Chera Chola Pandya Period

[Cora Devries]

Inthe previous post, we have read about the age of Satavahanas. Satvahana Dynasty was the first kingdom to rule South India. Now, we will go for a new expedition to South India. We will search for new kingdoms along the Western and Eastern Coast of the Southern Peninsula.

In deep south India, there were three important chiefs ruling in different regions. These chiefs were from Chera, Chola, and Pandya Dynasty. All these three collectively called as Muvender. Muvender is a Tamil word meaning three chiefs. So, here we will read about these kingdoms in brief.

The Ashokan Major Rock Edict- II and XIII mentions about the Cheras, Cholas and Pandya Kingdom. Major Rock Edict of Ashoka states that Southern Kingdoms were their neighbors in the South. Other than the Ashokan Inscription, the Sangam Literature also mentions about these kingdoms.

The Southern half of the Indian Subcontinent marked by the long coastline, mountains, plateau, and river valleys. The region which Chera, Chola, and Pandya were ruling was the region of South of the Krishna river and the region of Kaveri Delta. So, the region was/is very fertile. So, there was plenty of food grains and habitation was suitable.

The Pandya Kingdom situated at the southern tip of the Indian Peninsula. The Magasthenes, Greek Ambassador, first mentioned about the Pandya Kingdom. It was the kingdom of pearls. The Madurai was the capital of the Pandya Kingdom.

Magasthenes also mentioned about a Queen, who ruled the Pandya Kingdom. So, this suggests some matriarchal influence in the Pandya Society. The Pandya Kingdom included the modern districts of Tirunelveli, Ramnad, and Madurai in Tamilnadu. The Marco Polo, an Italian traveler came to India in the Pandya Kingdom. He also gave some account of the Pandya Kingdom.

The Chola Kingdom situated just north to the Pandya Kingdom. The eastern coast of India, where the Chola Rulers ruled called Cholomandalam or Coromandel coast. The Chola Kingdom was lying between the Pennar and Velar rivers.

It is evident that the Chola Village administration and the Navy were the superior of that time. Chola Rulers conquered Sri Lanka. They also conquered the region up to south-east Asia in the Malay Peninsula. The chief center of the political power was at Uraiyur. Uraiyur was famous for the cotton trade.

The capital of the Chola Kingdom was Kaveripattanam. The ancient great king of Chola Kingdom was Karikala. But after Karikala there was not a good ruler. So, after him, the Chola Empire declined for some time by the attacks of the Pallavas.

But this Chola Power re-emerged in the 7th Century CE under the Rajaraja Chola and Rajendra Chola. The reign of this two father and son was the watermark period of the Chola Empire. Most of the temples of the Dravidian Architecture developed during their reign like Gangaikondamcholapuram, Rajaraja Temple, etc.

Chera or the Kerala state, situated on the western coast of South India. The western coast where the Chera Kingdom is the Malabar Coast of India. The region was densely forested due to Monsoon Rainfall. So, the Monsoon winds were one of the main reasons for the trade and commerce of the Chera Empire.

The Cheras had their trade relations with the Romans. The most important seaport of that time was Muziris port. Roman people also built a temple of Augustus at this port. The history of these South Indian Kingdoms always marked by the continuous fight among these Muvender (three chiefs).

The great king of the Chera Dynasty was Senguttuvan. The main feature of this Kingdom was that it had profitable trade with the other port cities of the world at that time. As the region was the area on which spices were grown. So, many foreign visitors, traders came and had trading alliances with the Kingdom.

The Sangam Age, also known as the Tamil Sangam period, was a significant era in the history of South India. This period is named after the Sangam, which was a gathering of Tamil poets and scholars who lived in the southern part of India. The Sangam period is generally believed to have lasted from 300 BCE to 300 CE.

According to Tamil legends, there existed three Sangams (Academy of Tamil poets) in ancient Tamil Nadu, popularly called Muchchangam (three Sangams). All these three Sangams flourished under the royal patronage of the Pandyas.

During the Sangam Age, the Tamil country was ruled by three dynasties, namely the Chera, Chola and Pandyas. They were together, also known as Muvendar. The political history of these dynasties can be traced from the literary references.

