Chola Art PDF

Early Cōḻa Kings and "Early Cōḻa Temples": Art and the Evolution of Kingship
Author(s): Padma Kaimal

Source: Artibus Asiae, Vol. 56, No. 1/2 (1996), pp. 33-66
Published by: Artibus Asiae Publishers
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PADMA KAIMAL
EARLY COLA KINGS AND "EARLY COLA TEMPLES":

ART AND THE EVOLUTION OF KINGSHIP
O ver one hundred small and elegant Hindu temples were constructed of granite in Tamil
Nadu's Kaveri river delta (fig. 2) during the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.I Scholars of India's
art and history have for some years attributed the patronage of this construction to the first nine
kings of the Coladynastywho reignedduring these years(fig. I), and this presumedlink between
kings and art has prompted art historians to identify an "earlyCola style" of sculpture and archi-
tecture.2
While most have assumed these temples were built by kings, it is surprising how few actually
were. The fabric of these temples and the inscriptions engraved on their walls indicate that people
outside the Cola family, various landownerswho lived in the Kaveri delta, were primarily responsible
for constructing these monuments. The inscriptions on these temples name non-Cola patrons much
more frequently than Cola patrons. The temples are scattered over much of the delta, with the tallest
monuments to be found at the greatest distances from Cola urban centers. The overwhelming variety
of architectural and sculptural styles evident at these temples has resisted art historians' repeated
attempts to organize these monuments into a single, clear path of stylistic evolution.3
That the temples of the early Cola period may have been constructed primarily by non-Colas has
considerable impact on the study of art. This thesis challenges one of the central models of Indian art
history: that art patronage has been primarily the work of kings.4 In his book, The Colas, K.A.
Nilakanta Sastri established the Colas as paradigmatic royalpatrons,5 and two generations of scholars
Research for this article was supported by aJ. Paul Getty post-doctoral fellowship, a researchassociateship at the Berkeley Center
forSouthAsianStudies,andthe ColgateUniversityResearchCouncil.
2
The majortexts on early Cola art all presumea linkage between early Cola kings and the artistic style of temples. See S.R.
Balasubrahmanyam, Early Chola Art, Part I (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1966) and Early Chola Temples(New Delhi:
Orient Longman, 1971); Douglas Barrett, Early Cola Art and Sculpture:866IO14 A.D. (London, Faber & Faber Limited, I974);
Gerda Hoekveld-meijer, Koyils in the Colamandalam:Typologyand Developmentof Early Cola Temples(Amsterdam: Krips Repro
Meppel, 1981);M.A. Dhaky, "Colas ofTanjavur: Phase I," in Encyclopaediaof Indian TempleArchitecture:South India, ed. Michael
Meister, vol. I, part I: Lower Dravidadesa: zoo B.C.-I324 A.D. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, I983), I45-98.; and Vidya Dehejia,
Art of theImperialCholas(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,I990). Note that PramodChandra(OntheStudyof IndianArt,
[Cambridge:HarvardUniversity Press, I983, 27-28) has pointed out that Jouveau-Dubreuilhad.not intended to describe
patronage when he adopted dynastic titles for the periods of South Indian architecture; the inference of dynastic involvement was
the work of later scholars.
Historians have adopted this model too. See for example Burton Stein, Peasant State and Societyin MedievalSouth India (New
York: Oxford University Press, I980).
Some art historians have begun to partition off a number of these temples into groups they attribute to the patronage of other
groups in the area, so-called "feudatories"such as the Irukkvels and the Muttaraiyars. See for example The Encyclopaediaof Indian
TempleArchitecture,chapters 6, 7, 9, I0. These methods, however, still leave a large core group of buildings attributed to the Colas.
3 I discuss these three points of evidence at greater length in my dissertation: Padma Kaimal, "Stone Portrait Sculpture at Pallava
and early Cola temples: Kings, Patrons and Individual Identity" (Ph.D. dissertation, U.C. Berkeley, 1988), chapter 5.
4 For recent criticism of the dynastic model of Indian art history, see Vishaka Desai, "Beyond the Temple Walls", and B.D.
Chattopadhyaya, "Historiography, History and Religious Centers," in Gods, Guardians and Lovers(New York: The Asia Society
Galleries in association with Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd., Ahmedabad, I993), I8-3I, 32-47.
s K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, The Colas, 2nd ed. (Madras:University of Madras, I955).
33
have painstakingly applied this assumption to particular monuments and specific reigns.6 Thus the
monuments of the ninth and tenth century, coincident with the reigns of the earliest Colas and
located in the broad region that would eventually come under the control of later Cola rulers, have
been seen to comprise an "earlyCola style". Given that the Cola kings were essentially uninvolved,
however, I would suggest the geographical term "Kaveri style" as a more accurate label for these
monuments. I would also suggest that future study of these temples focus on discerning stylistic
patterns based on multiple patrons and geographically dispersedpoints of production. Studies aimed
at discovering unified and linear patterns of stylistic change will, I maintain, continue to produce
unsatisfying results.7
Early Cola kings' involvement in the construction of temples and other artistic commissions is
sparse but suggestive (fig. 3). The only such projects I have been able to trace are: a free-standing
image of a goddess (fig. 4), the completion of an unfinished temple (figs. 5-9), the gilding of an
ancient shrine's roof (fig. IO), and the construction of one entire temple. What makes this list of
projects intriguing is the pattern it reveals of an unexpectedly regressive style of kingship being
practiced by the early Cola kings. These projects suggest that the early Cola kings were quite
interested in declarations of lineage (such as monuments to illustrious ancestors) and quite
uninterested in temple building, a form of conspicuous generosity that featured prominently in the
"incorporative"mode of kingship scholarshave previously associatedwith the early Cola kings. In an
incorporativekingship, a dominant king would exchange gifts and honors (among other strategies)
as a means of binding to himself the neighboring feudatorieshe had subordinated.
The early Cola preference for projects stressing lineage declaration evinces an ancient "heroic
style" of kingship persisting at a much later date than historians have suspected such a style to have
been in operation. Considerablymore rudimentarythan incorporativekingship, heroic kingship was
strongly shaped by tribal patterns of leadership.A heroic king's authority devolved in large part from
popular perceptions of his own qualifications as a battle champion and of his legitimate descent from
other illustrious warriors.The heroic leader's authority was recognized within a limited geographic
area. Sovereignty was confined to the royal family ratherthan sharedwith other sub-regional leaders
incorporatedas subordinatechieftains.8
Previous scholarshipdoes not lead one to expect that this mode of kingship would appearas late as
the tenth century. Burton Stein and Nicholas Dirks note evidence of heroic kingship in Sangam-
period Puram poetry and in the actions of the early Pallavas who directly preceded the Colas as
overlords of the Kaveri region. Dirks has argued that the Pallavas shifted the mode of kingship, for
6 Balasubrahmanyam, Early Cola Art, Part I and Early Cola Temples;and M.A. Dhaky, "Cola Sculpture," in Chhavi: GoldenJubilee
Volume(I920-I970), ed. Karl Khandalavala,et al. (Varanasi:Bharat Kala Bhavan, I971).
7 Gary J. Schwindler argues at length the failure of "linear models" to explain Cola art. "A Proposed Methodology, based on T.S.
Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, for the study of Medieval South Indian stone sculpture from the region of
Colamandalam ca. 850-Io05," SouthAsian Research2.I (May I982): 35-5I.
8
On the features of heroic kingship, see Burton Stein, "All the King's Mana," in All the King'sMana: Paperson medievalsouthIndian
history (Madras: New Era Publications, I984), 3-II; Nicholas Dirks, The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistoryof an Indian kingdom(New
York: Cambridge, I987), I33-44; and Nicholas Dirks, "Political authority and structural change in early south Indian history,"
Indian Economicand Social HistoryReview13, no. 2 (I976):I43. Heroic kingship resembles closely the first two stages Hermann Kulke
has identified in his model for the evolution of medieval Hindu kingships. Kulke does not link the early stages of his model
directly to Cola history; he does cite RajarajaI Cola as exemplary of his third and final stage. See Hermann Kulke and Dietmar
Rothermund, A History of India (London: Croom Helm, 1986), I30-3I; and Hermann Kulke, "Royal Temple Policy and the
Structure of Medieval Hindu Kingdoms," in The Cult ofjagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa, ed. A. Eschmann, et al.
(New Delhi: Manohar, I978), chapter 7.
34
their successors as well as for themselves, from the heroic to the incorporative by the late eighth
century. He and Stein agree that Nandivarman II Pallavamalla(r. 731-96) was the first king to adopt
the incorporative style.9 Frequent inscriptions attest to the Pallavas' substantial investments in
temple construction, and thus to their practice of this aspect of incorporative kingship.
That the shift from heroic to incorporative kingship could revert under the first Cola kings - that
art patronage and perhaps other means for declaring authority might have been dispersed among
to the accession of RajarajaI C1olain 9851?-
locality leaders from the reign of Vijayalaya C61ola
suggests that the early Cola kings did not inherit the late Pallava style of kingship as directly as
frequent contacts between the two dynasties might lead one to expect. Stein sees the early Colas as
direct heirs to the regnal traditions of the late Pallavas, and he identifies the early Colas' style of
kingship as similar to the incorporativestyle of RajarajaI Cola. Early C61ola
kings had fought beside
Pallava kings as well as against them, and Pallava kings had sponsored temple construction well into
the Kaveri region.I2Nevertheless, the Colas' recapitulation of early stages of kingship suggests that
each dynasty in each region underwent this evolutionary process independently. In other words,
legitimacy earned by one dynasty through the early stages of its political evolution may not have
been transferable to another. The Kaveri region and the Tondaimandalam to its north appear to have
been politically separableto that extent.
As kings in the heroic mode, Early Cola kings would have been quite restricted in their abilities
both to command the material resources for building and to dominate the web of ancient networks
that had structured temple (and other) affairs throughout the region's semi-autonomous localities for
centuries. With temple-building primarily in the hands of locality leaders, the Kaveri delta emerges
as a region even more profoundly segmented than Stein's model of the "segmentary state" has
implied, and early Cola kingship appears regressive, sharply discontinuous from its predecessors and
successors. In Stein's model, direct territorial authority is segmented under various locality leaders,
but the region is unified under the spiritual authority of one king; for Stein that spiritual authority
includes the construction of temples.I3
Also noteworthy is the apparently catalyzing role played by Cola queens in the evolution of the
Colas toward the artistic practices of incorporative kingship. Royal women in south India had for
some centuries perpetuated a tradition of religious giving. This culminated just before the beginning
of RajarajaI Cola's reign in the ambitious building program of Cola queen Sembiyan Mahadevi. The
possibility that women played such a pivotal role in political and ritual development urges us to
distinguish - both in the current essay and in future work - between male and female donations
made by the Cola family. The prominence of these women also invites us to speculate about the
gender dynamics of this period.
9 Dirks, "Political authority and structural change," I44-5I; Stein, "All the King's Mana," 28.
IO Other research firmly establishes a sharp shift during the reign of RajarajaI Cola from locality autonomy toward centralization of
the region under Cola authority. Previously localized activities that Rajarajacentralized under himself included: the collection of
taxes, orders and donations, and the arbitration of local disputes. See James Heitzman, "State formation in South India, 850-I280,"
Indian Economicand Social History Review 24, no. I (I987):35-6i. A system of highly localized patterns of giving also emerges in
Heitzman's "Temple Urbanism in Medieval South India,"Journal of Asian Studies46, no. 4 (November 1987): 791-826.
Stein, PeasantState, chapter 7.
I2 See K.R. Srinivasan, Cave Templesof the Pallavas (New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India, 1964), 79-88. P. Z. Pattabiramin
notes a Pallava cave of the seventh century low on the Trichy rock, and other Pallava caves well to the south of the Kaveri at
Kudumiyamalai, Kunnandarkoyil, and Sittanavassal: Sanctuaires Rupestresde 'l'Indedu Sud, vol. 2: Tamilnadu and Kerala,
(Pondich6ry: l'Institut Frangaisd'Indologie, I975), 28-35.
I3 Stein, PeasantState, "Introduction" and chapter 7.
35
The purpose of this essay is to explore the form and meaning of the very few commitments these
early Cola kings made to temple art (figs. 2-3). What follows is a close reading of architecture,
sculpture, iconography, and selected inscriptions of the temples patronized by these kings, as well as
the very distinctive projects undertaken by their wives. I have focused on inscriptions that mention
construction directly, usually with some form of the Tamil verb etuppittu,and considered only these
explicit references as inscriptional evidence of a patron's financial responsibility for a temple
structure. I have also understood the practice of naming dates in Cola regnal years as simply a
diplomatic acknowledgement of distant rulersratherthan as firm evidence of a king's involvement in
temple construction.
Vijayalaya
Vijayalaya,who ruled from ca. 866-7I,14 appearsto have wielded an authority that still bore the
deep impress of Tamil Nadu's early warriorchieftains. The basic outlines of his reign and his min-
imal involvement in artistic patronage suggest a kingship that was geographically limited,
financiallyrestricted, and versed in the rhetoric of an especially gory brandof martial heroism.
As the first Cola to emerge from the obscurity in which that family's name had been shrouded
since the collapse
collape the jointofkingship of Colas, Ceras and PndPandyas some four centuries earlier,
Vijayalaya exercised an authority that appears to have been initially confined to the micro-region
aroundUraiyur. Vijayalayainitiated the expansion of Cola authority beyond its ancient home in this
small and active locality, capturing from the neighboring Muttaraiyar clan their capital city of
Tanjavur. The Tiruvalangadu plates narrate this achievement in terms of aggressive sexual con-
quest.15 Vijayalaya then made Tainjavur the new capital of his own kingdom, installing there an
image of the goddess Nisumbhasudani.'6
The modest scale of Vijayalaya's religious dedications may indicate that the material and coercive
resources for large artistic projects were not yet at his command.17 There is no sound evidence of
Vijayalaya having built any stone temples.8' The inscriptional record - again, the Tiruvalangadu
plates - speaks of Vijayalaya dedicating no more than the single image at Tanjavur:
Having next consecrated there the image of Nisumbhasudani whose lotus-feet are worshipped by gods and
demons, he by the grace of that goddess bore just as easily as a garland the weight of the whole earth
resplendent with her garment of the four oceans.I9
14 I have adopted the dating ofN. Sethuraman, Early Cholas:MathematicsReconstructs the Chronology(Kumbakonam: the author, I980).
On Vijayalaya, see also Sastri, Colas, II0-I3; and Barrett, Early Cola Architectureand Sculpture,I9-25.
15 "He ... took
possession of the town of Tanjore.. just as he would seize his own wife .. in order to sport with her." (italics added.)
SouthIndian Inscriptions(hereafterSII ) (Madras:Archaeological Survey of India, I920), 3, no. 3, #205, verse 45, 418.
I6 R.
Nagaswamy conjectures that Vijayalaya "installed [this image] at Tanjore, immediately on his victory. Undoubtedly it ought to
have been a great image, portraying the magnificent personality of the ruler who installed it..." "A Note on Nisumbhasudani
installed by Vijayalaya Chola in Tanjore,"Lalit Kald 18 (I977): 39.
17 Kuike classifies a king just beginning to expand territory at his neighbors' expense as late stage I or perhaps early stage 2. Such
kings, he maintains, are not yet able to "[appropriate] the surplus within ... an extended core area." Kulke & Rothermund, A
Historyof India, I3I.
I8 See Barrett, Early Cola Architecture&-Sculpture,42-48, for a refutation of most of the temples Balasubrahmanyam (Early Cola Art,
Part I) attributes to Vijayalaya'spatronage.
I9 The Tiruvalafngaduplates of Rajendra I Cola. See SII 3.3, #205, verse 46, 418.
36
Vijayalaya
(r.'aftr8o-aftert 87I)
Adiytal
(r,87I-908)
1
K6kkil_n--- Pardnta kaI -- aKerala
princess
(r. 907- -54)
Rajaditya
(r. 947-49)
SembiyanMahldevi = =-Gan.dariditya
.(r.949-58)
Kaly,ani--- Arijaya --Nangai Bhfti

