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Tribes in Ancient India c47: Chapter XLIII. Cōḷas

Tribes in Ancient India c47

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Chapter XLIII. Cōḷas

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In the earliest time of which we have any record, the Tamiḻagam or Tamil realm, as Dr. Barnett thinks, extended over the greater part of the modern Madras Presidency, its boundaries being on the north a line running approximately from Pulicat on the coast to Venkatagiri (Tirupati), on the east the Bay of Bengal, on the south Cape Comorin, and on the west the Arabian Sea as far north as the ‘White Rock’ near Badagara, to the south of Mahi. Malabar was included in it.¹ It consisted of three kingdoms, those of the Pāṇḍyas, Cōḷas and Chēras or Keralas. The Cōḷa kingdom stretched along the eastern coast, from the river Penner to the Veḷḷāṟ, and on the west reaching to about the borders of Coorg. According to tradition, the Cōḷa country comprised the land between two streams having the same name, Veḷḷāṟu, in the north and the south, the sea on the east and Kōṭṭaikkarai in the west. The area included the modern districts of Trichinopoly and Tanjore and part of the Pudukottah State.² Its capital was Uraiyūr (old Trichinopoly). Kāvirī-paṭṭinam or Pugar on the northern bank of the river Kāverī was its great port while Kāñchī (modern Conjeeveram) was one of its chief towns. Uraiyūr corresponds to Sanskrit Uragapūra.

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¹ Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 595.

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² K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Cōḷas, Chap. II, p. 22.

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Negapatam, about 10 miles south of Kāraikkāl, also on the seaboard, was perhaps known to Ptolemy as an important town; at any rate it became a centre of trade and of many religions including Buddhism long before it attracted the attention of European merchants and missionaries. Tanjore, Trichinopoly and Kumbakonam are the present notable cities of the former Cōḷa country. Gangaikonḍa-Cōḷapuram, at the meeting point of the modern districts of Trichinopoly, S. Arcot and Tanjore, rose to prominence as the Cōḷa capital in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

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The Cōḷa country was thus drained by the river Kāverī and comprised the districts of Trichinopoly and Tanjore.³ The river Kāverī is often alluded to and associated with the name of the Cōḷas in South Indian inscriptions. Thus we learn from a South Indian inscription⁴ that Hara asked Gunabhara: ‘How could I, standing in a temple on earth, view the great power of the Cōlas or the river Kāverī?' From another inscription we learn that the Cālukya king Pulakesin II crossed the river Kāverī with his victorious army to enter the Cōla country when 'the Kāverī had her current obstructed by the causeway formed by his elephants'. The glory of the Kāverī forms an inexhaustible theme of early Tamil poetry. According to the *Maṇimēkhalai*,¹ this noble stream was released from his water-pot by the sage Agastya in response to the prayer of the king Kānta and for the exaltation of the 'children of the sun'. She was the special banner of the just race of the Cōlas, and she never failed them in the most protracted drought. The yearly freshes in the Kāverī formed the occasion of a carnival in which the whole nation from the king down to the meanest peasant took part.² The origin of the name Cōla is uncertain. The *Parimēlaḷagar* is inclined to make it the name, like Pāṇḍya and Cēra, of a ruling family or clan of antiquity. The story of the eponymous brothers Cēran, Śōḷan and Pāṇḍiyan is indeed suggestive. The name Cōla, however, indicated from the earliest times the people as well as the country subject to the Cōla dynasty of rulers. Col. Gerini wrongly connects the word Cōla with the Sanskrit Kāla (black) and with Kōla which denoted in the early days the black or dark coloured pre-Aryan population of Southern India in general. The effort to derive it similarly from Tamil 'Cōḷam' (millet) or Sanskrit 'Cōra' (thief) seems unsound. Other names generally used for the Cōlas are Kiḷḷi, Vaḷavan and Śembiyan. Kiḷḷi probably comes from 'Kiḷ' (dig) meaning a 'digger'; this word forms an integral part of early Cōla names like Neḍungilli and so on which is not found in later Cōla names. Vaḷavan probably comes from 'Vaḷam' (fertility) and means owner of a fertile country, like the land of the Kāverī. Śembiyan is generally taken to mean a descendant of Śibi, a legendary hero whose self-sacrifice in saving a dove from the pursuit of a falcon figures among the early Cōla legends and forms the theme of the *Sibi Jātaka* among the Jātaka stories of Buddhism.³

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³ Ray Chaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 4th Ed., p. 271.

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⁴ Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions, Vol. I, p. 34.

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¹ I, 9-12; 23-4.

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² *Maṇimēkhalai*, p. 23.

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³ Ibid., p. 25.

