CHOLA POLITICAL AND AGRARIAN STRUCTURE

The Cholas were a major political dynasty in South India in the early medieval period. Their
rise to power can be traced to the ninth century CE. 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 Cholas of ancient times had been
completely suppressed. The major political power in the Tamil country was the Pallava
dynasty based in the northern region or Tondaimandalam, around the Palar River. The
Pallavas began to decline as a power by the 8th century AD, confronted with military
challenges on the north and the west from the newly crowned overlords of the Deccan,
the Rashtrakutas and from the Pandyas on the south. The fall of the Pallavas created a
power vacuum in the Tamil country, resulting in the rise of the Cholas.
The first Chola 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 Cholas 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 Cholas rose to the status of a major imperial power under
their greatest ruler, Rajaraja I. Under Rajaraja I, the Cholas were able to dominate
Cholamandalam as well as Jayangondacholamandalam (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 Cholas
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
centers in Malaysia and Indonesia. Chola hegemony remained stable under subsequent
rulers until 1170 when Kulottunga I came to power. He also happened to be the eastern
Chalukya 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 Chalukyas. However he faced revolts and the Cholas
lost control over Gangavadi to the western Chalukyas. Moreover there were indications
of unrest in Tondaimandalam where several local notables began to make alliances
against the Chola state and in the Pandya country where members of the Pandya line
began to challenge the authority of the imperial Cholas. The reign of Kulottunga III
ended in the complete destruction of the Chola 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 Cholas. The Pandyas united and cast off the yoke of the Cholas in
southern Tamilakam while chieftains claiming to be of Pallava descent created
problems in Tondaimandalam. By the thirteenth century, the realm of the Cholas was
confined to the Kaveri delta in Cholamandalam and by the end of the century, the line
had been extinguished altogether.
The state structure of the Cholas has been under intense debate by several historians.
Burton Stein, for one, gives the segmentary state model to explain the Chola state
structure. While Veluthat, considers the Cola kingdom to be a feudal state. A third model
has been advanced by Y. Subbarayalu and James Heitzman who look upon the Chola
kingdom as an early state. However the earliest work upon the Cholas was by scholars
who viewed the state as a centralized empire. In the following paragraphs, the above
mentioned models and their respective state structures shall be discussed.

A Centralized Empire
In the first half of the 20th century the accepted historiographical construction of the Chola
polity conformed to the approach to all major pre-modern South Asian polities. In the
writings of scholars such as K.A. Nilakanta Sastri and A. Appadorai, the Chola state has been
presented as a great unitary state with a massive bureaucratic apparatus, resembling the
structure of the Mauryan state in the Arthashastra. The state was supported by a huge
military establishment under the direct authority of the king. There was a standing army
which would perform military functions internally and be engaged in campaigns against the
armies of other kings. The administration was typically conceived of as structured at
different levels, from the ‘central royal administration’, to ‘provincial government’ and ‘local
government’. The different chiefs were treated as ‘governors’ and the chiefdoms as districts
or divisions of the centralized empire. Persons endowed with various official titles were
members of different administrative departments at the village, district or provincial level,
handling revenue and administrative affairs within a bureaucratic network. The
centralization of the administration applied in particular to the collection of land and
interprets terms such as kadamai and kudimai to mean land revenue which is paid revenue.
A. Appadorai discusses the various forms of taxation in the Chola state directly to the center,
distinct from other terms which refer to taxes utilized to maintain irrigation works, maintain
temples, pay village officials, etc. However, as both Burton Stein and Kesavan Veluthat
demonstrate, there is no evidence that the proceeds from these taxes were appropriated
by the Cholas. While Stein believes that the proceeds went to the nadu, Veluthat believes
that the recipients were landed magnates who acted as the royal agents in the countryside
and thus possessed a superior right over land. Veluthat therefore characterizes kadamai as
a land rent rather than a tax.
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 locality chiefs is of vital importance.
However, the village bodies and local government are not neglected by Sastri. Far from it,
as Veluthat admits, we owe a great deal of what we know of the existence and operation of
these bodies to Sastri. He identified a number of autonomous village communities which in
a sense constituted the basic administrative units in the Chola state. In particular, he
emphasizes on the sabha, or the village assembly in brahmadeya villages where, based on
one isolated instance, he argues for a number of committees in charge of departments such
as irrigation, revenue and judicial functions with no external interference. He also goes on
to lay similar responsibilities on the assemblies of agricultural villages (urar) and commercial
communities (nagarattar). The assumption is essentially that village and locality bodies
(nattar) were the basic units of rural local administration which handled matters of
administration at local levels with minimal central interference. Therefore he argues for a
polarity between the centralized organs of the king and the small distinct villages making up
the empire. However, as Veluthat observes, despite Sastri’s arguments, the image of a
centralized state cannot be reconciled with the presentation of the autonomous and vital
local groups because the assumption that these groups be treated as basic administrative
units contradicts their putative ‘autonomous’ character.

