[Music] Welcome back everyone to the Yogic Studies podcast. Today we are speaking with Unirud Kaneseti. It's a public historian and award-winning author of the recent book "Lords of Earth and Sea," a history of the Chola Empire. And he's also teaching an online course for us here at Yogic Studies beginning next week under the same title. Unirud, a warm welcome to the podcast. It's a pleasure to have you here. Where are you joining us from today? Thank you for having me, Seth. I'm joining you from Delhi in India, entering I think the time of sky-alketing temperatures pretty much. Oh yeah, you've been having a bit of a heat wave out there, is that right? I think it's just getting started. Okay, well, hopefully all is smooth and but it's really a pleasure to have you here. You know, I first came across your work because of your first book, "The Lords of the Deccan," which I really enjoyed. But then it was doing my last trip to India, actually. I don't think I told you this, but I was in Gowah and visiting the wonderful historian of Indian architecture, George Michel, who I believe you know. And we were chatting over some tea and somehow your work and your name came up. And he just spoke so highly of your work and also just, you know, of you as a person that I was inspired to reach out to you to see if perhaps you might like to teach a course for us here at Yogaic Studies. Oh wow, George has been so, so kind and encouraging. Really ever since I've met him, which is soon after "The Lords of the Deccan" came out. And it's always so inspiring to see the energy that he brings to every conversation. His passion is genuinely infectious. And I've had such a fun time collaborating with him over the years. So I'm really grateful that he recommended. It's so true. It's so true. He's such a legend and he's such an incredible person and his positivity is really infectious. And yeah, it's a pleasure to hang out with him. We're actually, I hope, going to be able to host him for a special course later this year. So, we'll sneak peak for listeners there. But you know, I think as I mentioned to you here at Yogaic Studies, you know, we've been doing these online courses now. We're in our eighth year actually of existence. And we've built what I think is really rigorous and fantastic curriculum exploring Indian religion, philosophy, South Asian culture, classical and modern languages. But one thing that we've kind of just been missing all of these years is just some proper history courses. Help us put all of these things in context and in a broader timeline and perspective. So, you know, I'm just really excited that you signed on and that you're here. I hope to give us, you know, a proper history lesson here today and in this upcoming course. Absolutely, that's absolutely the plan. So, let's get right to it. Maybe we can begin just with a little bit of background and bio. You have a little bit of a different story, I think, than many of the instructors at Yogaic Studies. Most historians come up through university PhD programs, but your path has been somewhat different, right? You've described yourself as a journalist, as a podcaster who came to serious historical research through your own curiosity. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey in how you came to author these books? Yes, it has been a bit of an unconventional journey. I burnt around a fair bit, I think, from the time I was in college, really. Like a lot of young South Indian men, it was somewhat predestined that I would be an engineer. But I happened to be in a university that also offered a minor in the humanities, specifically in philosophy, economics and politics. And I was studying reading all this while also having access to a high-speed internet connection and unlimited download capacity. And best of all, no minimum attendance requirement, unlike a lot of other Indian universities. So, I had a playing quite a lot of historical video games, especially military history games, like room to total war, European or Salis, Crusader Kings, grand strategy, that kind of stuff. And I really enjoyed how after playing a video game inspired by Alexander, for example, I could just buy a well-written history book about Alexander, not necessarily by a specialist, but by somebody who knew how to break things down for a general curious reader. And as my curiosity carried me into the study of Indian history, I was blown away by the tremendous quality of the academic work out there. The absolutely incredible discoveries the scholars have made, the kind of theories that have been put forth. And the kind of evidence that has been assembled absolutely blew me away and it gave me a picture of India that I that I never really seen in either in textbooks or in media. It just generally seemed entirely absent from the public consciousness that I grew up in and that I still surrounded in in an engineering school. And it was really through reading these scholars and that I began to experiment first with blogging, eventually with podcasting, message around especially I think with visual auditory soundscapes, sensecapes in a sense, to try and bring this world to life for enthusiasts like myself. I grew up watching national geographic documentaries and the idea really was to kind of bring that production quality to the storytelling. And it worked. It really clicked. It found quite an active audience and it was partially through that among many other things that I ended up getting a book deal and writing loads of the document. Something I think it met a genuine curiosity that's held really by a lot of young Indians. In fact, the general pattern you discussed in yogic studies and the curricula that you put together, I think also generally speaks to the to the presence already the absence of serious historical scholarship in the Indian public consciousness. There's incredible work that's available for those who can afford the materials who have the leisure time, the interest, the inclination to