(r.953-6o) Aditya Pidriyar
Parantaka C6ola . Vnavan Mahadevi

II/Sundara
(r. 957-73)
.
x WWWIl
Aditya II Kundavai
(r.960-65)
Uttama Cola
(r. 97I-88)
I
Rajaraja
(r. 985-IOI4)
Fig. I. Genealogy:Earlyrulersof the Coladynasty.
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PATRON LOCATION TEMPLE DATESUGGESTED I'iNSCRIPTION -
BY INSCRIPTIONS NAMING PATRON
Parantaka I Tondaimanad, Adityesvara 941' SII 7 #529

Chittor District,
Andhra
Parantaka I Tiruvi.duturai, Gomuktisvara by 945 #I43 of 1925

"Kumbakonam District
Kokkilan or Tirunamanallur, Tirutond-svara 935 #335.of 1902

Raijaiditya SouthArcotDistrict
(as a prince)
Narigai Bhuti Tiruchchendurai, Can'drasekhara 960 #3I6 of 1903

Aditya '
TrichyDistrict
Pidariyar
Sembiyan Konerirajapuram, Umamahesvara by 974 :SII3 :#146

Mahidevi District
Tanjaivu-r
Sembiyan Anangurt, Agast svara by 979 75 of 1926

Mahadevi Tanjavur District
Sembiyan Tirukkodikkaval, Tirukkotisvara by 981 #36 of 1930

Mahidevi District
Tanijavur
Sembiyan Vriddhacalam, Vriddhagirisvara 982 #47 of I918

Mahidevi SouthArcotDistrict
Sembiyan A.duturai, Apatsahayesvara 986 SI 3 #144

Mahidevi District
Tanijavur
Sembiyan Kuttilam, C61isvara 991 SII I3 #170

Mahadevi District
Tainjavur
Sembiyan Tiruvarur, Acalesvara by 99I #57I of 1904

Mahidevi TafijavurDistrict
Sembiyan Tiruvikkarai, Paramasvamigal IOOI #200 of I904

