State Formation the Cola Dynasty

Introduction

The rise of the Cholas as a major political dynasty may be traced to the middle of
the ninth century AD. At the time, dynastic politics in the Tamil country revolved
around four prominent dynasties. The Pandyas controlled the southern region from
Madurai on the Vaigai River, while the Cheras continued to rule in Kerala. In the
central Tamil region (Cholamandalam), the Colas of ancient times had been
completely suppressed. The major political power in the Tamil country was the
Pallava dynasty based in the northern region or Tondaimandalam, around the Palar
River. The Pallavas began to decline as a power by the 8th century AD, confronted
with military challenges on the north and the west from the newly crowned overlords
of the Deccan, the Rashtrakutas and from the Pandyas on the south. The fall of the
Pallavas created a power vacuum in the Tamil country, resulting in the rise of the
Colas.
The first Cola ruler was Vijayalaya who acquired a substantial military following
by allying himself with friendly families such as the Irukkuvels and the
Paluvettaraiyars. Under his successors, the Colas were able to extend their sway to
the north and the south, bringing the Pallava country under their control and
subjugating the Pandyas for almost four hundred years. A defeat at the hands of the
Rashtrakutas in 949 posed a temporary setback but the Colas rose to the status of a
major imperial power under their greatest ruler, Rajaraja I.
Under Rajaraja I, the Colas were able to dominate Cholamandalam as well as
Jayangondacolamandalam (Tondaimandalam). They also reasserted their authority over
the Pandas and subjugated the Gangas bringing south Karnataka (Gangavadi) under
their control. Under his son, Rajendra I, the Colas extended their power over
northern Sri Lanka and launched an expedition along the east coast to Bengal. They
also sent raids across the Bay of Bengal to attack trading centres in Malaysia and
Indonesia. Cola hegemony remained stable under subsequent rulers until 1170 when
Kulottunga I came to power. He also happened to be the eastern Calukya king owing
to generations of intermarriage between the two dynasties and attempted to send
another expedition up the eastern coast of India and engaged in constant conflict
with the western Calukyas. However he faced revolts and the Colas lost control over
Gangavadi to the western Calukyas. Moreover there were indications of unrest in
Tondaimandalam where several local notables began to make alliances against the
Cola state and in the Pandya country where members of the Pandya line began to
challenge the authority of the imperial Colas. The reign of Kulottunga III ended in
the complete destruction of the Cola kingdom as the Hoysala dynasty began carving
out a principality in south Karnataka and expanded to the south and the east at the
expense of the Colas. The Pandas united and cast off the yoke of the Colas in
southern Tamilakam while chieftains claiming to be of Pallava descent created
problems in Tondaimandalam. By the thirteenth century, the realm of the Colas was
confined to the Kaveri delta in Colamandalam and by the end of the century, the
line had been extinguished altogether.
The fall of the Colas is explained by Kesavan Veluthat as the result of the deeply
entrenched character of the centrifugal tendencies of local chieftains.
According to him, the 12 century marks the reassertion of chiefly rule in the Cola
domains, the weakening of the revenue mechanism and the decline of officialdom.
Veluthat, who considers the Cola kingdom to be a feudal state, attributes the
decline of Colas to the revival of feudal forces. An alternative model is suggested
by Burton Stein who studies the Cola state as a segmentary state. A third model has
been advanced by Y. Subbarayalu and James Heitzman who look upon the Cola kingdom
as an early state. However the earliest work upon the Colas was by scholars who
viewed the state as a centralized empire. We shall go on to discuss the political
and agrarian features of the Cola state under each of these models.

A Centralized Empire
In the first half of the 20th century the accepted historiographical construction
of the Cola polity conformed to the approach to all major pre-modern South Asian
polities. In the writings of scholars such as K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, the Chola
state has been presented as a great unitary state with a massive bureaucratic
apparatus, resembling the structure of the Mauryan state in the Arthashastra The
state was supported by a huge military establishment under the direct authority of
the king. There was a standing army which would perform military functions
internally and be engaged in campaigns against the armies of other kings. The
administration was typically conceived of as structured at different levels---from
the 'central royal administration', to 'provincial government' and
'local government'. The different chiefs were treated as 'governors' and the
chiefdoms as districts or divisions of the centralized empire. Persons endowed with
various official titles were members of different administrative departments at the
village, district or provincial level, handling revenue and administrative affairs
within a bureaucratic network. The centralization of the administration applied in
particular to the collection of land revenue. A. Appadorai discusses the various
forms of taxation in the Cola state and interprets terms such as kadamai and
kudimai to mean land revenue which is paid directly to the centre, distinct from
other terms which refer to taxes utilized to maintain irrigation works, maintain
temples, pay village officials, etc.
The argument for a centralized state arose from the conventional understanding of
state structures and the unsubstantiated supposition, inspired by accounts of
'numberless ships' and 'numerous regiments', of a centralized military
establishment. The maintenance of such an establishment and other 'central'
functions was seen to require a centralized and bureaucratized state structure. It
is proved by both Stein and Veluthat that there existed neither a centrally
controlled military nor centrally coordinated redistribution of state revenues.
Here the role of the nadu and other local corporate bodies including the nagaram,
and the locale chiefs is of vital importance.

