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 8​th
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 Pandyas 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 Pandyas 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​th 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 20​th 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 Cola 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. S ​ tein 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 c​ ontrol 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---Rajarajesvara
under Rajaraja I 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 idangai---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 nadu 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 Rajaraja I. The evidence from the nadu 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 Indian
Experience
● Kesavan Veluthat - The Role of Nadu in the Socio-Political
Structure of South India
● James Heitznan - Gifts of Power
● Nilakanta sastri - South India under the Cholas (The Chola
State)