Mahadevi SouthArcot District
Fig. 3. Temples funded by early Cola kings and queens.
Fig. 4. Free-standing image of the goddess Nisumbhasudani, Tafijavur.After Lalit Kala I8, pl. XVIII.I.
Fig. 5. General view from the southwest, Gomuktisvara temple, Tiruvaduturai. Author's photograph.
Fig. 6. Detail of south wall of the Gomuktisvara temple, Tiruvaduturai, including upper cornices and kzituornamentation.Author's photograph.
Fig. 7. Portrait of Karral.ippiccan,South wall of the Gomukt-iSvaratemple, Tiruv-aduturai.Author's photograph.
Fig. 8. Portrait of Eluvan Sandiradittan worshipping a liiga north wall of the Gomuktisvara temple, Tiruvaduturai. Author's photograph.
. ,,> V 7
)1_E - ??~
:~jb~
Fig. 9. Nataraja:miniature figure above the Daksinamurti niche on the south vimanawall, Gomuktisvara temple, Tiruvaduturai. Author's
photograph.
Fig. IO. Eastern face of the gilded cit-sabha, innermost enclosure, temple complex at Cidambaram. Author's photograph.
enclosure
second wall
t- 0 . -
IJT. ,,,.L.
innermost
enclosurewall i
- ' ' 1 . .' :.., . .. ? , : . ...
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;.~ ,
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Fig. of
II.structures within the inner two enclosures, temple complex at Cidambaram.
Groundplan
Fig. n1. Groundplan of structures within the inner two enclosures, temple complex at Cidambaram.
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Fig. 12. General view from the northwest, Tirutondisvara temple, Tirunamanallfir.Author's photograph.
Umama-
Fig. I3. View along the north wall of the ardhaman.dapa, Fig. I4. Nataraja, housed in the eastern-most niche on the south
hesvaratemple, Konerirajapuram.Author's photograph. ardhaman.dapa wall, Umamahesvaratemple, Konerirajapuram.
Author's photograph.
south vimanawall. Umamahesvaratemple, Konerirajapuram.Author's photograph.

Fig. I5. Portrait of Gandaradityaseated before a lingqap.tha,
J ,*i*-,
. . *
-i. , ',\,
4-
*i i
Ie~!
;
Fig. I6. General view from the southeast, Kailasanathasvamintemple, Sembiyan Mahadevl village. Author's photograph.
Fig.I7. Nataraja,housedin the centralnicheon the southardhaman.dapa

