The Great Cholas

#History

The Cholas

The most important empire in Pre-Islmic Indian history, which also happens to be the most shortchanged, The Cholas .

Just to give you an idea, the Chola empire, if it existed today would have spanned

India
Sri Lanka
Bangladesh
Myanmar
Thailand
Malaysia
Indonesia
Vietnam
Singapore
Maldives

Clearly, Cholas did not know what the word small meant.

Cholas were one of the earliest empires in Indian history, with some estimates dating them back to almost 300 B.C.

They are even mentioned by Emperor Ashoka in his pillars, as a friendly empire in the south.

Their recorded downfall is in the 1250’s. In pre-medieval India’s highly fluid power equations, the Chola empire was the one and perhaps the only constant.

The good stuff about the Cholas first. I am sure all of you must have heard of the beautiful and the grand temples all over Tamil Nadu.

It was the Cholas who added the adjective grand before the temples.

The kind of made it a fashion statement to build big temples, covered with intricate carvings, a trend which was essentially followed by his successors transcending empires.

Ever heard of the Brihadeeshwara Temple in Tanjore.

It was built by Raja Raja Chola in the 11th century.

Let me tell you some quick facts about this place of worship :

The Shivling in this temple is the largest of its kind, in the world.

The Nandi outside, is, again, the largest in the world.

The base of the temple is supposed to be so big, that the shadow of its massive ‘gopuram’ actually does not fall on the ground.

The top of the ‘gopuram’ consists of a single granite stone weighing approximately 82 tonnes (82,000 Kgs for those weak in metrics).

Now, this being 11th century AD, it was a problem getting that big piece of rock to a height of  63 Metres.

So what did the Cholas do?

Unsurprisingly they built the world’s largest transport ramp, using some kick-ass trigonometry, which stretched all the way to about 20 Kms, all the way inclining towards the top, which basically allowed the elephants to push the rock all the way up.

Once on top, they sent masons to do some intricate carvings on that stone, as if somebody would notice at that height.

Any emperor or empire will consider this piece of art to be the peak of their artistic prowess which will be talked about for generations to come.
But Cholas being the Cholas, weren’t satisfied.

Raja Raja’s son Rajendra went on to build an exact replica of this temple at a place called Gangai Konda Cholapuram, near the modern town of Chidambaram.

Two big temples, takes quite a beating doesn’t it. Sadly the second temple is not even mentioned in the history books, anywhere.

None outside Tamil Nadu even know about its existence, even today.

And also did I tell you, the Cholas were the first in the world to build a fully functional water diversion/water regulation system in the world.

Chola king Karikalan built this 329 feet stone dam over the river Kaveri and a network of canals, in 1st century AD, for water storage and irrigation.

So when most of the western world was still eating raw animal flesh, Cholas were building dams, navigable canals and were irrigating 10,00,000 (1 Million) hectares of land in their kingdom.

And before I forget, the system they built is in use even today..!!!

I don’t have to tell you whether our historians bothered to mention this thing in our textbook.

In case you think Cholas were your peace loving, violence shying role model Emperors, let me move on to some of  their badass stuff also.

Cholas pioneered in the 6th century what we today know as the Navy.

Use of ships for fighting battles existed, Battle of Salamis was probably the first naval engagement ever recorded, but Cholas took Naval warfare to an entirely new level.

They probably were the first ones to make their Navy a totally independent service with its own powers and not the extension of the army as was the norm then.

They also were the first to pioneer the concept of building exclusive fighting ships and the first to implement the idea of fleets.

Their ship building program was instituted and ships were designed and built for different purposes.

Trap ships (They called themselves ‘Kannis’ which means a ‘virgin’ in Tamil. They even had a sense of humour) to lure the enemies into traps, destroyers to do what their name suggests, supply ships etc were the some of the different types of Chola Naval vessels.

Cholas also were one of the first to evolve strategic naval doctrines, advanced ship formations and naval warfare tactics.

They were the first ones to start operating ships in fleets.

The smallest fleet in the Chola navy consisted of about 12 ships and the largest went up to 500 or more vessels.

In three words, They kicked ass…

And to match their tactical nous, they augmented their vessels with the then state of the art weaponry, both indigenous and imported from China.
Their ships were equipped with catapults and probably the first ship-based flamethrowers.

Chola navies were routinely known to annihilate enemies five times their number. The Chola navy, in one line, could be described as

Awesome tactics+Brilliant Ships+Latest Weaponry = Bad news for the enemy

This combination enabled Cholas, to practice the first ever recorded instance of what is today called ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’.

Sri Vijaya empire, ruling Cambodia, had the guts to actually sack a Chola Merchant convoy.

Cholas responded by taking two fleets of about 500 ships each and obliterating the Sri Vijaya kingdom out of existence. 

The neighboring  king of Kambujadesa, terrified of what happened to his colleague, basically folded his hands, bowed his head and sent an ornamental chariot to appease the Cholas and declared them as his rulers. And Cholas didn’t even have to fire a single shot.

It is also believed by some sources, that Cholas because of a navigational error, landed in Sri Lanka by mistake.

And just for fun, they went on to capture the entire country. There is no actual proof of this but knowing the Cholas, this is quite possible.

At their peak Chola ships consisted of about 1000-1500 battle ships divided into 4 fleets placed in strategic locations like Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Kaveripoompatinam in Tamil Nadu also known as Poompuhar.

They were so powerful that the Chinese actually requested Cholas to stop the rampant piracy in the straits of Malacca.

They even merited mentions in dispatches in faraway Greece for their naval expertise.

And they were no mugs on the land either.

Recall the Gangai Konda Cholapuram temple built by Rajaendra Cholan?

It literally means ‘Subduing of the river Ganges’.

He built the city in honour of his march upto the Ganges river.

A south Indian empire stretching from the River Kaveri in the south all the way up to the River Ganga in the North deserves much better treatment in our history books.

As one of my German friend’s said, if the Cholas had been born in America, DC or Marvel comics would have transformed them into super-heroes with a body of adamantium.

Because they were born in India, they get about a quarter page in the text-book.

There were in all a total of 16 Chola kings in the Chola Empire.

For all of you who actually read that chapter, you will find only the names of two (Raja Raja Chola and Rajendra Chola) have been mentioned.

And all the other kings and important details of their empire have been completely eliminated.

And how many pages does the great Chola dynasty get in our textbook… u guessed it… ZERO.

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