sort of absorb them. But unfortunately that isn't a lot of young Indians. And the idea really as a public historian is to be an informed intermediary and to facilitate increased engagement with scholarships. So the podcasts that you developed are those still active podcasts right now or did you kind of know it's writing the books and a lot of the skills I developed I think with in writing the podcasts themselves really I think fed into the way I I developed my long form writing style. And no, unfortunately, we in writer full time has made it very difficult to actually be a podcast as well because it's just not so I don't really think it's super viable as an income stream in India yet. There's a massive audience and things are changing but I don't really have not had the time the longest time to get on that but maybe who knows what the next year or two will hold. Yeah and your books are clearly having a reach and having an effect. So yeah your first book, "Lords of the Deccan" was about the Chalukyas and Rosh Drakutas of the Deccan Plateau and now "Lords of Earth and Sea" which is mostly what we'll be focused on here today and in the course turns to the cholas of Tamil Nadu and that peninsula. So what drew you from one region the Deccan to another in Tamil Nadu and in what ways are these two book projects connected? Well the way that history increasingly has been reinvented in the last decade essentially imagines regional histories as almost bonded
and exclusive things. There is this idea, for example, of formal exceptionalism just as there is an idea of Telugu exceptionalism and even kind of exceptionalism. But this kind of leads to this idea of thinking about history in very combative terms about the victory or dominance of one culture over the other. And this really is focus on the image of of martial masculine kings. But it is not to say necessarily that all nationalists imagine history this way, but it does act I think as an anchor in a sense I think of the national myth making that that builds on top of that. So what really intrigued me in my own study of the Chalukias is how much their history is intertwined with the Pallavas and similarly the Rastrakutas and especially the Chalukyas of Kalyana, the later Chalukyas with the Cholas. There is this constant flow of ideas that scholars have been writing about for decades, which I think need to be more central in the popular imagination. And the idea was to really talk about I mean as I was writing lots of deck and I just could not unsee the ever present importance of the Coromandel coast in shaping the history of this inland plateau. The fortunes of many decking kingdoms and empires were decided on the coast and they continued to be for centuries after all the way up to Vijayanagara and thereafter. So in a sense writing a history of the Cholas is an actual sequel to writing history of the Rastrakutas because as I will demonstrate in my course many of the scholars of the Cholas have pointed out the similarities and very evident conversation between Chola notions of kingship and contemporary decking notions of kingship such as those of the Rastrakutas. This idea for example of the conquest of rivers, the idea of the king as representing the solar or the lunar dynasty and restoring order in the Kali age. There's a you can see that these very different denisties in very different ecology, political and natural still shared a certain kind of cultural imaginary. And if you want to understand what made the Cholas remarkable and what made them successful in the milieu of medieval India, you first need to understand what happens paradoxically, first need to understand not just what happens in Tamil Nadu but also what happens in the decking. Absolutely. So you mentioned there the Coromandel coast. So that's the perfect segue to here in New Zealand where I'm currently residing. We've been traveling with my family. My wife's family is our Kiwis in there. They're from New Zealand here. And so we're here right now on the North Island. We're about an hour from Auckland. And just a couple weekends ago we took the kids and we went to what is known here on the North Island of New Zealand as the Coromandel Peninsula or the Coromandel coast. And it's actually one of the biggest tourist destinations on the North Island. And it's because it's absolutely gorgeous, spectacular, beautiful. It's famous for this hot water beach where you actually go right on the coast on the ocean. And you bring a shovel and you dig a hole in the sand and a hot water spring comes up from under the earth. And you get a natural hot spring right on the beach. And anyways, so we were having this wonderful weekend. I thought Coromandel coast, this name just sounds so familiar. How is this Coromandel? And so with a little bit of digging, I was so surprised to learn that the name here in New Zealand might actually derive from Chola Mandalam, the realm of the Cholas. And in fact, the name here for the Coromandel coast was in fact named after a British naval ship, the HMS Coromandel, which harbored in New Zealand in the early 19th century. So I'm wondering if you can bring any insight to this. Do you know anything about the the etymology of this, you know, this phrase, Coromandel? Can we trace it back to this idea of Chola Mandalam? And what does this say to you then that perhaps, you know, a medieval Tamil dynasty left its name on the coastline all the way out here in the South Pacific? I think it's a testament really to the long and tangled histories of Indian Ocean worlds. The very idea and the fact is that in not just South Asian history, we're really in the history of the Indian Ocean. The Cholas really do mark a lot of ways in a lot of ways, a sort of watershed moment. This, it does seem that after dipping a little bit in the 10th century, owing in part to the collapse of a number of important early medieval empires, it's really from the 11th century that we begin to see an uptake. And we also see this renewed