wall.Kailasanathasvamin temple,SembiyanMahadevivillage.Author's
photograph.
along.the
Fig. south wall of the ardhamanapa. Uktavedvara
View temple, Kuttlam. Author's photograph.
Fig. I8. View alongthe southwall of the ardhdmanzZ~d.p temple,Kuttalam.Author'sphotograph.
Uktavedi'svara
Fig. I9. Portrait of Uttama Cola? relief above the Agastya niche on the south ardhamandapawall. Uktavedisvara temple, Kuttalam.
Author's photograph.
wall.
Fig. 20. Nataraja, housed in the easternmost niche on the south ardhamandaqpa
Uktavedisvara temple, Kuttalam. Author's photograph.
Fig. 21. General view from the southeast, Agastyesvara temple, Anangur. Author's photograph.
Fig. 22. Nataraja, housed in the westernmost niche on the south ardhamandapawall. Agastyesvara temple, Anangur. Author's photograph.
Fig. 23. General view from the southeast, Candrasekharatemple, Tiruchchendurai. Author's photograph.
Fig. 24. Siva leaning upon Nandi. Candrasekharatemple, Tiruchchendurai. Author's photograph.
Fig. 25. General view from the northwest, Muvarkoyil, Kodumbalur. Author's photograph.
Fig. 26. General view from the southeast, Vatatirthanathatemple, Andanallur. Author's photograph.
Fig. 27. Dvarapala,adjacent to the doorway in the east wall of the ardhadmanzcapad
Vatatirthaniithatemple, Andanallair.Author's photograph.
Since there is no mention of his building a temple to house the image, and as the sculpture bears no
traces of severe weathering, he may have had it installed in a Muttaraiyar structure, an eloquent
gesture of conquest, displacement, and perhapsof parsimony as well.20
The image he dedicated probably survives in Tanjavur's Ugramahakall temple as the free-
standing stone relief currently under worship as Vadabhadrakali(fig. 4). The nature of the goddess he
revered hints rather pointedly at Vijayalaya'sstrong identification with his pre-imperial roots. This
figure is remarkablefor its unusual iconography and its violence. A towering six feet tall, the seated
figure of Nisumbhasudani presents a silhouette bristling with splayed knees and eight lanky arms.
One hand threatens the viewer with a trident, one points to the demon trying vainly to flee, and
another holds the cup made from a skull (kapala). R. Nagaswamy finds a goddess of the same name
defined in the Devzmahdtmya text as one whose worship "stirs terrorin the minds of the opponents in
the battlefields and brings victory to the king."2' Nagaswamy identifies the head she grinds
underfoot as that of Nisumbha and the demon retreating toward the right as his brother Sumbha.
Crushed together under her loins are the heads of three other demons, perhaps members of
Nisumbha's and Sumbha's host. A garland of human skulls hangs across her emaciated chest. The
bony rings of her tracheaprotrude from her straining neck.
While the garland, cup, trident and cadaverous frame are common to representations of the
Goddess' violent aspect throughout Indian art, the demons she tramples here and the imploding
composition they create are distinctive.22 She is not identical with Durga, a form of the goddess
frequently represented on Pallava and Cola-period temples, who is distinguished by her voluptuous
body and by the head of the vanquished buffalo demon she stands upon.23The uniqueness of her
iconography suggests that her worship was highly localized, perhapslimited to Uraiyur or just to the
Cola family. Vijayalaya's continued devotion to her recalls the loyalty to tribal patterns and clan
networks that Hermann Kulke notices in the earliest phase of Hindu kingship.24
As an unusual form of the goddess specifically associated with the Colas, Nisumbhasudani would
have served especially well as an emblem of Cola dominion. A reflection of the early political
fragmentation of the Tamil plain, she embodied the uniqueness - and bellicosity - of the Cola past.
Her installation in a city freshly conquered from a rival group constituted a clearly legible
announcement of the new and threatening overlord.
The fiercely martial quality of Nisumbhasudani's iconography is also worthy of note for its sharp
contrast to the verbal description in the Tiruvalangaduplates, quoted above. The image in Figure 4
has about it nothing of the delicate perfection connoted by "lotus feet", nor could the heads at her feet
be properly described as "worshipping". This dissonance exhibits a vast conceptual as well as
chronological distance between the Puranic formulations and Sanskritcosmopolitanism of RajendraI
Cola's eleventh-century text and Vijayalaya'sninth-century image, with its reflections of the ancient
Tamil warriorculture of the segmented Kaveri delta.
20 The translator notes that as of I920, no temple to this goddess existed in Tanjavur. Ibid., 418, n. 6.
21
Nagaswamy, "A note on Nisumbhasudani," 39. On this myth, see also Kathleen M. Erndl, Victoryto the Mother(New York: Oxford
University Press, I993), 25-28.
2z Nagaswamy also finds this iconography rare. "A Note on Nisumbhasudani," 39.
23 On the distinction between Nisumbhasudani and Durga, see Nagaswamy, "A Note on Nisumbhasudani," 39.
24 Kulke and Rothermund, A History of India, I30-13I: early kings established their legitimacy through this kind of loyalty to tribal
patterns and clan networks; in Orissa, Kulke notes what he calls "sub-regional gods", such as tutelary deities of local princes. In
Orissa, these icons may be an uncarved stone or simple log.
S3
Aditya I
Aditya I ruled from the end of his fatherVijayalaya'sreign until 908. He has been widely regarded
as the most active of the early Cola kings in patronizing temple construction.25This reputation is
based on a brief passage in a copper-plate inscription found in the village of Anbil. Verses 17 and I8
describe Aditya as one
by whom the row of large temples of Siva, as it were banners of his own victories, lofty and unacquainted with
defeator collapse,wasbuilt of stoneon the two banksof the riverKaverifromthe Sahyamountain... evento
the ocean.
There are several reasons, however, to question the veracity of this claim. The reputation for the
sustained building activity reported in these plates may have sprung from false claims by Aditya, the
sort of claims of responsibility that Pallava and other Cola kings are known to have made for various
locally-initiated projects.27 Furthermore, the Anbil plates are anachronistic. Inscribed during the
fourth year of ParantakaII Cola (r. 957-73), they postdate the end of Aditya's reign by approximately
fifty years. As the Tiruvalangadu plates' description of Nisumbhasudani demonstrates, kingship
ideals may have shifted drastically over the course of the tenth century. The sensitivity reflected in
the Anbil plates to the political potential that extensive building offered may similarly be an
interpolation of later tenth-century ideals of kingship.
Of course, the Tiruvalangaduplates are more distant from Vijayalaya'sreign than the Anbil plates
are from Aditya's, and yet I have credited the substance (though not the style) of remarks in the
Tiruvalangaduplates. Why treat the Anbil evidence differently?For one thing, the claim that Aditya
lined the banks of the Kaveri with stone temples remains wholly unsupported by inscriptions on the
temples themselves. As Douglas Barrett admits of the temples he attributes to Aditya, "not a single
one of these temples carriesan inscription with a foundation date or with a direct referenceto Aditya
I as founder."28Dhaky even notes that none of the inscriptions from Aditya's period "concernthe
building of temples."29Perhapsthat reflects only the accidents of preservation.Inscriptional records
of Aditya's patronage may have been lost or simply overlooked among the vast body of Cola-period
inscriptions that still await publication, but until such evidence emerges, the claim of the Anbil
plates merits some skepticism.
Possibly, Aditya did not build any temples. The limited area over which he exercized hegemony
and the structure of his kingship may have denied him the resourcesto build temples. Until Rajaraja
I, Cola kings were unlikely to have had in a place a system that regularly channeled significant
amounts of surplus wealth to the king. They probably relied heavily for income on the rathererratic
resources of loot won from enemy kings and goods seized from unprotected settlements in quick
pillaging raids.3?
25
See for example Sastri, Colas, 64I; Balasubrahmanyam, Early Chola Art, 81-228; Barrett, Architectureand Sczulpture,
49-67; Dehejia,
ArtoftheImperialCholas;andTheEncyclopaedia
ofIndianTemple Architecture,
153-63.
26 Translationby T.A. GopinathaRao,Epigraphia
Indica(hereafterEl) (Calcutta:ArchaeologicalSurveyof India,I919-1920),vol. 15,
no. 5, 68.
27 On the likelihood of grants and orders being merely royal reifications of local arrangements, see Stein, Peasant State, 47, and
"Mana,"42.
28 Barrett,EarlyColaArchitecture andSculpture,
49.
29
Dhaky,in Encyclopaediaof Indian Temple
Architecture,I48.
30
George W. Spencer, The Politics of Expansion(Madras:New Era, I983), 8-12, 2I-22. On loot as a form of royal discourse, see Richard
Davis,"IndiaArt ObjectsasLoot,"Journal
of AsianStudies52,no. I (February
1992):22-48.
54
Aditya was an especially successful warrior king. Close to home he humiliated the Muttaraiyars.
Successful pillaging expeditions took him west into the hilly Kongumandalam of the upper Kaveri,
and north into Tondaimandalam, the core region of Pallavaauthority. Aditya also participated in the
termination of Pallava overlordship in the Kaveri region. Even the loot this produced, however, may
have been inadequate to fund the dozens of temples built during his reign. Aditya was expanding his
authority over a substantially larger area and population than his father had commanded, and
mechanisms for redistribution acrossthis broaderareamay not yet have been in place.
The earliest Cola kings, furthermore, may not have considered ritualized giving (ddna) in the form
of temple construction a necessaryinvestment.3IDirks argues that in the heroic mode of kingship it
was sacrifice, rather than ddna, that constituted the leader as kingly. Strategic generosity existed,
probably in the form of more modest gifts, but signified primarily as a manifestation of prosperity
achieved through sacrifice. Since both sacrificeand dd,nadealt in redistributed war booty, both were
ultimately reflections of the king's martial skill.32 Stein's reading of Puram poetry attributes even less
concern with ddna to kings ruling in the heroic mode.
This approachto ddna stands in sharp contrast to the pivotal role ddna played in the kingships of
Rajaraja I Cola and the later Pallavas. For them and for many of the later Cola and Vijayanagar rulers,
building, protecting and donating to temples were crucial mechanisms for generating and sustaining
their sacred authority. By protecting that deity and receiving honors from that deity, the king shared
in the god's paradigmatic sovereignty. Temple building declared publicly the king's ability to
protect and donate to the deity, it created a lasting visual symbol of the king's sacred authority, and
it constructed a location for economic and ritual mechanisms that could focus a region's material
resourcesand psychological attention on the king.33
In arguing that Aditya may not have built temples, I do not mean to suggest that he utterly
lacked the sacred authority that bound other kings so closely to temples. Modern studies have
postulated that, given the sacrality of kingship, south Indian kings must have been the primary
patrons of temple construction, but speculations about patronage by the early Colas are based almost
entirely on data from periods well outside the early Cola period. Appadurai's Worship and Conflict
focuses upon the colonial and post-colonial periods; his specific remarks about early Cola kings
appear to derive from evidence concerning Rajaraja I Cola.34 Burton Stein's assumptions of
continuity between Pallavas and Colas seem based on similarities between Nandivarman II
Pallavamallaand RajarajaI Cola.35Dirks' Hollow Crown,based on researchon the Nayak through the
modern period, uses Pallava and Nayak examples to define temple-building as a royal ddnanto local
leaders.36
31 Therewereof courseother types of conspicuousddna.The grantingof brahmadeyas and the constructionof watermanagement
projects were among the most costly and popular.Stein's view, however,that brahmadeyas were primnarily
grantedby landed
peasantry in the localities remainsquite convincingfor the earlyCola period.See PeasantState,chapter4. Dana in the formof
irrigationprojectsseemsto havebeencarriedout largelyunderlaterColas.On the dateof the GrandAnicut,the damnreputedto
be the oldestColawaterproject,seePeasantState,24-25.
32 Dirks,"PoliticalAuthority,"I40-43.
33 On the nature of incorporative kingship, see Stein, "Mana,"28-52; Dirks, Crown,28-43; and Arjun Appadurai, Worshipand Conflict
undercolonialrule:A SouthIndiancase(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,I98I), chapterI.
34
Appadurai,WorhipandConflict,64.
35 SeeStein,"Mana,"28-42; andPeasantState,chapter7.
36 Dirks,HollowCrown,chapter2.
55ss
Perceptions of a king's unique intimacy with the sacred must have sustained early Cola kings'
authority too, but these kings forged this link through more elementary and less expensive
mechanisms than temple construction. These mechanisms probably included the issuing of
landgrants that reified the gifts of others, and participating in public rituals in which grants were
made and dominance thus asserted.
Moreover,the sacrality of early Cola kings may have minimal relevance to Kaveri-region temples
in particular, since those temples derived their sanctity from non-royal traditions that considerably
predated the ninth-century reemergenceof the Cola kings. These temples marked sites sanctified by
their direct contact with the gods, contacts described in the devotional songs of Appar and other
Tamil saints who wandered through this region singing of Siva's appearanceat one spot and the
miracle he performedat another. Worship in some form had persisted at these sites for centuries, and
many sites had been marked by religious structures of brick, wood and other impermanent media.
The granite structures that now line the Kaveri are, then, the result of rebuilding projects, carriedon
through the ninth and tenth centuries, to upgrade established holy sites.
Parantaka I
Although scholarly attention has focussed on Aditya I's architectural contribution, stronger
evidence indicates that his son, ParantakaI, who ruled until 954 was the first Cola king to be directly
involved in funding temple construction. Inscriptions identify ParantakaI with three architectural
projects: the construction of one complete temple, the Adityesvara at Tondaimanad, by 94I; the
completion of the Gomuktisvara temple in Tiruvaduturaibefore 945; and the gilding of the ancient
cit-sabhaat Cidambaram.
On their own, these three projects are insufficient to suggest an architecturalstyle for Parantaka,
but collectively they depict a more significant interest in dana in the form of temple building than
the recordrevealsfor Aditya. Parantaka'scontributions to Cidambaramand Tiruvaduturai,both well
established religious centers by the tenth century, also foreshadow another strategy that later Cola
kings would use extensively: Parantakamay have sought to broaden his authority by affiliating with
places of ancient sanctity.37In selecting places well outside the micro-region in which Cola authority
had been previously centered, and thus moving beyond the narrowregionalism of his grandfather's
devotion to Nisumbhasudani, Parantakamade religious gestures that paralleled his military efforts
to widen the geographic sphere of his authority.38
Despite the hints of change encoded in these gestures, a certain conservatism still marks
Parantaka'sapproachto temple building. In this way he is a transitional figure. His deepest commit-
ment still seems to have lain in asserting his descent from an illustrious warrior, and the relative
economy of Parantaka'sprojects suggests he commanded limited fiscal resources.39The localities
seem to have remained strong and essentially unincorporatedat this point. He appears,however, to
have selected his spots carefully, achieving considerable political exposure without spending extra-
vagantly.
37 Kulke understands Orissan kings to have wooed the allegiances of wider populations of tribals by declaring their devotion to tribal
groups' ancient cults. Kulke's term for this is "royalizing".See Kulke, "Royal Temple Policy."
38 On Parantaka'smilitary expansions, see Sastri, Colas, i20-29.
39 Kulke's model
suggests that kings in the process of expansion - who are for example extending cultivation, defeating neighbors
and treating them as tributaries - have not yet centralized administration. Kulke & Rothermund, A Historyof India, I30-34.
56
The Adityesvara temple (also called the Kodandaramesvaratemple) at Tondaimanad is the only
temple built before the time of RajarajaI for which I have found documentation crediting con-
struction entirely to a reigning Cola king. The foundation inscription explains that Parantakabuilt
this temple as apa.l.lippataifor his father, and that Parantakahad endowed one hundred five kalancuof
gold and four thousand kati of paddy to the temple for annual celebrations of Aditya's natal star.40
P.llippatai is a Tamil word apparentlyderived from the verbp.llip-p_atuttu, "to inter the remains of a
venerated person".As a term for a temple type, pallippatai appearsin inscriptions but not in ancient
texts concerning temple construction. Temples associated with burial would have defied the
tradition of the agamas, Sanskrit manuals on ritual and art that advocate cremation and expressly
forbid building over a burial site. Temples commemorating the death of a mighty warrior king
would seem to have more in common with the much older practice of honoring fallen warriors by
erecting hero-stones where these men fell in battle.41
As a monument dedicated to a deceased warrior,the Adityesvara temple conforms to this sense of
pallippatai. The temple's location also evokes the hero-stone tradition: as Aditya died at Ton-
daimanad, the temple may mark the precise site of his death.42This pallippatai was, at any rate, a
monument to lineage and heroism in battle, commemorating the patron in the terms of ancient
Tamil warrior culture. That a temple evoking martial ideals of the Colas' tribal past is the only
ascertainable structure to have commanded Parantaka's full financial support suggests that
Parantaka'sinspiration to build was strongest when it coincided with an opportunity to declare his
lineage.
Parantaka'scontribution of five hundred kalancuof gold to Tiruvaduturaifunded the final stages
of construction at the Gomuktisvara temple (fig. S) before the year 945. Parantaka'spatronage is
stated in an inscription of year thirty-eight of ParantakaI on the east wall of the central shrine.43
Earlierinscriptions name a Karralippiccanas patron of construction and of other endowments to the
same temple, and a Eluvan Sandiradittanis credited with the construction of one layer (patai) of the
temple.44 Portraits of these two men (figs. 7-8) plus those of several other individuals are carved in
relief just below eye level on the walls of the original structure. The inscriptions that describe the
subjects of these portraits do so not by royally-invested titles but by naming the locality with which
each person identified. People who valued their locality affiliation over their links to the Colas appear
to have funded construction of the foundation and the main walls of the temple's first storey.
The epigraph naming Parantakaas a patron describes his contribution as extending upward from
the ki.tappatai, a hapax-legomenon that may connote a layer (patal) containing horseshoe-shapedarches
(kgtu).45The uniqueness of the inscription's pivotal term, however, leaves open to some speculation
40 Parantakais described without qualification as the temple's sponsor in an inscription located on the north face of the central shrine
and dated to the year 941 (i.e., the thirty-fourth year of Parantaka's reign). The full inscription is published in SII 7, #529. For a
transcription and analysis of the passage relating to Parantaka'spatronage, see Balasubrahmanyam,Early Cola Temples,I02-03.
41 For the etymology, see T.G. Aravamuthan, South Indian Portraits in Stoneand Metal (London: Luzac and Co., I930), 50. On hero
stones, see S. Settar and G.D. Sontheimer, MemorialStones:A study of their origin, significanceand variety (Institute of Indian Art
History Series, No. 2, Karnataka University, Dharwad; South Asian Studies XI, no. II, South Asia Institute, University of
Heidelberg, Germany, I982).
42 On Aditya's death, see Sastri, Colas, II5-I6.
43 Annual Reporton SouthIndian Epigraphyfor1g24-25 (hereafterARSIE) (Madras:Government Press, I925), 28, #143 for I925.
44 On Karralippiccan see ARSIE for 1924-25, #122, I25, I26, I39, I40, I42 for I925, 26-28. On Eluvan Sandiradittan see ARSIE for
I924-25, #IO6 for I925, 24.
45 For further discussion of this term's meaning and this attribution of patronage, see Padma Kaimal, "Stone Portrait Sculpture,"
283-84.
57
the precise point in the upper reaches of the main walls at which construction under Parantaka
picked up.
The recordof Parantaka'sdonation to Cidambaramsurvives in two copper-plate inscriptions. The
largerLeydengrant eulogizes the gift in the following terms:
With pure gold brought from all the quarterswhich were subdued by the prowess of his own arm, this banner
of the solar race [i.e., Parantaka] covered the mansion of Indramauli [Siva] at Vyaghragrahara [i.e.,
Cidambaram].46
According to the Tiruvalafigadugrant:

