An account of Rajendra Chola, his conquests, pursuits and his love for Lord Shiva
Date : 18/05/2024
The mighty Cauvery’s journey is arduous.
She crosses hills, forests, temples, and even controversies, before she becomes one with the seas.
One of my favourite songs (Sri Ranga Ranga, Mahanadhi) on the Cauvery puts it beautifully:
“Kannadam thaai veedu endrirundhaalum
Kanni un maru veedu thennagam aagum
Gangaiyil melaana kaaviri theertham”
Which is roughly translated to:
“Though Karnataka is Your birthplace
Tamil Nadu is where You are married into
Your waters, holier than the Ganges”
At Srirangam, the focus of the above song, Cauvery splits into two. The northern tributary is Kollidam, our muse for this article. After the split, the Cauvery becomes thinner, and Kollidam, as the name indicates, carries huge amounts of water.
Along Kollidam’s way, there are check dams which help regulate the river for irrigation. One such check dam is the Lower Anaicut, which was built in the 1800s by the British administration.
The dam is slightly more than 100 years old, but it was built using materials which are nearly 1000 years old. A few kilometers away from the Anaicut is the magnificent Shiva temple of Gangaikonda Cholapuram. The greatest damage to the temple happened in 1836, when the British administration was building the Lower Anaicut across Kollidam.
(Today, the Anaicut is at the centre of another controversy. The Tamil Nadu - Karnataka Cauvery dispute. To cut a long story short, the Lower Anaicut is an important element in the Tribunal’s order.)
(Screenshot sourced from Google Maps)
Engineers of the public works department decided to source building materials from the 11th century temple nearby. They pulled down the enclosing walls, built of massive granite blocks, and also some of the granite sculptures that adorned these.
“The poor people did their utmost to prevent this destruction and spoilation of a venerated edifice … they were only punished for contempt. A promise was made indeed that a wall of brick should be built in place of the stone wall that was pulled down; but unhappily it must be recorded that this promise has never been redeemed” (Indian Antiquary IV, page 274, Dr. R. Nagaswamy)
Five years ago, I heard the same lament from a temple official in Gangaikonda Cholapuram. We were there on a chilly January afternoon, and the official was kind enough to take us around the temple. The sky was its bluest best, complementing the pale pink vimana. It was a two-hour bus journey from Tanjore, the erstwhile capital of the great Chola empire.
While Tanjore was a great Chola power centre, Gangaikonda Cholapuram was even more significant. It was the capital of the empire for 250 years--much longer than Tanjore was. It is from here that the Cholas ruled over swathes of land from today’s Karnataka to Srilanka in the South and Indonesia in the East.
As with many such ancient lands, history happened. Today Gangaikonda Cholapuram is a charming village, with the imposing vimana of the temple reminding us of its glorious past.
(Shiva temple in Gangaikonda Cholapuram)
“Do you guys know how powerful this place used to be?” the official asked rhetorically.
This was in 2015.
A very dear friend visited the temple recently, inspiring me to write this.
Another inspiration is of course the Great Rajendra Chola, under whose reign the temple at Gangaikonda Cholapuram was built.
Rajendra was the son of Raja Raja Chola, and his regnal years started from 1012 AD. About ten years ago, Mahmud Ghazni would have launched his first attack on the Indian subcontinent.
Rajendra inherited a vast empire from Raja Raja: the whole of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, parts of the erstwhile Mysore empire and Sri Lanka.
Five years after he took charge, Rajendra set his eyes on Ceylon, more specifically on an exquisite string of pearls and a crown. They were not mere jewels.
The pearl haaram of Indra and the crown belonged to the Pandyas, the arch rivals of the Cholas. The Pandyas had left two of their most prized possessions with a king in Ceylon decades ago.
A Chola king had even tried to lay hands on them in ~ 945 AD. Parantaka Chola wanted to be crowned king at the Pandya capital Madurai--along with the jewels. But his Ceylon campaign was unsuccessful.
Years later, Rajendra would set this right.
“Rajendra conquered the king of Ceylon with a fierce army, and seized his territory … and the spotless garland of Indra and crown of the Pandya.” (Colas, K A Nilakanta Sastri)
And Rajendra went on to donate these insignia to the Brihadeeswara temple in Tanjore. It has been recorded in one of the many inscriptions on the temple. On the south wall of the temple, the inscription reads:
“Hail! Prosperity! In the sixth year (of the reign) of Ko-Parakesarivarman, alias the lord Sri-Rajendra-Choladeva, who, … while the goddess of the great earth, the goddess of victory in battle, and the matchless goddess of fame had become his great queens, … conquered the crown of Sundara and the pearl-necklace of Indra which the king of the South (i.e., the Pandya) had previously given up to that (king of Iram)”
It is quite clear that the Shiva temple in Gangaikonda Cholapuram was inspired by the Brihadeeswara temple in Tanjore. The former is smaller, and experts say that it is richer than the latter in sculptural quality.