stimulation. This is renewed circulation of peoples, both in the western and the eastern Indian Ocean. And a big part of that is the movement of Tamil merchant communities into Southeast Asia, which is a process that over the the centuries would, and we would also see sustained immigration from across the east coast of India, Bengalis, Odeas, as well as Tamil, Telugu's, and some people from further afield Indian Ocean would make their homes in Southeast Asia. Up till like, and this whole process kind of reaches a crux in the 17th, 18th century with the entry of the Dutch East India Company when there's this vigorous trade in textiles, but also in human labor, not just financial expertise, but also enslaved and indentured labor, for example, 300,000 people are exported or traffic to Southeast Asia over this time, as well as hundreds of thousands of of of of of specialty luxury and everyday textiles, as well as you have to imagine aromatics, spices, especially, and so the most valuable products of the global trade at the time. And it's not so this is what you why, for example, the British get so involved in the Corominal course, especially East India Company. And this part of the world would continue to be deeply entangled with the development of global empire in the Indian Ocean region, the plans of empires that produced not just the the the Chettiar owned plantations of colonial Burma, but also the indentured talgo laborers of the Malay Peninsula, as well as objects like this. There's actually this fascinating bell that was recovered in New Zealand in the I think the 1860s. It was being used by Marie by Mauri as a cooking pot, but a missionary acquired it and studied it and found that there's actually a Tamil engraving with the name of a Tamil Muslim merchant. So, and Tamil Muslims being very important in trade in the in Southeast Asia in the Malay streets and the Malakas streets. So just so interesting to show how it's not just names like Coromandal, but also objects and things that are circulating in this enormous network that connects in various ways the entirety of Asia. Yeah, incredible. Well, Anirud, let's let's back up a little bit. You know, for listeners who are let's say completely new to this subject, who were the Cholas and why should we care about them? You know, how can you make the case kind of in as simple terms as possible, let's say like, why is the Chola empire, the dynasty worthy of our attention and study today? Very simply put, the Cholas are indirectly responsible for one of the most influential goods in global consumer history, which is to say the Coromandal coast cotton textile. That's the simplest way to put it in
In fact, the very name, Coromandel, but more generally, the kind of social, political, and most importantly, the religious landscape that produced these fabrics at a scale that essentially closed the world in the 1600s. You cannot understand that with our understanding, the cholars, and the way they transformed the region. Because in order to rule this landscape of village assemblies, merchant assemblies, powerful Brahman settlements, and most importantly, influential temples, the cholars had to develop models of political power and stimulate relationships within this medieval society that would transform not just the Coromandel course, but really the Eastern Indian Ocean for centuries to come. And as it happens, this dynasty has left us an enormous wealth of material with which to reconstruct at least part of this story, not necessarily with the depth and detail that we would want to have, but certainly with the depth of detail that is remarkable by the stands of any medieval Indian dynasty. And in the process of studying them, we understand not just why a part of India is the way it is, but also something more fundamental, I think, about the nature of power. Waterley strikes me as a remarkable of the cholars is how much their story reflects in many ways, I think, just how power operates. And the same analytical rigor and complexity, the multiplicity of factors that we apply to understanding, policies elsewhere in the world can also be brought to bear to an extent at least on the cholars. And the story that emerges is incredible. It's exhilarating to understand. You mentioned some of the sources like inscriptions or epigraphs. You might be saying just a little bit more about what types of evidence that we have to reconstruct this history. How do you tell the story of the cholars? So generally speaking across the early medieval period, which, depending on who you ask, in South Asia, it begins either as early as 300, 400 CE or 600, 700 CE. And continues until the transition to the late medieval in the 13th century or so. But generally speaking, one of these recurring cultural, political characteristics of the early medieval period is the centrality of the temple in the redistribution of resources. Now very often this redistribution is not necessarily to society at large, but to particular institutions to particular groups, considered close to the gods in their temples. And it's really in that context that not just the cholars, but many medieval Indian policies, societies, courts produce quite a lot of material related to the administration of temples. But as it happens, most of this administration in most of the subcontinent was done via palm leaf manuscripts partly through copper plates, but mostly through palm leaf manuscripts or on other perishable materials. Uniquely in the Coromandel coast, most, I mean, there were records kept in palm leaf, of course, but they were also records kept in stone inscribed onto the walls of temples. And while these generally deal with very quotidian matters, who gave how much to the temple for what? The format of these inscriptions and the patterns that they can produce when you put different sites across decades or centuries in conversation with each other. You can arrive at, for example, activity maps, something which Professor James Heitzmann, author