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The Cōla kings were alleged to belong to the tribe of Tiraiyar or 'Men of the Sea'. Their connection with the sea is probably indicated by the following reference of Aelian to the realm of Soras (Chola?) and its chief city: 'There is a city which a man of royal extraction called Soras governed at the time when Eukratides governed the Bactrians, and the name of that city is Perimuda. It is inhabited by a race of fish-eaters who go off with nets and catch oysters.'⁴ During the age of the *Periplus of the Erythraean Sea*, as Dr. Ray Chaudhuri shows in Appendix B (p. 387) of his work, the kingdom of Argaru (= Uragapura) was included in Damirica. The geographer Ptolemy refers to the kingdom of Sora (Chola) ruled by Arkatos and the kingdom of Malanga (probably Kāñchī, according to Dr. Ray Chaudhuri), ruled by Basaronagas. In the *Mārkaṇḍeya*,¹ *Vāyu*² and *Matsya*³ *Purāṇas*, the Cōḷas are mentioned along with the Pāṇḍyas and Keralas. In the *Rāmāyaṇa*,⁴ Sugrīva is described as sending his monkey followers to the countries of the Cōḷas, Pāṇḍyas and Keralas in quest of Sītā. Kātyāyana in his *Vārttikas* or aphorisms to Pāṇini's Sūtras or grammatical rules mentions the Cōḷas and the Pāṇḍyas.⁵ Patañjali in his *Mahābhāṣya*⁶ mentions Kāñchīpura. Aśoka in his Rock Edicts II and XIII mentions the Cōḷas, Pāṇḍyas, Ketalaputras and Satiyaputras as forming 'prachamta' or outlying provinces outside his empire. They were on friendly terms with him. The Cōḷas, like the Pāṇḍyas, are spoken of in the plural in all the versions of the Asokan edicts, and this has been held to imply that 'in Aśoka's time there were more than one Cōḍa and one Pāṇḍya King'.⁷ Two or three poets of the Śaṅgam make references to an invasion of the south by the Mōriyar (Mauryas). Māmūlanār also speaks of the wealth of the Nandas hidden under the Ganges at Pāṭaliputra. He says that the Vaḍugar formed the vanguard of the invading Mauryas (*Aham* 281). He further says that the Kōśar undertook the subjugation of the south and as the Mōhūr chieftain continued defiant, the Mauryas came down with their great forces on a warlike expedition to the south (*Aham* 251). The above account thus confirms the story of Bindusāra's conquest of Southern India as recorded by the Tibetan historian Tārānāth. It is evident thus that Maurya empire in Southern India probably received some setback before the date when Rock Edicts II and XIII were promulgated.⁸ Allusions to the land of the Cōḷas and Kāveripaṭṭinam are found in the *Mahāvaṃsa*. The *Milinda-Pañho*⁹ mentions Kola-Paṭṭana, which according to Rhys Davids, must be some place on the Coromandel Coast. Here is a reference probably to Kāveripaṭṭinam. In the Jātaka story¹⁰ Akitti to escape from his admirers is said to have left the neighbourhood of Benares for the Tamil country where he spent some time in a garden near Kāveripaṭṭana. The *Mahāvaṃsa* shows that towards the middle of the second century B.C., a Damiḷa of noble descent, Eḷāra by name, came to Ceylon from the Cōḷa country (Coḷaraṭṭha) overpowered Asela,¹ the then king of the island, and himself reigned as king for forty-four years with even justice towards friends and foes on occasions of disputes at law. He sentenced his only son to death for unwittingly causing the death of a young calf. In Tamil literature also we find the story of the prince and the calf which is placed in the reign of Manu.

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⁴ Ray Chaudhuri, *Political History of Ancient India*, 4th Ed., 271, f.n. 2.

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¹ Chap. 57, V. 45.

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² Chap. 45, V, 124.

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³ Chap. 112, V. 46.

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⁴ IV. Chap. 41, Bombay Ed.

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⁵ R. G. Bhandarkar, *Early History of the Dekkan*, p. 6.

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⁶ IV, 2, Second Āhnika.

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⁷ Cf. Bhandarkar, *Aśoka*, p. 41.

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⁸ *Ibid*., p. 28.

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⁹ Trenckner Ed., p. 359.

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¹⁰ *Jātaka* (Fausböll), IV, 237 foll.

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¹ *Mahāvaṃsa* (Geiger), p. 166.

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The early history of the Cōḷa country is obscure. About the beginning of the Christian era the Cōḷa king was Peru-nar-Killi. His son was Iḷanjet-Senni whose son was Karikāl, a vigorous ruler, under whom the Cōḷas became the leading power of the south. He defeated an allied army of the Cheras and Pāṇḍyas and made an expedition to the north. At home he suppressed the turbulent Āyar, Aravāḷar, Kurumbar and Oḷiyar. He made his capital at Kāveri-paṭṭinam on the Kāverī and he secured it from flood by raising the banks of the river as well as by making canals. From the Cōḷas the hegemony of the south passed to the Cheras and later still to the Pāṇḍyas who were ousted by the Pallavas who later on became the suzerain power of Southern India.

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