The Raja of Big Things

An eminently readable book by Carnatic music-loving corporate honcho, Kamini Dandapani, delves into the life and influence of Rajaraja Chola and why the 11th century ruler still has a cult following

Rajaraja Chola – King of Kings 

Author: Kamini Dandapani 

Publisher: Aleph 

Pages: 348 

Price: Rs 999

If there’s a monument in India that suggests that size does matter, it is the Brihadeshwara Temple in Thanjavur. Built in 1010 AD, it is called the Periya Kovil in Tamil or Big Temple and shines as a towering architectural achievement of Rajaraja Chola, one of the greatest emperors of medieval India. In the wake of his many military conquests in south India, his maritime successes in parts of Southeast Asia, and influence extending to Guangzhou in China, the time seemed fitting for Rajaraja Chola to build a grand temple to Shiva as a symbol of his regal might and influence as an ardent Shaivite.   
 

A thousand years later, Rajaraja Chola continues to be a figure of Tamil pride and identity in popular culture beyond the 10th century, when his reign ushered in the golden age in Tamil Nadu from the Chola capital of Thanjavur.
 

Kamini Dandapani’s Rajaraja Chola — King of Kings  is a laudable tribute to this renowned Tamil emperor. The publication of the book is timely, when the Chola king and his lores are a talking point with the release of auteur Mani Ratnam’s magnum opus, Ponniyin Selvan, a grand cinematic tribute to Rajaraja Chola and historical fiction based on the same name by Kalki Krishnamurthy.
 

For he was both prince Arulmozhi Varman, the youngest in line to throne after his siblings, and also Ponniyin Selvan, the progeny of Ponni or River Kaveri, around which his kingdom flourished, as his well-wishers called him fondly. For his subjects, poets, documentarians, and history books, he remained Rajaraja Chola, King of Kings, defined by epithets and hyperbole alike as the King of Jewels, Incomparable Chola and a Lion among Kings among others.
 

Ms Dandapani recreates the historic beginnings of the early Chola regents and the time of their slow but steady climb into a formidable dynastic power. The first section of the book deals with the various dynasties of South India that existed from the fourth century onwards in the backdrop to the rise of the imperial Cholas in the 10th century. The latter were different from the early Cholas who began as a league of chiefdoms, also called Sangam Cholas after the literary confederation that was created at that time whose poems served as a record of their battle feats and other achievements.  
 

The Cholas emerged at the same time as dynasties such the Chalukyas, Hoysalas, Kalabhras, the Pallavas (who built the marvellous Shore Temple on Mamallapuram) and the formidable Rashtrakutas — long-time foes of the Cholas — and smaller confederates in south India besides the Sinhala kingdoms of modern Sri Lanka and the SriVijayas of modern Malaysia and Indonesia. With the Cheras (in and around modern Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu) and Pandyas (in southern Tamil Nadu from Madurai and the surrounding area), the Cholas formed the moovendhar  or the triumvirate in Tamil land.
 

Ms Dandapani reconstructs the coronation of Arulmozhi Varman, enlivening the grandeur of the occasion and the larger symbolism of the extraordinary prince at his coming of age — the stage is set for the imperial crown to sit on his head to the beat of trumpets, the crescendo of bugles and drums, the floral and vocal tributes of his subjects.
 

For he was merely 23 when Rajaraja Chola was orphaned by the deaths of his parents, the retired king Sundara Chola and his mother, the queen who committed sati on her husband’s pyre, and his elder brother Aditya Karikala, who was brutally assassinated. He had learnt from his brother, father, cousins and sister and aunt Sembiyan Madevi and set his own imperial course to rule to his death at the age of 67.
 

And what a reign it was! Ms Dandapani details how the Cholas’ history has been recorded both in the hyperbolic verses of Sangam poems, and also in the large haul of stone inscriptions etched on temple walls and copper plate inscriptions that are now stored in museums across the world, such as Leiden. Modern administration such as land divisions, social organisations and class divisions (farmers, peasants, merchants, priestly class and aristocrats) all came to be defined under Rajaraja Chola. Land surveys, assembly elections in villages and councils were all set in place, making administration as important as military conquests and economic ties.
 

No less so were his contributions to art and leisure. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Brihadeshwara Temple, which was as much a monument to showcase the pride of his reign, the divine sanction he enjoyed (note the sculpture of Rajaraja being crowned with his imperial turban by Shiva himself on the temple’s wall) and the music, dance and literature that was created in its precincts.
 

As with the fate of any long-lasting dynasty, Ms Dandapani doesn’t hesitate to chronicle how the greatest empires also grew on bloodshed and conquests, chicanery and ambition, discrimination, deviousness and daring.
 

Ms Dandapani admits right at the start that she is not a historian but a Carnatic music-loving corporate honcho who was attracted to Rajaraja Chola for emerging more than a dynast in history books to a cultural figure with a cult following even today. That perhaps explains why the book is eminently readable and approachable.