He [Parantaka]built for Purari [Siva], who was before this on the silver mountain [Kailasa], a golden house
called Dabhra-Sabhaand thus put to shame his [Siva's] friend, the lord of wealth [Kubera], by his immense
riches.47
Neither inscription specifies the date of the donation, although the first inscription's reference to
victories against the Pandya and Sri Lanka kings may indicate a construction date late in Parantaka's
reign.48
As the larger Leyden plates were written for Rajaraja I in Ioo006and the Tiruvalangadu plates for
his son Rajendra I in I020, both inscriptions are anachronistic to the instance of patronage they
report, and yetey specificity of the gift
the they dconsistenies
describe and between the two
descriptions make these sources more credible than the Anbil plates in this regard. Both passages
name Siva as the recipient of the gift, both identify the use of gold, and both use terms
(Vyaghragrahara and Dabhra-sabha) that locate the gilded shrine precisely in the Cidambaram
temple complex.
The cit-sabhdat Cidambaram(fig. IO)is a small structure located within the complex's innermost
enclosure wall (fig. II).49In its oblong plan and its southern orientation, this building is quite unlike
most Cola-period shrines in the Kaveri area. The shrine is constructed of dark wood rather than
granite, and its roof has been again sheathed in gold. The roof of the structure is distinctive. From a
transverse ridge pole, the roofs sloping sides bulge outward to form a humped profile, then pinch in
and finally flareslightly at the eaves.
Having the roof of a central shrine at Cidambaram covered in gold would have spread the
reputation of Cola generosity and enhanced perceptions of Parantaka's privileged access to things
divine, as his Tiruvaduturai donation had done. The dividends from his Cidambaram gift may have
been even greater than those from Tiruvaduturai. Cidambaram, which lies beyond the northeastern
corner of the Kaveri delta (fig. 2), was farther than Tiruvaduturai from the geographic center of his
family's authority, and Cidambaram's sacred traditions were considered yet more ancient.
It seems likely that through this gift of gold Parantaka initiated the powerful and mutually
supportive relationship that the Cola family and the Cidambaram temple would maintain with each
other over the next two centuries. I believe that Parantaka's gift may have been, furthermore, a
46 El 22, #34, verse 17, 256.