(A sculpture of Shiva as Gangadhara in Gangaikonda Cholapuram)
On one of the panels is Shiva as Gangadhara. The Lord bears the river Ganges in his matted hair, and his consort Parvati is not pleased. She is shown to turn away her face in playful anger, and Shiva tries to console Parvati.
Our emperor in focus also loved the Ganga. The army of Rajendra went on an expedition up to the river. His troops faced hostile armies along the way. But they were victorious; they carried with them holy water from the Ganges.
Rajendra is said to have received them on the banks of another great river, the Godavari. He seems to have placed immense value to this expedition, and rightly so. He came to be called “Gangai Kondan” (One who conquered the Ganges).
“He brought the pure water of Ganges to his country and surpassed Bhagiratha in this effort. This Rajendra established the Gangaikondacholapuri after his name and built a great temple also named after him, to Lord Mahesvara out of great devotion.” (Eesalam copper plate charter, found in 1987, when villages struck upon treasures from the past, Dr. R. Nagaswamy)
He commemorated this by establishing a water body as a pillar of victory.
A huge lake was dug a few kilometers away from the temple, and the water from Ganges was poured into the pit. At 26km in length and 4.5km in breadth, the Chola Ganga (refer to the picture of the map earlier in the article) lake is one the largest man-made lakes in the country. The Cholas’ love affair with water bodies is not new.
Irrigation was one of their top priorities. In fact, the Veeranam lake, which is one of Chennai’s primary water sources was built by Aditya Chola in the 10th century. He had named it Veeranarayanapuram eri, in honour of his father. In fact, today, the Kollidam feeds the lake if needed. The diversion happens from, you guessed it right, the Lower Anaicut.
Rajendra’s army did not just bring back water from the Ganges.
“A commentary, of uncertain date, to the Siddhdntasaravali of Trilocana Sivacarya mentions the fact that Rajendra imported Saivas from the banks of the Ganges into his own kingdom and established them in Kanchipuram and in the Cola country” (Colas, K A Nilakanta Sastri)And they did leave some scars behind too.
“The invasion effects of the great great southern conqueror Rajendra Cola I,’ says R. D. Banerji, ‘seems to have left some permanent marks in Bengal” (Colas, K A Nilakanta Sastri)
Rajendra’s Army also bought back sculptures from their wars with the Western Chalukyas. The nava graha murthi in the Gangaikonda Cholapuram temple, is a Chalukya sculpture.
Enemies apart, Rajendra went on to tame the seas too. He conquered Kadaram (Today’s Kedah of Malaysia) and also parts of Indonesia. He was thus called ‘Kadaram Kondan’. Tamil readers might remember that a rather uninspiring movie of the same name starring Vikram and produced by Kamal Hassan was released in 2019. The movie was set in Malaysia.
His reign was not free of trouble, nevertheless, Rajendra continued to win territories, he seemed to be insatiable.
But nothing came close to Rajendra’s devotion for Lord Shiva.
“He was deeply attached to the lotus feet of that Lord like a bee ever humming over the Parijata flower.” (Eesalam copper plates, Dr. R. Nagaswamy)
(Chandesa Anugraha Murthi in Gangaikonda Cholapuram)
The depth of his devotion is showcased beautifully in a sculpture in Gangaikonda Cholapuram. The Chandesa Anugraha murthi is widely considered by scholars as the best Chola work on stone.
“The treatment of ornaments, the portrayal of limbs and affection with which Siva is seen taking the garland around the head of Chandesa are suggestive and truly convey the supreme message of Saiva Siddhanta, the image seeks to depict.”
Scholars see Rajendra as Chandesa here.
“Sri C. Sivaramurti in his work 'the Chola temples' states that "The most remarkable carving here, the Chandesa anugraha murti panel, is almost a suggestion of the laurels won by Rajendra through the grace of Siva and he humbly presents himself as a devotee of Lord, who blessed Chandesa" (Dr. R. Nagaswamy)
At its peak, Rajendra’s empire stretched from Ganges in the North to Sri Lanka in the South and from Thrissur in the East to the Malay peninsula in the West. And it was ruled from Gangaikonda Cholapuram.
The emperor fittingly spent his last days meditating on Lord Shiva. A great conqueror, scholar, Rajendra died a peaceful death as a Shiva devotee. Chola copper plates found near Mayiladuthurai in Tanjore says that Rajendra attained the feet of Shiva. Scholars opine that this kind of characterization of a monarch is nowhere to be found in the rest of India.
Today, Rajendra and the Cholas live on, with villages around Gangaikonda Cholapuram taking names inspired from the empire and its rulers.
It’s been five years since I visited Gangaikonda Cholapuram, but I still remember the temple official who explained every sculpture in detail. He also lamented about the fall of the capital in equal measure. After a couple of hours, we were leaving the temple and realised that we did not even ask the official’s name. He replied with a glint in his eyes: “Rajendran”.
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Nicely made :)