of Gifts of Power, which is one of the most influential scholarly works on the cholars. He actually put together these activity maps for entire sections of the chola court, different categories of people, really queens, aristocrats, generals, bureaucrats. And all of this gives us incredibly rich picture of a society and motion. Who is giving gifts and what kind of format are they using to do that? What are they trying to say through their gifts? How they're trying to position themselves? There are several questions that we can productively ask of chola epigraphic material. So in the book, you sort of describe that the chola has kind of came out from nowhere, kind of unexpectedly. What was life like in Tamil Nadu along the Kavari River during this time? And how did it, as you describe, an upstart clan from the Kavari floodplain manage to displace the current powers and how did the chola dynasty get started? What we're looking at is the Indian subcontinent in the early 10th century when the cholas are one power among many. To be clear, the name chola itself was very well rooted in the cultural imagination of the of Tamil society even in the 10th century because it was the name of one of the most important early Tamil kingdoms dating to around the first century C, in fact, contemporary with the peak of the Roman Empire. And these guys left a lasting imprint in the medieval mind, which we'll talk about in great detail in my course. What's important to understand here is that the folks you see down in the bottom of the map, this little kingdom called the cholas on the Kavari River, they called themselves by a name that had heroic associations. But it was by no means clear in this very crowded geopolitical landscape. If the rastrakutas could even be unseated, yet alone, if the cholas would be the ones to successfully do that. But within just a few decades, this map that you've seen with the rastrakuta empire dominating the heartland of the deck in the Krishna, Godavari, river valleys and exercising this military over lordship extending deep into central India at times, even in the northern India. And of course, into the Coromandel coast, within just a few decades after a series of disastrous succession struggles and raids from former vassals, this empire would disappear. It would be fractured into pieces and of all the players in this world who could be thought of as likely to be candidates for over lordship. The cholas were at least at this point of time relatively low in the rankings. Because they lived in a landscape that was crowded with autonomous village assemblies, both Brahmin but also assemblies that grouped together with their neighbors bound themselves through ties of marriage and through collective ownership of land called themselves Nadu's or little countries. And they can jostle with this diverse landscape of aristocrats, military magnets and dynasties among goom the cholas were just one among many. But through decades of building, marriage alliances through military campaigning and most importantly through political campaigning undertaken through temples, the cholas were able to forge a new kind of imperial formation, they were able to unleash enormous resources into across the subcontinent. And Tamil speaking armies would invade not just the southern deck, but also northern Sri Lanka and actually march on the east coast and may even have executed a raid into Southeast Asia. So it's an incredibly epic story in a sense and to see it unfolding through epigrass is something I'm very excited to do in the first couple of lectures of our lord's emergency course. So you've made the point that so many histories, not just of the cholas,
but history in general is told of great kings and military prowess and one battle laughter and other and this kind of very masculine kind of heroic form of history telling. But one of the most striking things about your book then is the central role of women, noble ladies and queens like Queen Sambia and Mahadevi. These are not marginal figures. You in fact argue that these women without them there would be no Chola Empire. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? What is the power that queens and women held within the Chola Empire? So great question Seth. That's something that's very evident in the inscriptions where you can see that in the early 10th century it's primarily the women of the Chola family who are donors. And it's important to remember that these are not passive figures. They come from very often aristocratic landed wealthy, influential backgrounds themselves and they do seek to make careers for themselves in a sense partly through a temple patronage by spreading the patronage in particular networks of focusing it in specific temples. Sometimes building temples linking them with their sons and so on and so forth. These are very these are intelligent and powerful women. And I think this kind of intergenerational character of temple patronage. You can see very clearly in the late 10th century as this remarkable figure you mentioned. So Sambia and Mahadevi emerges onto a scene. She's a profoundly influential Chola Dow Ja Queen who builds at least a dozen temples over the course of her lifetime and makes gifts at many many more. But in all these gifts you can see there's this very clear and recurring both religious and in a sense political mantra where the devotion of the Chola dynasty, their linkage to the God Shiva and the implied right to rule, the implied right to reorder the world and implied political charisma that this confers upon them. It becomes a formula that Tamil society more generally especially elite Tamil society seeks to emulate. And the Cholas gradually begin to be seen as having a legitimate right to over lordship over these very very diverse groups of people. And you see the very same kind of linkage the underlying formula repeating in the inscriptions of Rajaraja the first as well. Both the grand nephew of Sambia Mahadevi and her eventual