47 Sll 3.3, #205, verse 53. The English translation appears on p. 4I9.
48 The Pandya and Sri Lanka king's defeats are described in SII 3.3, #205, verses 51-52. On dates of conflicts with Madurai and Sri
Lanka, see Sastri, Colas, I20-25.
49 For descriptions and plans of the Cidambaram complex, see James C. Harle, TempleGateways in South India (Oxford: Bruno
Cassirer, 1963), 31-40; and B.G.L. Swamy, Chidambaramand Nataraja: Problemsand Rationalization(Mysore: Geetha Book House,
I979), 29-68.
58
catalyst of the Nataraja cult at Cidambaram. I base this hypothesis, which I will explore in a separate
article, on the coincidence of three separate events during the first half of the tenth century:
Parantaka's gift, the composition of segments in the Cidambharamdhatmyathat are the earliest verbal
record of the Nataraja cult, and the execution of the earliest surviving and dated visual re-
presentations of Nataraja (fig. 9).5? The strong emphasis the Nataraja myth puts on Cidambaram as a
particular place could have established a geographical and psychological focus for people of the entire
Tamil plain and perhaps beyond as well. Nataraja's association with a town deeply rooted in the
autochthonous cults of popular, non-orthodox Hinduism may have made Natarajaquite an effective
god through whom to appeal to the population of a region in which the nonhierarchical and intensely
personal religious tradition of bhakti had flourished for centuries. By creating a sense of spiritual
center that exerted its centripetal pull on all those who cherished Nataraja in their hearts,
Cidambaram could at the same time participate in the political unification of a broader area and in
the invention of a sense of regional identity for that area.5I
In Parantaka's gift, ddna of such potentially ambitious proportions dovetails with a lingering
appreciation of martial heroism, suggesting the coexistence of, and a gradual transition between,
heroic and incorporative modes of kingship. In describing the gold used at Cidambaram as booty
captured from enemy kings, the Leyden plates valorize the king as a successful warrior. Parantaka's
ability to give is still expressed as dependent upon his prowess as a champion in war. Two verses
later, the same inscription praises Parantakafor "havingprotected the earth girdled by the ocean"as
well as for being "preeminent in destroying the armies of (his) enemies."52In the Tiruvalanigadu
grant, the verses preceding the reference to Cidambaram describe Parantaka's victories against the
Pandyaking and Sri Lafika.53
Parantaka's pattern of donations indicates that he was tied to older ways of thinking about
kingship, ways that reflect a smaller kingdom and a narrowerscope of authority. His approach to
ddna was cautious while his proclamations of illustrious descent remained staunch. Still at a rather
early stage in his efforts to dominate the Tamil plain, this king had, however, collected sufficient
material and sufficient motivation to participate at once modestly and splashily in temple construc-
tion. Although not yet vast, these resources enabled Parantaka to invest selectively, publicizing and
glorifying the Cola name through affiliations to locality temples outside the ancient Cola core area.
Among these was the Cidambaram temple with its Nataraja cult, which was to become a profoundly
Cola icon by the eleventh century, and which already adorned the Tiruvaduturai temple (fig. 9),
perhaps at Parantaka's behest. The efficacy of these policies may explain in part his success in
consolidating Cola authority over the regions his father had added to the kingdom. The policies also
indicate that power in the Tamil plain still devolved from the localities, and only through them
could a king hope to establish himself as a meaningful ruler.
50 Kulke suggests the coincidence between dates of sections of this text that narratethe occurrence of Siva's triumphant dance and the
earliest artistic representations of the dance. See Hermann Kulke, Cidambaramahdtmya,Freiburgerbeitragezur indologie,Bd. 3,
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1970), 221-23. On the dates of the earliest sculpted images of Nataraja, see Douglas Barrett, "The
Dancing Siva in early south Indian Art," The Sixth Annual MortimerWheelerArchaeologicalProceedingsof the British Academy,62
(I976): 181-82.
51 On the Sanskritization of local cults as a
royal strategy for resolving the conflict between orthodoxy and bhakti, see Kulke &
Rothermund, A Historyof India, I38-44. As a strategy for expanding kingdoms, see Kulke, "Royal Temple Policy."
52 EI 22, #34, verse 19, 256 (English).
53 SII 3.3, #205, verses 5I-52, 419 (English).
S9
Rajaditya to RajarajaI
The Cola kings who ruled between Parantakaand RajarajaI may have built no temples at all.
Before his coronation, Rajaditya (r. 947-49) might have funded construction of the Tirutondisvara
temple at Tirunamanallur(fig. I2), but the inscription that refersto him is ambiguous. Balasubrah-
manyam points out that the wording may just as easily give credit to Rajaditya'smother Kokkilan
for building the temple in her son's name.54This would still define the temple as a Cola project, but
the distinction between the patronage of kings and queens was, as I will discuss later, probably
fragment is sculpted with "the figure of a kneeling elephant, above the elephant a haudawith a stout
male person reclining in it."55The Atakur and larger Leyden grants pointedly describe Rajaditya's
death in battle, as he sat in a hauda on his elephant's back.5 Such a direct referenceto the prince's
death suggests that the temple housing this image may have been aplulippataidedicated to the fallen
warrior.
Gandaraditya Cola (r. 949-58), Parantaka's son, perpetuated his family's association with
Cidambaram's Nataraja, but no evidence survives of his making any financial commitments.
Gandaradityadid write a devotional poem to the dancing god, the ten-verse Tiruvisaippain which
Gandaradityamentions the Cola kingship in highly localized and unambitious terms.57
Gandaraditya's son Uttama Cola inherited the Cola throne in 971, perhaps by murder, after an
interregnum by a collateral branch of the family.58Kulke implies that RajarajaI Cola's shifts toward
a fully incorporative, "mature"medieval Hindu kingship may have begun with Uttama Cola, or at
least been facilitated by him.59A boom in royal finances is suggested by the substantial program of
Cola temple construction that appearsto begin abruptly with Uttama's reign. Within the first three
years of his accession, the earliest dated temple of this group was constructed, the Umamahesvara
temple in Konerirajapuram. ? And yet temple construction still likely remained outside the
responsibilities of the king. Uttama is not mentioned as the patron of any of these structures,
although funds were clearly available to his family. The temples were built instead by his mother,
Sembiyan Mahadevi. I
4 E
7, No. I9.A, I33-34.
55 E. Hultzsch, EI No.
7, I9.A, 133.
56 Sastri, Colas, I3I-32.
57 M. Arunachalam, "Gandaraditya and his Tiru-isaippa," in Srinidhih: Perspectivesin Indian Archaeology,Art and Culture, K.R.
Srinivasan Festschrift (Madras:New Era, 1983), 229-32. For an English summary of the poem's contents, see Sastri, Colas, I52. For
the Tamil text of verse 8 (which describes Parantaka's donation) see S.R. Balasubrahmanyam, "The Oldest Chidambaram
Inscriptions," 59, n. 4.
58 See Sastri, Colas, I58. On
usurpation by affines as a logical outcome of cross-cousin marriage patterns, since that system never
permitted siblings to get any closer to the throne or any further from it, see Thomas Trautman, Dravidian Kinship (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, I981), 432.
59 Kulke & Rothermund, A Historyof India, I22.
60 An
inscription of Uttama's third year implies the temple was already complete. SII 3, #I51, I5iA.
6I A separate inscription describes Sembiyan Mahadev?'sresponsibility for funding the temple. SII 3, #I46.
6o
Sembiyan Mahadevi
From the early years of Uttama's reign into the later years of Rajaraja's, Sembiyan Mahadevi
sponsored the reconstruction in granite of at least nine locality temples (fig. I3-22; fig. 3 lists these
projects).62 She also made numerous donations, which she announced explicitly in temple
inscriptions, of bronze images, jewelry, land and cash to these and other temples.63 She thus
surpassed all of her Cola predecessors, male and female, in the quantity of her donations and
specifically in her commitment to temple construction.
Sembiyan Mahadevl's temples were unprecedented among the area's non-royal temples for their
stylistic consistency. Her temples exhibit a relative uniformity in their decorative features and
iconographic programs, a uniformity that was radically new in the third quarter of the tenth century.
This homogeneity seems precisely appropriate to a single source of patronage, whereas the
conspicuous absence of such consistency among Kaveri-area temples of the preceding century implies
a widely dispersed pattern of patronage. Because they are demonstrably linked to a Cola patron and
because they delineate a consistent artistic style, Sembiyan Mahadevi's temples are the earliest
examples of what may accurately be called an "early Cola style" of art. Adorning the walls of the
central shrine (vimana) is a combination of the polygonal and rounded pilasters (figs. 13, I6 and 21)
that had separately adorned earlier structures.64 The foundations of Sembiyan Mahadevi's temples
display only three out of the twelve different arrangements of horizontal moldings that Barrett has
identified. These three combinations all include two recessed facets (or kanthas) and exemplify the
tallest and most elaborate molding combinations found (fig. 13, 16, I8, 2I).65 The entry hall
(ardhamandapa) bears three sculpted figures on each of its two exterior walls (figs. 13,16, I8), setting
all of them now in the deep, fully-framed niches that had been far less numerous on most previous
temples.
Sembiyan Mahadevi's temples introduce a relative consistency also in the identities of the figures
located in those niches. Agastya, Nataraja and Ganesa occupy the southern niches of the
ardhamandapa; Daksinamurti the south niche of the vimdna; Lingodbhava the west niche of the
vimana; Brahma the north niche of the vimdna; Bhiksatana, Durga and Ardhanari the northern niches
of the ardhamandapa. Her temples are the first to present Nataraja as a full-scale figure in a large and
elaborately framed niche (figs. 14, 17, 20, 22). Carved almost in the round, well over a meter tall and
towering over viewers from his elevated niche, Nataraja now becomes a visual and ritual equivalent of
Ganesa, Siva Daksinamurti, Brahma and Durga, who for decades had dominated the otherwise
severe, architectonic surfaces of Kaveri-area temple walls.
62 The list in Figure 3 includes temples for which inscriptions survive naming Sembiyan Mahadevi as the patron of their construction.
Some of these structures are no longer standing. This list is derived from B. Venkataraman, TempleArt under the Chola Queens
(Faridabad: Thomson Press [India] Ltd., 1976), 16-46. Barrett (Early Cola Architectureand Sculpture)confirms all of these as
Sembiyan Mahadevi projects except Vada-Tirumullaivayil, which he does not discuss at all. On the basis of style and inscriptions
that name that queen as donor of other kinds of gifts, Barrett adds a temple at Tirunaraiyur (Tanjavur District) to his list of her
projects (p. I09).
63 For a summary of her non-architectural donations, see Venkataraman, Chola Queens,51-58.
64 Hoekveld-Meijer, Koyils,255-58.
65 Barrett's system identifies these three combinations as A.2, B.2.a and B.5. For line drawings of these and for a chart categorizing
temples by their molding combinations, see Early Cola Architectureand Sculpture,126-30.
Nataraja appears to have had a relevance for Sembiyan Mahadevl that he did not have for those
who funded most of the temples built before her time. This should not be surprising given her
husband's poetry - and assuming that I am correct in understanding her father-in-law to have
established Nataraja as the Cola family deity. Several aspects of Nataraja's presentation suggest a
direct connection between this queen and the Cidambaramcult. Nataraja is elevated to a full-scale,
niched image precisely when Sembiyan Mahadevi becomes involved in temple construction: the first
dated monument to house a large Nataraja image, the Umamahesvaraat Konerirajapuram(figs. 13-
15), is also Sembiyan Mahadevi's earliest securely-dated temple. He persists throughout her
monuments, becoming more and more firmly entrenched in their iconographicprogram. His earliest
depictions on her temples have about them an air of experimentation. The artistic canon has not yet
been set. In some images, Gafiga may be missing from his locks of hair, or he may hold the cobra on
the left rather than the right. At Konerirajapuram,Anangur (fig. 21) and Tirukkodikaval, temples
built during the first decade of Sembiyan Mahadevl'spatronage, Natarajaappearsin various flanking
niches of the south wall. By 981, however, on the Kailasanathasvamintemple in Sembiyan Mahadevi
village, he takes up the dominant position he will occupy henceforth, in the central niche of the
ardhamaCn.dapa's south wall (fig. I6, I7).66
Sembiyan Mahadevi accomplished these innovations within the architectural idiom that had
flourished in the localities for over a century. She too built small granite temples in the scattered
villages that housed most of the population of the Kaveri region. Her temples perpetuated many
elements of locality temples' iconography and decorative vocabulary. The consistent features of her
style, mentioned above, comprise a narrowselection from the wide range of forms present on earlier
Kaveri-region temples.
To the extent that she invested in locality temples of ancient sacrality, her strategic giving
resembled Parantaka's involvement at Tiruvaduturai. Distributing her temples as a kind of
architectural vanguard through regions distant from the Cola capitals, she could capture attention
where it was currently directed to local monuments. Her adherence to local architectural idioms
implies a respect for the political strength of these small places and an intention to court their
interests.
But the intensity and volume of her generosity radicalized her father-in-law's precedent.
Sembiyan Mahadevi's extensive building program constituted a major shift in Cola giving patterns
and a significant escalation in the rhetoric - and perhaps the ambitions - of an expanding kingdom.
She projected her own identity in an especially persistent form upon Konerirajapuram,where she
instituted the regular celebration of her natal star.67Reconstructing a number of brick buildings in
stone, she repeatedly interposed herself between local devotees and local deities, and transformed
local traditions into Cola ones. Building in the small towns where songs of the Tamil saints situated
Siva's manifestations and miracles,68this queen attached the Cola name to local associationswith the
sacred.
Nataraja figured prominently in this strategy. Sembiyan Mahadevi had extracted that god from
the Cidambaramcompound more emphatically than Parantakahad done with his small Nataraja at
66 With one exception, on the Col6lvarartemple at Kuttalam, he is once again in a flanking niche. Barrett has traced the occurrences
of Nataraja images in stone as well as bronze: Barrett, "The Dancing Siva."
67 See Balasubrahmanyam,Early Chola Temples,I68.
68
For example, Konerirajapuramand Aduturai are extolled in Appar's songs, and Kuttalam was the site of a marriage ceremony for
Siva and Parvati. See Balasubrahmanyam,Early Chola Temples,I65, I173,I76-77.
62
Tiruvaduturai(fig. 9). She had sought a wider fame for the god, for his cult center, and for the pious
generosity of the Cola family. Disseminating his image as a large, prominent stone figure on the
many temples she built, and in bronze form to other temples, she promulgated him as the deity of
the entire Kaveri areaand the Tondaimandalam,a symbol aroundwhich a sense of a unified identity,
focussed upon the Colas, might coalesce.
A Cola queen thus appears to have been the first member of that family to employ temple
construction as a means for expanding substantially the Cola presence in localities distant from
Uraiyur and Tanjavur. Her pious and ostentatious generosity represents a shift toward the ddna
strategies used by later Hindu kings.
At the same time she seems to have perpetuated the retrograde Cola practice of building
pallippatai. Her temples at Konerirajapuramand Kuttalam (figs. 13, 18) may have been pallipatci
dedicated to her husband and son, respectively. The Konerirajapuram temple, which bears an
inscription dedicating it to Gandaraditya,also bears a labelled portrait of him (fig. I5); the Kuttalam
temple bears a similar image that probably represents Uttama Cola (fig. i9). 9 These temples also
share an unusual orientation: whereas most Tamil temples open to the east, these two open to the
west. A referenceto Gandaradityaas "the king who went to the west"70may signify that direction as
the locus of death, and thereforeas an appropriatedirection forpa.llippataito face.
It would certainly be intriguing to find Sembiyan Mahadeviparticipating on behalf of her son and
husband (and as Kokkilan may have for her son) in the architecturalrhetoric of descent. Why was it
she instead of her kings who translatedpiety and financialresourcesinto stone monuments, even into
monuments deriving from the profoundly masculine tradition of the Tamil warrior-chief?The limits
placed on female self-determination in traditional Hindu societies would seem to forbid a patronage
program such as Sembiyan Mahadevl's. What sources of authority enabled a queen to make so many
donations, and even to alter state policy as I perceive her gifts to have done?
Apparently temple donation, and donations of art in particular, lay almost exclusively within the
female sphere of authority in tenth-century south India. Leslie Orr's survey of Cola inscriptions
reveals that while Cola women made frequent and lavish d ions to a number of temples, Cola
males preferred to make their mark by issuing orders.7I This would suggest that the Tirunamanallur
temple was more likely a product of Kokkilan's patronage than her son's. There is also the
Candrasekara temple at Tiruchchendurai (fig. 23) which proclaims unambiguously that it was
constructed by Nangai Bhuti Aditya Pidariyar,a queen ofArinjaya Cola, aroundthe year 960.72
Female generosity to temples was not, furthermore, new to south India with the Colas. Dirks
observes that between the first and fourth centuries, women of the Satavahanaand Iksvakus dynasty
donated stone monuments in significant quantities while their kings focussed their energies instead
69 SII 3, #146 testifies that Sembiyan Mahadevi constructed the Konerirajapuramtemple in the name of her husband. On the basis of
its elaborate ornament, Sanford suggests that this queen dedicated the Kuttalam temple to her son. Sanford, "EarlyTemples," 18I
and I9I, n. 56. Since the relief at Kuttalam closely resembles the format of the Konerirajapuramportrait of Gandaraditya, it may be
a portrait of Uttama Cola. Both portraits are shown seated in adoration of a linga, and both are on the south wall of the temple. See
Kaimal, "Stone Portrait Sculpture," 290-307, 3I6-24; figs. 6.II, 6.13.
70 #540 of 1920: Sastri, Colas, I52, n. 45.
71 Leslie Orr, "Imitation royalty or upward mobility: Temple women," paper delivered at the i8th Annual Conference on South Asia,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, November, 1988.
72 Her responsibility for construction is expressed in inscription #316 of 1903, relevant sections of which are transliterated and
discussed by Balasubrahmanyam, Early Chola Art, 93. For further discussion of this inscription, see SII 3, 218. The temple is
discussed in Barrett, Early Cola Architectureand Sculpture,52.
63
on Vedic rituals of sacrifice.73This long tradition of royal women sponsoring expensive, permanent,
religious monuments, thus flourished repeatedly even (or perhaps especially) when kings
concentratedon other types of legitimating behavior.
I would suggest that the power of these women to give derived at least in part from distinctive
kinship patterns in south India. The south Indian preferencefor endogamous cross-cousin marriages
may have enhanced women's significance within their husbands' families, and may have given these
women access to material resources through their natal families. Thomas Trautmann has noted that
through such marriage patterns the Colas and their neighbors created persistent relationships
between families through repeated intermarriages.74Since the Colas turned repeatedly to certain
families for marriage partners, the wife's family as well as the husband's might "persist" within the
Cola household. A new bride might find aunts or sisters already integrated into her husband's
extended family, and these natal relatives may have been a source of social and psychological support.
Furthermore, the husband's family remained beholden to the bride's after marriage because it
continued to rely on the bride's family as a source of future spouses. Sembiyan Mahadevi's options to
act, donate and even dictate may have been enhanced by the Colas' continued dependence upon her
natal kin. Trautmann has discovered that the Colas returned to Sembiyan Mahadevl'snatal family in
Malanadu for one of her daughters-in-law.75Cross-cousin marriagescoincide with female giving in
other families as well. Trautmann notes that the Iksvakus practiced cross-cousin marriage.76And
Nangai Bhuti Aditya Pidariyar's construction of the temple at Tiruchchendurai may reflect the
impact of persistent affiliation with her natal family, the Irukkvels. The Irukkvels exchanged
daughters with the early Colas at least five times.77The Irrukvelswere particularlyactive sponsorsof
temple construction, and their example appears to have encouraged this queen toward temple
construction, and construction in a particular artistic style. Her father, Bhuti Vikramakesari,
constructed the large Muvarkoyil complex at Kodumbalur (fig. $5).78The Vatatirthanathatemple at
Andanallur (fig. 26), which is just a few kilometers from Tiruccendurai, was built by Sembiyan
Irukkvel79 and it resembles the Tiruchchendurai temple quite closely. Both temples contain three
rather than the more typical five exterior niches for sculpture. The walls between those niches are
especially austere, punctuated simply with square pilasters. These pilasters are proportioned
identically on both buildings. Surviving pieces of figural sculpture at each temple (figs. 24 and 27)
share a particularly diminutive scale, slender proportions and a lithe quality to the movements they
imply.
Sembiyan Mahadevl's building program did have, therefore, considerable precedents. She stands
out among these women because of the prodigious quantity of her gifts.8? A sudden influx of Cola
73 Dirks, "Political Authority," I41-43.
74 Trautmann, Dravidian Kinship, 357-433. His term for this pattern is "the perpetuation of affinity." My ideas here derive from
Trautmann's analysis of the impact of marriage patterns upon Cola political history. See his chapter 6.
75 Trautmann, Dravidian
Kinship,39I.
76 Trautmann, Dravidian Kinship,375-80.
77 For the list, see Trautmann, Dravidian Kinship,39i1-92. Trautmann also notes (p. 393) that the Irukkvels' kingdom was one of three
regions that form an arc along the C1olas'western border and that the C1olasnever fully absorbed.
78 For full text and translation of the inscription at Kodumbalur describing this patronage see SII 23, #129.
79 #358, 359 of I903.
80 Her prodigious patronage of the visual arts tempts one to hope that she had a portrait of herself made, as Dehejia suggests in
reading the Freer "Parvati"bronze. No other portraits of Cola queens before Rajarajahave been identified, but then one would
expect Sembiyan Mahadevi to break Cola precedents. There is unfortunately no inscription to confirm this identification of the
Freerbronze. Dehejia cites only the figure's "noticeable gravity of expression" and "remarkabledignity of bearing." Dehejia, Art of
64
wealth, in addition of course to the queen's strong personal piety, may have been responsible for that
quantity. Family politics may also have entered the picture. Her patronage begins with her son's
accession which marked her branch of the Cola family's return to power after over a decade during
which the kingship lay with a collateral branchof the royal family.8
Conclusions
Patterns of artistic patronage among early Cola kings appear to have differed substantially from
the patterns of giving demonstrated by the Pallavas and by RajarajaI Cola as well. I contend that
those differences derived from regressive ideals of kingship that dominated the Kaveri region during
the ninth and early tenth centuries. Early Cola kings appearto have been far more conservative than
their Pallava predecessors and their Cola successors in their commitments of financial resources to
temple construction, donating little beyond an image of a local warrior goddess until the reign of
Parantaka. With Parantaka, the mode of royal declaration may have begun to shift toward
conspicuous giving, but the resources available for such donations seem still to have been limited,
and the strength of the localities still substantial.
A glance at the map in Figure z also reveals that with the exceptions ofTiruvaduturai (which may
have been a precocious departure from primitive patterns) and Vijayalaya'sdedication at Tanjaviur
(which was situated at that time in a newly-conquered frontier), these kings' projects tend to occupy
the fringes of the macro-region. Tondaimanad lies beyond the northern edge of Tamil Nadu in what
is now ChittoorDistrict, AndhraPradesh;during Cola times it lay along the northernedge of the
Tondaimandalam.Cidambaramlies beyond the northeasterncorner of the delta. Sembiyan
Mahadevi's temples at Tiruvakkaraiand Vriddhacalam are located well to the north of the Kaveri
watershed,andthe southeasternsegmentthat containsSembiyanMahadevivillagewasnot yet under
heavycultivationduringthe tenthcentury.82
Artistic evidence suggests that early Cola kings' ritual and political authoritywere largely
confined to the micro-region around the Cola capitals and the distant periphery.83Their rare
incursionsinto the fertileareasalongthe riverbanksseemunlikelyto haveconstructeda compelling
sense of political unification. Those areas seem to have remained instead under the segmented
authority of locality leaders. Separation between the reigning kings and the vast contemporary
production of sacred art implies a distinct lack of integration between two parts of what Appadurai
observes as a unified system of incorporative kingship in later Tamil Nadu: the exchange of goods
and honors betweene king and the god, and the comparable
betweenand the exchange between the king and
omparable
theImperialCholas,36-38. These arenot the characteristics,however,of any othersecurelyidentifiedportraitsof the earlyCola

