The Colas c28.10
The Cōḷas c28.10
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c28.10.1
No picture of the social divisions in South India under the Cōḷas will be complete without a reference to the broad division of the industrial population of the country into the Right-Hand and Left-Hand, *Valangai* and *Iḍangai* divisions. The quarrels among these divisions often threatened to fill the streets of Madras with blood in the days of the East India Company. The origin of this division is unknown.¹⁸ Legend ascribes it to the design of Karikāla Cōḷa and also, with more plausibility, to a famous occasion when the two sections of the population laid their disputes before a Cōḷa king, one party standing on the right hand side of the monarch, the other taking a position on the left.¹⁹ Several regiments of the army were counted as of the *Valangai* in the reign of Rājarāja I,²⁰ and this section is also mentioned in an inscription of the third year of Rājēndra I from Tiruviśalūr.²¹ In the second year of Kulōttunga I, a clash between the Right and Left hand castes resulted in the burning of the village (Rājamahendra-caturvēdimangalam, Papanasam tq. Tanjore dt.), the destruction of its sacred places, and the looting of the temple treasury by robbers. The property left was not safe in the temple. For the rehabilitation of the place, the *sabhā* borrowed 50 *kalañjus* of fineness half *māttu* less than that of *Rājēndraśōḷan-māḍai* which with interest for one year amounted to 75 *kalañjus*.
c28.10.2
Of this sum, 5 *kalañjus* were spent in the third year on renovation and reconsecration of the temple, and the balance for the purchase of some lands and for making them tax free for the upkeep of the temple. The inscription giving this decision regarding remission of taxes was recorded in the eleventh year of Kulōttunga I, and, for some unknown reason, at Śrīrangam.21a There is a curious inscription of the reign of Kulōttunga III which gives the earliest account so far known of the beliefs of the *Iḍangai* classes regarding their origin.²² They claimed to have been created from the *agnikuṇḍa* (fire-pit) for the protection of the sacrifice of Kaśyapa, and to have settled in the Cōḷa country in the time of the emperor Arindama; this emperor imported a large colony of holy Brahmins from Antarvēdi, and the *Iḍangai* classes accompanied these Brahmin colonists as the bearers of their slippers and their umbrellas. They got some lands in five villages, all of them now in the Trichinopoly district, and had long lost the memory of their origin when they recovered it about A.D. 1128. They then entered into a compact among themselves to the effect that they should thenceforth behave like sons of the same parents. 'If anything derogatory happens to the *Iḍangai* class, we will jointly assert our rights till we establish them.
c28.10.3
It is also understood that only those who, during their congregational meetings to settle communal disputes, display the *birudas* of horn, bugle and parasol shall belong to our class. Those who have to recognise us now and hereafter, in public, must do so from our distinguishing symbols—the feather of the crane and the loose-hanging hair. The horn and the conch-shell shall also be sounded in front of us and the bugle blown according to the fashion among the *Iḍangai* people. Those who act in contravention to these rules shall be treated as the enemies of our class. Those who behave differently from the rules (thus) prescribed for the conduct of *Iḍangai* classes shall be excommunicated and shall not be recognised as *Śrutimāns*. They will be considered slaves of the classes who are opposed to us.’ This record was engraved at Ūṭṭattūr and Tiruppaññili by the *Śrutimāns* of the area. The ninety-eight sub-sects of the *Iḍangai* are again mentioned in a later inscription from Āḍutuṟai,²³ which records the hardships to which these sub-sects were exposed at the hands of the Vanniye tenants and the Brāhmaṇa and Veḷḷāḷa landlords, backed by government officials. In 1227 the *nāṭṭavar* of eleven *nāḍus* of Milāḍu (which comprised 79 *nāḍus* in all) met in Tiruvalañjuram-uḍaiyār temple at Varañjuram (Kallakurichi tq. S. Arcot dt.) to admit into the *Iḍangai* group the two classes of people known as Malayamakkaḷ and Nattamakkaḷ, and take an oath to keep to this settlement for ever;
c28.10.4
the same oath is taken by other *Iḍangai* people of the area—*Iḍangaittanattom*. Such are the beginnings of an obscure, but deep-seated antagonism between two sections of the populace which often burst into open hostilities in later days. At Kāñcīpuram the *Valangai* and *Iḍangai* sects would not worship in the same temple, or use the same pavilion (*maṇḍapa*) for religious purposes,²⁴ and the division affected even the class of courtesans and dancing girls.²⁵