successor. And he essentially both him and his sons and grandsons would attempt to continue at least partially among among a larger measure of policies to to project themselves as kings. They would rely extensively on temple patronage and on temple inscriptions as a way to shape royal self-presentation. Because while Sambia Mahadevi would focus on her lineage and her devotion, the emperors that eventually the men who eventually took control not just of the dynasty and of the court but really of southern India more generally would use these inscriptions to project military confidence to project military prowess and possibly to use the wealth that resulted from that to feed into this cycle almost of temple patronage growing right to command resources and further conquest. So you mentioned already a lot of the temple building activities both of Queen Mahadevi but also the kings. I mean I think undoubtedly right one of the great legacies of the cholas are these exquisite temples that are still standing in Tamil Nadu and many that are visited as key Pilgrimage sites today. I recently spent some extended time in Tamil Nadu this past November and December. Doing some fieldwork looking you know I've been looking in particular at the material and visual culture of the history of yoga looking for sculptures of yogis and ascetics that are often carved on temple pillars or Prakato walls and so forth of these various temples and I've mostly been focused on the Deccan previously in Karnataka and we were speaking a little bit before some in Andhra Pradesh and this was the first although I've been to Tamil Nadu before this was the first time really going through these temple sites really closely and trying to take in every little detail and you know these these temple complexes are huge and there is so much visual data and sculpture that is coming at you if you will. It was an incredible experience and I was really struck by what is a very particular south Indian and Chola Dravidian architectural style and visual program at a lot of these temples. I was also doing some fieldwork and groundwork planning because we're going to be leading as you know a yogic studies tour of many of these sacred sites and temples in Tamil Nadu in January. We might have to get you to come out and and meet us for a talk or a tour or something if we can but I wanted to talk to you about these temples because this is without a doubt one of the one of the lasting legacies of the Cholas and there are many of them right but there's a few in particular that really stand out and that's still today garner our attention these are the there's the two Brijadishvara temples and there's the Ayatatashvara temple these these temples dedicated to Shiva in his different forms but the Brijadishvara temple at Tangevara is probably the most famous and I think is particularly special which you describe in the book I think as one of the tallest free standing structures in the world at the time of its construction maybe parallel only to or exceeded by the pyramids in Egypt is is that right yes what what was this temple actually doing what other than worship you know and other rituals and ceremonies but can you speak to the role of these temples and their construction how did they serve the purposes of kings and queens and dynasty can you speak to the kind of political and economic work that these temples performed for the Cholas I think one of the things that the Cholas do most successfully is to provide essentially a system where the middle aristocracy can prosper by which I mean influential landowners and of course Brahmins who were I think today in the Indian imagination they very often seen as priests primarily which they were in the medieval period but the most important thing they were really was landed aristocrats and what you see in the Brijadishvara is this rich interplay between control of land the charisma of the king proximity to the god and just the development of this courtly sociability if I can use that word in the eleventh in the culture of eleventh century Tamil Nadu what you see very clearly is this society of everyone from you know minor velala aristocrats to great dinners who see it as being in their common interest to accept Chola titles to accept Chola appointments and essentially partake in this system of honors and influence and command over resources that the Cholas have increasingly emerged as central to and really the anchor of all of this or at least the way that it all seems to have been envisioned by Rajaraja the first really the founder of the empire as he's often imagined to be is that the temple is the anchor of it all the temple the temple today of course is known as the Brijadishvara but was originally known as the Rajarajeshvara both the temple of Rajaraja's Lord the home of Rajaraja's Lord but also Rajaraja as Lord in fact scholars like Richard Davis in their analysis of the
Shiva Agamas, as well as Tamil scholars like Arnaga Swami, they have pointed out that the Shiva Agamas do have a very clear ritual system to unfetter the souls divine Shiva like nature from the mortal coil and the fetters that hold it to existence in a sense. And one of the most ethical issues ways to do that was to build a Meiru like temple to Shiva. And as it happens, one of the other names by which the Rajarajishram is known in its inscriptions is Daktrinamaru, the Sathurandamaru. A home not just for Shiva but also in a sense for Rajarajah as this central figure of a sprawling imperial formation. And that's very much the way in which I think we can understand many royal temple building projects. In fact, many medieval royal lingas or manifestations of Shiva in the stone fellace are named off the kings. You see names like Govindeshwara established by the king Govinda or the Krishnaishwara established by King Krishna, both in fact, Rashtra Kutta kings and Rashtra Kutta temples. And it's very much in that kind of imaginaryum that chola temple construction and ritual is