period. Inscribed locality portraits of the tenth century take a far more self-effacing form - shallow stone relief, small scale, incised
into the exterior face of temples. Their postures are devout and full of an awkward humility. See Kaimal, "Stone Portrait
Sculptures," chapter 6.
8I It is intriguing to observe that almost all of Uttama's wives made donations to the temple in Sembiyan Mahadevl village. See
Sastri, Colas, I60-6I. Whether through loyalty, inspiration, coercion, or something else, Sembiyan Mahadevl seems to have
exercised considerable influence among the women of the Cola court.
82 See James Heitzman, "Temple Urbanism in Medieval South India,"Journal of Asian Studies46.4 (November, 1987): 794-99.
83 In
conflating ritual and political authority, I am following Dirks, Hollow Crown, 404. Dirks here departs from Stein who
understands the Cola kings to have exercised political authority only over the family's ancient home region, and to have exercised
ritual authority over much larger region. Dirks maintains that ritual authority was political authority, and that to separate them is
to underestimate the significance of ritual. Cf. Stein, PeasantState, 266-67.
65
locality leaders.84The interposed strength and relative independence of localities retardedas yet the
formation of a fully incorporativekingship.
Queens of the early Cola period, on the other hand, were able to build deep inside the long-settled
localities beside the Kaveri. Nangai Bhuti Aditya Pidariyar appears to have sited her Tiruch-
chendurai temple, from which the south bank of the Kaveri is visible, in the areathat lay within the
micro-region controlled by her natal family, the Irukkve!s. The location of her temple, therefore,
need not reflect Cola penetration of the riverine area.In addition to the peripheral sites of Sembiyan
Mahadevf'spatronage mentioned above, however, that queen built even more frequently in ancient
towns along the Kaveri. Her tactics of investing substantially in temple construction and employing
aggressively temple iconography that articulated a Cola agenda are, moreover, closer to those
Rajarajawould use than are those employed by early Cola kings.
These conclusions are, admittedly, based on a small data sample, but I view the scarcity of that
data as eloquent in itself. The scrapsof evidence about kings building stand in sharp contrast to the
more plentiful evidence of substantial building by local patrons. Although I realize the dangers of an
argument based upon negative evidence, it seems to me safer- until further evidence comes to light
- to interpret these scant traces as evidence of scant royal patronage, rather than to see the Anbil
plates and the inscriptional records of Parantaka'sgifts as hints of some supposedly massive but
otherwise unsubstantiated patronageby early Cola kings.
Those scraps of evidence, furthermore, function as positive evidence of a set of kingly priorities
distinct from those of later Colas who ruled in the incorporativemode. Vijayalaya'sNisumbhasudani
reflectsa highly conservativeattachment to tribal modes of leadership. Parantaka'sdonations suggest
financial caution and a disproportionate reliance upon illustrious lineage as a determinant of
legitimacy.
In general, the gifts of early Cola kings and queens also demonstrate a consistent pattern of
displacement. Repeatedly, Cola donations substituted ancient traditions with new Cola ones that
alluded to centralization under the Colas. Vijayalaya displaced Muttaraiyartraditions in Tanjaviir.
Parantakafinished a locally-initiated temple and patronized Nataraja,who exiled or subordinatedall
those who preceded him as the ruler of Tillai. Nataraja also superseded Ganesa in the iconographic
program of Kaveri-region temples. Sembiyan Mahadevi's temples supplanted earlier structures
almost certainly built by local patrons.
These stand in contrast to the Brihadesvaratemple at Tanjavur,through which Rajarajagenerated
a new focal point for the sacred on previously unconsecrated ground. These earlier donations
competed instead for the ancient holy site and for the reverencestill directed toward it, and did so on
the very turf of those older rituals. At least until the end of the tenth century, the localized Tamil
culture that had flourished before the resurgence of the Cola family appears to have remained a
substantial force to contend with.
84 See Appadurai, Worshipand Conflict,chapter 2.
66