Q) Though not very useful from the point of view of a connected political history of South India, the Sangam literature portrays the social and economic conditions of its time with remarkable vividness. Comment. (2013)

Keeladi in Tamilnadu is a famous site of the Sangam age, which depicts the Sangam period from 800 BCE to 300 CE, diverting from the earlier time, 300 BCE to 300 AD. Other sites of the Sangam period are Kodumanal in Erode, Sivagalai in Tirunelveli and Adichanallur in Thoothukudi district.

The Pandyan kingdom was an ancient Tamil state in South India of unknown antiquity. Pandyas were one of the three ancient Tamil kingdoms (Chola and Chera being the other two) that ruled the Tamil country from pre-historic times until end of the fifteenth century. They ruled initially from Korkai, a seaport on the southern-most tip of the Indian peninsula, and in later times moved to Madurai. Pandyas entered their golden age under Jatavarman Sundara Pandyan (c. 1251) who expanded their empire into Telugu country and invaded Sri Lanka to conquer the northern half of the island. Their territory included present-day Kerela. They also had extensive trade links with the Southeast Asian maritime empires of Srivijaya and their successors. The Pandyas excelled in both trade and literature. They controlled the pearl fisheries along the South Indian coast, between Sri Lanka and India, which produced some of the finest pearls known in the ancient world. Tradition holds that the legendary Sangam were held in Madurai under their patronage. Some of the Sangam poets became kings of Pandya.

The early Pandyan dynasty went into obscurity during the invasion of the Kalabhras. The dynasty revived under Kadungon in the early sixth century. They pushed the Kalabhras out of the Tamil country and ruled from Madurai. They again went into decline with the rise of the Cholas in the ninth century and were in constant conflict with them. Pandyas allied themselves with the Sinhalese and the Cheras in harassing the Chola empire until they found an opportunity for reviving their fortunes during the late thirteenth century. During their history the Pandyas were repeatedly in conflict with the Pallavas, the Cholas, the Hoysalas, and finally the Muslim invaders from the Delhi Sultanate. Nonetheless, they also gave peace and stability to the southern plains of India for many centuries. In the end, they could not compete with the Muslim Delhi Sultanate as it pushed south, and lost power in the sixteenth century. Within a century, the British East India Company had started its operations and by the end of the eighteenth century this part of India was part of British India.

It is difficult to estimate the exact date of these Sangam-age Pandyas. The period covered by the extant literature of the Sangam is unfortunately not easy to determine with any measure of certainty. With the exception of the longer epics Cilappatikaram and Manimekalai, which by common consent belong to the age later than the Sangam age, the poems have reached us in the forms of systematic anthologies. Each individual poem generally has attached to it a colophon on the authorship and subject matter of the poem, the name of the king or chieftain to whom the poem relates, and the occasion that called forth the eulogy.

It is from these colophons and rarely from the texts of the poems themselves, that we gather the names of many kings and chieftains and the poets and poetesses patronized by them. The task of reducing these names to an ordered scheme in which the different generations of contemporaries can be marked off has not been easy. To add to the confusion, some historians have even denounced these colophons as later additions and untrustworthy as historical documents.

Any attempt at extracting a systematic chronology and data from these poems should take into account their casual nature and the wide difference between the purpose of the anthologist who collected them and the purpose of the historian trying to construct a continuous history.

The earliest Pandyan to be found in epigraph is Nedunjeliyan, who figures in the Minakshipuram record assigned from the second to the first centuries B.C.E. The record documents a gift of rock-cut beds to a Jain ascetic. Punch-marked coins in the Pandyan country dating from around the same time have also been found.

Pandyas also had trade contacts with Ptolemaic Egypt and, through Egypt, with Rome by the first century, and with China by the third century. The first-century Greek historian Nicolaus of Damascus met, at Damascus, the ambassador sent by an Indian king "named Pandion or, according to others, Porus" to Caesar Augustus around 13 C.E. Marco Polo visited Madurai in 1295. Ibn Battuta visited in 1333 C.E. There was significant sea trade between the Pandyan kingdom and the ancient Mediterranean world, as well as China. Texts even refer to the Pandyan kings having Roman guards.

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