A Segmentary State: Theoretical Formulations

The segmentary state view of the Cola state was formulated by Burton Stein in his
book Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. Stein drew his inspiration
from the work done by Aidan Southall on tribal polities in Africa and specifically
the Alur society. A segmentary model of analysis was adopted by Southall in his
approach which Stein, deeming it the only model which could be applied to
satisfactorily order the evidence from temple and copper-plate inscriptions from
the Cola state, uses in his study of the Cola period. Burton Stein's contribution
stresses the importance of the intermediary, supra-village units called nadu spread
over wide areas in the Tamil country. A segmentary state is a pyramidally segmented
state formation consisting of a number of small units of political organization
which are linked to 'ever more comprehensive units of political organisation of an
ascending order' where each unit stands in opposition to other, similar units for
some purposes. A segmentary state rests on two main assumptions. One is that the
exertion of political authority is not the sole prerogative of the centre but is
exercised at various levels by bodies which are foci of the administration of that
region. In this sense, rather than there being political decentralization, there is
a multiplicity of centres, each possessing an administrative apparatus and military
establishment which mirror those existing at the ritual centre. Executive power is
the same at the level of the subordinate segmental centres as that at the prime
centre (or ritual centre) except that it is exerted over fewer people. The second
assumption is that these more or less autonomous political units are knit together
by a conception of ritual sovereignty and that there exists a centre of ritual
worship to which these multiple political centres in a state are ritually
subjugated. There is hardly any overarching political control exerted by the ritual
centre over the political units. Thus in a segmentary state, sovereignty is dual.
There exists actual political control or sovereignty which is exercised by the
various political units and ritual authority which is wielded by the ritual centre.
A distinction is also made between different centres on the grounds is that there
existed multiple political centres, but there was only one ritual centre. In
Stein's formulation, each nadu constituted a political centre while the centre of
the Colas or their capital---Rajaraiesvara under Rajaraja | and
Gangaikondacolapuram under Rajendra I was the ritual centre where the canonical
temples and the principal centres of worship existed.
The political centre in Cholamandalam or 'Cola country' therefore, possessed a
ritual primacy.
Again, a significant aspect of this formulation is that the 'specialized
administrative staff is not an exclusive feature of the primary centre but is found
operating at and within the various segments of which the state consists.

Further, the organization of the subordinate levels or 'zones' is 'pyramidal' which

means that the relationship between the centre and the peripheral units of any
segment is the same, except in reduced form, as the relationship between the prime
centre and all the subordinate foci of power. The principle of pyramidal
segmentation rests upon the assumption of complementary opposition between the
segments and within them which facilitates vertical integration. This integration,
it must be mentioned is less political, given the kind of separation of authority
and power that existed, than ritual in nature. Amongst the segments certainly,
vertical integration is primarily attendant upon ritual incorporation. The
segmental units in this polity remain largely autonomous because each is pyramidal
and consists of balanced internal groupings which cling to their own independent
identities, privileges, and internal governance and demand that these units be
protected by their local rulers. Within each local unit or nadu, there existed a
number of groups with mutually opposed interests. The brahmans, the right and left
hand castes (valangai---the castes associated with agriculture and idangal---the
artisan and trader castes) and lower castes all constituted integral units within
nadu and the role of the local chiefs was a vital one in maintaining the integrity
of the unit. As political authority was inextricably tied to opposed localized
segments, the only possible supra-local, extra-segmentary integration which could
take place was of a ritual nature.
Thus the pyramidal character of the segments in this polity is a prominent feature
of this model.

