Tribes in Ancient India c47.12

c47.12

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.