing from land. Heitzman the Chola polity was an ‘Early State’ since its agrarian base and the political power of its landed elite were at a rather nascent stage of development.

Village assemblies of the Chola:

1. Village (local self) Administration : An important feature of the Chola administration was the village People of a village looked after administration through their own elected bodies. The Chola inscriptions mention the existence of two types of villages Ur and Brahmadeya Villages. Ur had its own local assembly, consisting of all the male members of the village excluding untouchables.

It looked after all aspects of the village administration. The Brahmadeya villages (Agraharas) were granted by the King to learned brahmins. They had their own assemblies called Mahasabhas, which had complete freedom in governance.

Uttarameruru inscription of Paratanka – I, gives us detailed information about the village administration. (Uttarameruru is in the Chengulpet district of Tamilnadu). The villages enjoyed complete independence in the management of local affairs. Two kinds of assemblies existed which were.

Ur or Urar (kuri) and TheMahasabha.

According to the Uttarameruru inscription, Uttarameruru village was divided into 30 parts (Kudumbu). One member from each unit was elected for a period of one year. The representatives of the people were elected through a lucky draw (Kuduvalai) system.

Villagers assembled in the temple and conducted an election through a lucky draw. The names of the candidates were written on palm leaves and put in a pot. Then a small boy was asked to pick out the leaves one after the other in the presence of the people and thus the representatives were elected.

Elected representatives had to work in the Annual, Garden (Tottavariyam) and Tank Bund (Erivariyam) committees called ‘VariyamsUThe representatives were called ‘Variya Perumakka P. The village assemblies were autonomous and democratic institutions.

2. Duties of the committees: The village committees performed duties like the protection of the village properties, collection of taxes and the protection of temples, lakes, groves, and forests, etc. The resolutions of the committees were written The central administration did not interfere in the village administration.
3. Minimum qualifications of members: The Uttarameruru inscription deals with rules and regulations regarding the election, the qualifications and disqualifications of These committees worked for 360 days when fresh elections were held.

• Qualifications needed for a member to be elected:
• The candidate should possess a minimum of 1/2 acre of taxable
• He should reside in his own house built on his own
• Candidate should be more than 35 years old and less than 70 years of
• Candidate should have knowledge of Vedas, Brahmanakas, and
• Candidate should possess a good

4. Disqualifications of members : A member was disqualified for reelection, if he had been a member of any committee continuously for the previous 3 years. Those who were in the committee and who had not submitted accounts and their close relatives. Persons who were wicked, cheats, alcoholics, thieves, accused of murdering brahmins and committing

This way, certain minimum qualifications, and disqualifications were enforced in the village administration. Scholars have termed the Chola village administration as “Small Democratic States”.