Administration

In conventional literature, the nadu is treated as a sort of territorial assembly

which consisted of the representatives of each village or the more influential
residents of the locality. It was seen to be an organ of the government,
specifically constituted for the purpose of executing the will of the ruler at the
local level. However, as we have already observed, this was certainly not the case.
According to Burton Stein each nadu constitutes an autonomous political centre
which carries out the tasks of administration through its assembly.
Officials were appointed from amongst the nattar to carry out these functions. The
evidence does seem to suggest that the nattar played a vital role in the
administration. Most copper-plate inscriptions relating to land grants seem to have
been addressed to the nattar who were expected to act on the order by delimiting
the boundaries, resettling the occupants and implementing the injunctions of the
grants. In many cases they took care of irrigation management.
From records stating that the nadu undertook to pay the taxes on lands made tax-
free, it seems that it was the nadu which assessed and collected a tax on land.
There is also evidence of the nattar themselves making grants to temples although
such grants are invariably made in the name of the king. There is therefore,
formidable evidence of the nadu acting as an independent body with its own
administrative apparatus, as postulated by Burton Stein. Stein goes on to
characterize persons designated by such titles as muvenda-velar and mummadi as the
executive officers of the nadu. He denies that these terms refer to officials of
the state on the grounds that these titles are rarely used in conjunction with a
personal name but more often with a place reference. He argues that the place
reference indicates that persons referred to by such titles as muvenda-velar,
mummadi and adigari are local notables and not royal notables but locality chiefs.
Burton Stein states that each nadu also possessed an executive chief, certainly in
southern Karnataka and Kongu. The idea of nad chieftainship fits perfectly into his
pyramidal construct of segmentation.
A significant aspect of the nattar as agents of the king's government is brought
out by James Heitzman who finds that in one of the most outlying areas of the Cola
state, there were more references to the nattar groups in inscriptions than in core
areas indicating that matters of administration were left to the nattar groups to a
far greater extent in the peripheral areas. However, in the period immediately
after the reign of Rajaraja I there are more references to the royal functionaries
in the inscriptions, supporting Veluthat's argument for an attempt at
centralization under Raiaraja I. The evidence from the nad therefore also supports
the theory that there was a greater penetration of the state through its
functionaries after Rajaraja I. This attempt at centralization, as will be made
clearer in Veluthat's formulations, was unsuccessful.
Veluthat also counters Stein's argument for a nadu chief, asserting that there is
no evidence to suggest that there was a leader or a president of the group. While
Stein grants this position to those bearing titles such as muvenda-velar, Veluthat
emphasizes that these were landed magnates rather than locality chiefs and given
the number of persons with such titles referred to in the context of one nadu,
surely this must be obvious for it is unlikely that there could be many
'locality chiefs' in each nadu. He asserts that Stein's motive in declaring these
persons chiefs is quite clear, for if there was no chief among the nattar, then the
nadus cannot be described as replicas of the political system at the centre
Furthermore, this also means that the Colas themselves must be characterized as
monarchs and not one among the chiefs of many nadus as Burton Stein contends. This
naturally defeats the argument for a segmentary state.
There were two types of villages at the local level in the Chola empire. One type
of village consisted of people from different caste and the assembly which ran this
type of village was called 'ur'. The second type of village was 'agrahara' types of
village which were settled by Brahmins in which most of the land was rent-free. The
assembly of this agrahara type of village was a gathering of the adult men in
brahmana villages called 'Sabha' or 'mahasabha'. These villages enjoyed a large
measure of autonomy. The affairs of the village were managed by an executive
committees to which educated people owning property were elected by drawing lots or
by rotation. These members had to retire every three years. These members had to
retire every three years. There were other committees for helping in the assessment
and collection of land revenue for the maintenance of law and order, justice etc.
One of the important Committee was the tank committee which looked after the
distribution of water to the fields. The mahasabha could settle new lands and
exercise ownership rights over them. It could also raise loans for the village and
levy taxes. The self-government enjoyed by the Chola villages was a very fine
system. However, the growth of feudalism tended to restrict their autonomy.

Conclusion

The most striking feature of the chola rule was the rapid decline of the royal
influence with increasing trend towards decentralization. James Hietzman elaborates
that the underlying dynamics of state formation rested on the ability of these
agencies to give direction to the aspirations of the village elite. Political and
economic leadership, within a predominantly agrarian economy, rested on the
possession of land or came from control exercised over profits accruing from land.
Heitzman the Chola polity was an 'Early State' since its agrarian base and the
political power of its landed elite were at a rather nascent stage of development.
The Segmentary State is an anthropological model developed by Southall.
Burton Stein utilised this model to describe the state formation under the Cholas
and the Pallavas. Southall describes the Segmentary State as a state here the
spheres of ritual suzerainty and political sovereignty do not coincide. The former
extends widely towards a flexible changing periphery. The latter is confined to the
central core domain. Initially, argued in favour of a clear distinction between
these two spheres of authority, Stein is now convinced that the Lordshish for
Hindus had combined ritual and political authority

Bibliography
• Burton Stein - Integration of Agrarian Systems in India
• R S Sharma - The Segmentary State and The IndianExperienceKesavan
Veluthat - The Role of Nadu in the Socio-PoliticalStructure of South India
James Heitznan - Gifts of Power
• Nilakanta sastri - South India under the Cholas (The CholaState)
Class notes