functioning. If you look at this as the staff of the Brij Dishwara temple, for example, you see that this is very clear intent to build a truly an imperial institution. You see that Brahmins, young Brahmins were required to come from villages across the Kaviri flood plain. You see that important landholders, merchants, but most importantly, collective assemblies like the Brahmins, sabars or military regiments composed of Vellala aristocrats would not only make gifts but also be entrusted with the administration of gifts by Chola Royals, not just the king but also his queens and his sister. So it's an incredible snapshot of a society in motion. And in fact, in this course, I'm going to be showing images that the archaeological survey of India managed to capture through long exposure photography around the sanctum, sanctorum of the Brij Dishwara temple that depict this court society. We are actually going to get to see Rajaraja, his queens and their written news. Wow, well that sounds incredible. I can't wait to see that. Speaking of the deities that are worshiped and the images, there's a very special place as you just mentioned for Shiva and you talked about the Shiva Agamas that are being drawn on in this larger kind of cosmology that's being represented, perhaps architecturally. We talk about the legacy of the temples, undoubtedly one of the other major legacies and perhaps what the Cholas today are most sort of famous for is the very image of Natharaja, Shiva as the lord of the dance or the cosmic dancer. In the book, you tell the story about how Queen Sembian, Mahadevi and the king first encounter this image of Natharaja, Shiva as the cosmic dancer and you say that this encounter sort of changed everything. Indeed today, Shiva as the cosmic dancer is one of the primary icons we might say of modern Hinduism, of Shivism, of yoga. We find sculptures and mortis in this Chola bronze style all over the world, you know, held by art collectors, founded museums, certainly posted in yoga studios and Shalas all over the world and and Holmes. Does this trace back to the Cholas and tell us about why this sort of form or how this particular form of Shiva became so important? So I think there's a medieval reception of the icon of Natharaja and there is a modern reception, both through some more different historical processes. I think what we can see in the medieval record, especially the sculptural record, is this rapid ascent and this rapid suffusion of this form of Shiva as Ardavalan as he was known at the time, expert dancer, not Natharaja. But Ardavalan and the worship of Ardavalan and his popularity mostly within the Coromandel course, he was a very, he emerged as a very popular regional figure in the 11th and 12th centuries, but not necessarily before that, which is not to say the iconography didn't exist, it's his appearance in the temples of Sambion Mahadevi and the eventual adoption of that particular temple style as aspirational really in Tamil society that led to the skyrocketing in his popularity. And I think a part of that at least was his association with Chola Power. We know that the in the in the British era temple, for example, the ancient mobile bronze image into which the main deity would have been invoked for the evening processions, for example, was called Daksana Mehru, Vittankar, who very likely was a dancing Shiva, was very likely Natharaja. And Natharaja appears again and again in the paintings of the temple, Rajaraja showing Shrong Peng obeisance to Natharaja, there's a depiction of him worshipping the Linga with the painting of Natharaja nearby. But simultaneously in Rajaraja's temples, Natharaja shares space with Tripurantaka, Shiva has the destroyer of the three demon cities. It's only as Chola charisma and and Chola architectural templates, I think, suffuse the Tamil imagination further that more and more Natharaja bronzes come to be produced. In fact, Vidya, the Higia, the art historian estimates that by the 12th, 13th centuries, about 3,000 Natharaja bronzes had been produced. But for several centuries in the early modern period, Shiva somewhat fades in popularity compared especially to Murugan. The name that like the name, the reason why the name Subramanya, for example, is so popular even today in Tamil Nadu, is because of the popularity of Murugan, the son of Shiva and many important temples were both built and expanded to Murugan at this time. But you also have in the 20th century art collectors discovering Natharaja. An influential art historians like Ananda Kumar Asami writing, for English audiences, among others, English speaking audiences, American, or collecting audiences about the symbolism and the metaphysics of this figure, which leads to quite a revival. Roda, the influential French sculptor, describes Natharaja as the embodiment of rhythm. The value of Natharaja bronzes skyrockets and for several decades, Natharaja bronzes are acquired through both illegitimate and, let's say, illegitimate means by collectors and museums in the West. And many of these bronzes continue to occupy both hallowed positions, both within collections. And I think it's partly because of its discovery in the West, happening at the same time as the West discovers yoga that both come to be interlinked in the imagination. And there's also a rediscovering of Natharaja that happens within India itself. I'll argue that Natharaja, Brahma, Brahma, Brahma, Brahma, Brahma are one of continue to be a very popular good in all across India, really. And the it's quite interesting in some ways that the symbolism of Natharaja and his popularity is not necessarily accompanied with the kind of cultic upper artists that was set up for Natharaja at Chidambaram and that developed over the century. And the thing that we're going to be talking about in some detail in this course. But to me, it's kind of interesting how this this reinvention of the God, his discovery, his circulation, his his his accurition of new meanings in a way.
