The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c35.s3.16

c35.s3.16

The observations of Hiuen Tsang give an interesting notice of the Chola kingdom in the first half of that century, the significance of which has not been fully appreciated by commentators on his travels. His visit to the South, when he penetrated as far as Kānchī, the Pallava capital, may be dated with certainty in the year A. D. 640. At that time the kingdom of Chola (Chu-li-ya) was a restricted territory estimated to be 400 or 500 miles in circuit, with a small capital town barely 2 miles in circumference. The country was wild and mostly deserted, consisting of a succession of hot marshes and jungles, occupied by a scanty population, of ferocious habits, addicted to open brigandage. The few Buddhist monasteries were ruinous, and the monks dwelling in them as dirty as the buildings. The prevailing religion was Jainism, but there were a few Brahmanical temples. The position of the country is indicated as being some 200 miles or less to the south-west of Amarāvatī. It must, therefore, be identified with a portion of the Ceded Districts, and more especially with the Cuddapah District, which possesses the hot climate and other characteristics noted by the pilgrim, and was still notorious for brigandage when annexed by the British in 1800. The pilgrim speaks merely of the 'country' of Chola, and makes no mention of a king; doubtless for the reason that the local Rāja was a person of small importance, subordinate to the reigning Pallava king of Kānchī, the powerful Narasimhavarman, who two years later destroyed the Chalukya power.¹ The correctness of this interpretation of Hiuen Tsang's notice of the Chola principality is demonstrated by the discovery in the Cuddapah District of stone inscriptions of local Chola Rājas engraved in characters anterior to the eighth century.²