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Early Cōḻa Kings and "Early Cōḻa Temples": Art and the Evolution of Kingship

Author(s): Padma Kaimal

EARLY COLA KINGS AND "EARLY COLA TEMPLES":

Kaly,ani--- Arijaya --Nangai Bhfti

Parantaka C6ola . Vnavan Mahadevi

Fig. I. Genealogy:Earlyrulersof the Coladynasty.

1 1 :f-.:1:-1- / ,:11 .*<'1

Parantaka I Tondaimanad, Adityesvara 941' SII 7 #529

Parantaka I Tiruvi.duturai, Gomuktisvara by 945 #I43 of 1925

Kokkilan or Tirunamanallur, Tirutond-svara 935 #335.of 1902

Narigai Bhuti Tiruchchendurai, Can'drasekhara 960 #3I6 of 1903

Sembiyan Konerirajapuram, Umamahesvara by 974 :SII3 :#146

Sembiyan Anangurt, Agast svara by 979 75 of 1926

Sembiyan Tirukkodikkaval, Tirukkotisvara by 981 #36 of 1930

Sembiyan Vriddhacalam, Vriddhagirisvara 982 #47 of I918

Sembiyan A.duturai, Apatsahayesvara 986 SI 3 #144

Sembiyan Kuttilam, C61isvara 991 SII I3 #170

Sembiyan Tiruvarur, Acalesvara by 99I #57I of 1904

Sembiyan Tiruvikkarai, Paramasvamigal IOOI #200 of I904

Fig. 3. Temples funded by early Cola kings and queens.

south vimanawall. Umamahesvaratemple, Konerirajapuram.Author's photograph.

Fig.I7. Nataraja,housedin the centralnicheon the southardhaman.dapa

According to the Tiruvalafigadugrant:

46 El 22, #34, verse 17, 256.

theImperialCholas,36-38. These arenot the characteristics,however,of any othersecurelyidentifiedportraitsof the earlyCola

84 See Appadurai, Worshipand Conflict,chapter 2.

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