So different from the reasons why he spread in the medieval period, we're talking about two very different things happening to the same image in a sense. I would be remiss if we didn't talk about some of the maritime efforts associated with the Cholas who were not just a land empire. I mean, again, this is one of the kind of unique special features of this dynasty is the claim that they perhaps had a naval presence or were involved in maritime trade and traveled beyond India and that there was an intercultural exchange with other parts of Southeast Asia and beyond. So, you know, in brief, of course, we're going to get much more in depth on this topic in the course itself. But what can you say just about the significance of the Cholas not just by land but by sea? That's an interesting question. This idea that Cholas had a navy is quite popular and it's held by quite a lot of folks without the kind of evidence that one would ideally want to have. If the Cholas had a navy, they would be generally extraordinary by the standards of the medieval Indian Ocean world where it seems that more shipping was conducted by merchants who could absorb the risk of losses, for example, through collectively funding expeditions. Let's just say that the standing navy doesn't square with what we, with the understanding of the political economy of the 11th century. It is difficult to understand why a land-based power that derived most of its revenue from Rice Harvest, which was a description of most policies in the Eastern Ocean world. Why such a policy would need to invest in a regular navy? And it does seem to me that the claim that the Cholas had a standing navy arrest on two pillars. One is Rajaraja Cholas claim that he had conquered the 10,000 islands of the ancient sea in one of his inscriptions, which is very often interpreted as a proof of his having conquered the Maldives, which a political claim is one thing. Evidence of it is another. And you would want to see quite a lot of evidence to accept this claim as a primafasee. The other pillar of this is the raid that Rajendra Chola, Rajaraja's son claims to have executed on Southeast Asia. The evidence for this is a little more indirect. It does seem there's a cultural memory of contact, violent contact. And you do see Tamil merchant settlements spreading into Southeast Asia within a few decades of this fact. At the same time, the archaeological evidence of a violent raid is a little more difficult to pin down. Maybe we'll find it in the next few decades, but it would suggest a brief. And shocking campaign rather than a sustained program of occupation. It's not necessarily empire building the way seniors, not imperial expansion. It's more of a raiding followed by migration in a sense. And so very clearly what emerges from this is the Cholas do have a maritime footprint. They or more generally more accurately medieval Tamil society did have a maritime footprint. Quite an extensive one, but much of this would have been composed of illiterate sailors who haven't left much of an epigraphic trace. Merchants who did leave some epigraphic trace, but whose archaeology is not in a very satisfactory state. And the picture that I would argue this picture is much more fascinating and interesting than the less solid evidentiary basis for a Chola navy. I would argue that the idea that they didn't have a navy but managed to execute these kinds of maritime operations anyway actually makes them way more interesting and tells us and reveals something really interesting about the ability of the Cholas to project power or over the seas. So the Chola empire lasted for over 300 years. What's your sense and what's kind of the scholarly consensus on how it came to an end? Was it a military defeat? Was it internal conflict, some combination or something else? So professors, Novoroo Karashima and Ysubaraylu studied this in quite a lot of details in papers and books over the decades based on inscriptions they collected and analyzed from the end of the empire. It's kind of funny the picture that emerges is no way near as dramatic as some of these options you presented said that was all down to tax evasion. The long and short of it because we have to understand that a medieval state does not necessarily want to do things a modern state does. Modern states want to self perpetuate themselves, they want to create a source of labor, they want citizens to be ideally educated, have decent health care so they can make good workers etc. But medieval states were organized to ensure that the universe function continued to function the way they believed it to. And a big part of that was genuine, both genuine and cynical belief in higher powers, the ritual propitiation of these higher powers, the consortium of temples. But human nature being human nature and taxes being taxes temples in the 12th and 13th century really emerged as sites of intense gifting activity by courtly and non courtly elites. And this meant that enormous resources came to be commanded by temples and those who commanded the temples. So the resource base of the chola court steadily declines over the course of the 12th century. While big changes are happening in their geopolitical environment, where cavalry warfare is becoming a thing where cavalry is emerging as an arm of vigorous new states like the Hoyselas and Pandias and the cholas eventually prove unable to keep up with these broader transformations. And the interesting thing is that while the dynasty itself doesn't survive the kind of structural forces that are at play continue to evolve in the next century. So for example collective decision making, caste assemblies, intercast assemblies, regional assemblies continue to be very influential in Tamil country. Temple landlords continue to command enormous amounts of resources. And it remains an organizing principle of Coromantical Society for centuries after. So while the cholas themselves don't survive the things they did like had a very long afterlife including Netaraja for example. Well, I think we should probably start to to wind down here. So I think it's a good time to remind our listeners that if you're interested in diving deeper into this material, first and foremost, we recommend you read Unirud's fantastic book, "Lord's of Earth and See a History of the Chola Empire." But we're also offering a special opportunity to unpack the book, dive even deeper into materials that were unpublished and things that couldn't even be included in the book, right? In this new online course, YS138, "Lord's of Earth and See" named titled "After the Book." So the course is going to take place entirely online from May 4th through May 29th with live sessions with Unirud on Fridays. It's now
[email protected]. All are welcome to join. If you're listening to this at a later date, then everything has already been recorded and the course is available for you online on demand. So Unirud, I really just want to thank you so much for your time for offering your work and this course for us at Yogic Studies. Is there anything else that we didn't get to say about the Cholas or their legacy or maybe why parting words with why studying this history is important to you and why it matters? Anything else you'd like to add? I'd like to say it for the course. See if you have a few minutes, I could provide a little bit of a trailer of what's in store for you.
or our first lecture going live in just a few days. - Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Why don't you give us a little preview of what students can expect in the course? - Well, here we go. Lecture one is called Solar Kings in a Luna world. And it's a illusion to how the chole has claimed to be descendants of the sun. At a time when a dynasty called the Rastrakutas ruled or claimed to be rulers of the world and descendants of the moon. The highly stylized image on the right is actually a Rastrakutal lion from the great rock cut temple of Krishnaishwara, also known as the Kailasa Natha temple at Elora here. We're looking at a transverse section. And what we haven't stood really for the first lecture is understanding the world of the Rastrakutas, how they imagined themselves wouldn't meant to be a king of kings, to be an emperor in medieval India. We're going to be looking at inscriptions. We're going to be looking at scholarship. There's been developed over the decades. And we're going to understand within this world how the Tamil is the Coromandel coast fit in, how urbanism began in this region, how the name Chola became so popular, and how it eventually began to find a new life in a world ruled by kings who claimed control over water and to be companions of the gods. We're going to be looking at Pandya King, who seems to have inspired many Chola activities. We're going to be understanding the most recent template that the Cholas may have had to be kings of kings, not necessarily the Rastrakutas, but the Okakas dynasty that ruled medieval Lanka. And we're going to finally end with a preview of our second lecture, where we really begin to understand the rise of the Cholas temple, beatenage and the early Chola family. So I'm so excited to be teaching this. Thank you for having me on board, Seth. And for this wonderful conversation. And hopefully we will see you in Lords of Earth and Sea, YS138, very soon. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Anya Rude. And where can folks find you online if they want to learn more about you in your work? You can find me on my website, on my Instagram, @onirbuddha, and through my weekly column, that I write for one of India's leading digital publications. The publication is called The Print, and my column is called Thinking Medieval. Fantastic. Well, thanks again for your time, Anya Rude. And thanks everybody for listening. We hope that you've enjoyed this little lesson in medieval Indian history. And we hope that you'll join us for this course. Thanks, thanks everyone. And until next time, take care. See you. Thank you for listening to this episode. If today's conversation sparked something in you, and you'd like to explore these ideas, texts, and traditions further, I want to invite you to take the next step with us here at Yogic Studies. Yogic Studies is a world-leading online educational platform offering university-level courses in yoga, Sanskrit, Indian philosophy, Buddhism, tantra, and more, all taught by leading scholars from institutions around the world. Right now, listeners can try the membership completely free for 14 days. That means immediate access to our entire library of curriculum, including all past courses on demand, as well as live courses happening right now. If you've been curious about taking your studies deeper and want to join the global community of fellow students and knowledge seekers, this is the place for you. Visit yogicstudies.com/membership and start your free trial today.
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