A Segmentary State Model

The segmentary state view of the Chola state was formulated by Burton Stein in his book
Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. Stein drew his inspiration from the work
done by Aidan Southall on tribal polities in Africa and specifically the Alur society. A
segmentary model of analysis was adopted by Southall in his approach which Stein, deeming
it the only model which could be applied to satisfactorily order the evidence from temple
and copper-plate inscriptions from the Chola state, uses in his study of the Chola 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 pyramidal
segmented state formation consisting of a number of small units of political organization
which are linked to ‘ever more comprehensive units of political organization 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 center 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 centers, each possessing an
administrative apparatus and military establishment which mirror those existing at the ritual
center. Executive power is the same at the level of the subordinate segmental centers as
that at the prime center (or ritual center) 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 center of ritual worship to which
these multiple political centers in a state are ritually subjugated. There is hardly any
overarching political control exerted by the ritual center 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 center. This assumption which posits the bifurcation of political and ritual sovereignty
derives from the distinction drawn by Robert Lingat between ksatra which perceives the
king as an independent political actor with the power to command and possess resources
and rajadharma- a concept which perceives the king as the upholder of the moral order,
responsible for the moral wellbeing of his subjects and the representative of dharma and
ritual action. According to Stein, all the chiefs in the Chola polity possessed ksatra which
inhered in them by virtue of their connection with the dominant agricultural groups
(vellangai) whose leaders they were. They possessed a claim on the resources of the region
founded upon force. At the same time they were also the ritual leaders of that political unit
and ritually subordinate to the king, the source of ritual legitimacy and the main champion
of ritual action. The king was a sort of ritual archetype for the chief and superior to them in
ritual status. A distinction is also made between different centers on these grounds in that
there existed multiple political centers, but there was only one ritual center. In Stein’s
formulation, each nadu constituted a political center while the center of the Cholas or their
capital- Rajarajesvara under Rajaraja I and Gangaikondacholapuram under Rajendra I was
the ritual center where the canonical temples and the principal centers of worship existed.
The political center in Cholamandalam or ‘Chola country’ therefore, possessed a ritual
primacy.
Another feature of this theory is that the ‘specialized bureaucratic structure’ was not only
found in the ritual center but also at the within the various segments that make up the Chola
state.
Further, the organization of the subordinate levels or ‘zones’ is ‘pyramidal’ which means
that the relationship between the center and the peripheral units of any segment is the
same, except in reduced form, as the relationship between the prime center 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 brahamanas, 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 the 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 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.
In order to better understand the manner in which Stein applies the segmentary state model
it is necessary for us to analyze the nature of the body he suggests be regarded as the
constituent segments of the segmentary Chola state- the nadu.

ASPECTS OF THE NADU

The expression nadu denotes both a locality and a corporate group of the spokesmen of
that locality, the nattar. The nadu, both Stein and Veluthat agree, was a grouping of the
vellanvagai villages, or the agricultural settlements. There is no way to clearly define the
boundaries of a nadu although statements describing particular villages as belonging to
specific nadus would help identify the territory covered by a nadu.
On the whole, nadus appear to have lacked spatial uniformity or any clear natural
boundaries, indicating that rather than being artificial divisions, they were ‘spontaneous and
evolutionary’ in character. This defeats the argument, advanced by K.A. Nilakanta Sastri that
the nadus were administrative divisions in the context of an overarching centralized
bureaucratic setup. Moreover as both Stein and Veluthat agree, the nadu far from being an
artificially constituted administrative device of the imperial Cholas existed long before as an
important unit of society and culture.
Nonetheless, as the evidence of Subbarayalu highlights quite clearly, the number of nadus
mentioned in the Chola inscriptions increase over the period from the 9 th-11th centuries.
Subbarayalu feels that this is evidence of the proliferation of new nadu settlements
following an increase in population and the expansion of agriculture beyond the Kaveri into
the less fertile lowlands. This argument is contested by Burton Stein who argues that the
mention of new nadus does not necessarily mean that these nadus had not previously
existed, but instead shows ‘a new recognition of Chola over lordship’ in these nadus.
Veluthat however asserts that the nadus mentioned earlier occur in the more fertile lands
while those that appear later in the Chola inscriptions are almost invariably located in the
less fertile areas on the fringes of the settled agrarian society, supporting the argument for
a gradual agrarian expansion. Veluthat argues for the existence of valanadus or artificial
nadus created during the reign of Rajaraja I once the Chola state had succeeded in
subjugating the nadu to its purposes in areas outside the Kaveri delta and particularly in less
fertile areas with the purpose of governing the countryside through these bodies. This is a
crucial part of his characterization of the Chola state as a feudal one which later became
centralized in the course of the 11th century. These valanadus therefore were not nadus in
the strict sense in that they were artificial creation. In Stein’s construction however, there
existed no valanadus and the bodies which appear after the 10th-11th century in the Chola
records were nadus in the conventional sense as well.
Most nadus derived their name from the name of one of the villages within them. It is likely
that the name-giving village was the earliest agricultural settlement within the nadu.
However both scholars agree that this does not mean that the name-giving village occupied
any position of primacy within the nadu. Nonetheless, in accordance with his model of
pyramidal segmentation Stein attempts to assert that the name-giving village was a sort of
‘inner core’ which attracted ‘subordinate’ settlements around it which seems to be an
untenable position to take.
The nadu is also understood by Burton Stein as discrete units of ethnic social and economic
organization and as atomic aspects of the segmentary organization in medieval south India.
The main features of the nadu, according to Stein, are restricted marriage and kinship
networks; narrow territorial social coalitions beyond kinship; and locally-based agrarian
relationship, political and religious affiliations and loyalties. He supports this assertion from
indications of certain distinctive marriage forms in Tamil literature- specifically the cross-
cousin and maternal uncle-niece forms. He goes on to argue that endogamy was the natural
response to a situation where in the absence of extra-local, non-peasant authority over the
distribution of the products of the land, it was only through close relationships with the local
groups that controlled land that benefits could be obtained without direct control over the
resources. Thus according to Burton Stein, the nadu was united by the interests of an
endogamous class of wealthy non-Brahman landowners with a social status second only to
that of the Brahmans. Subbarayalu also supports this position. He asserts that while the
nattar were a vellanvagai group their authority was restricted to the limits of their locality.
The reason for this, according to Subbarayalu is that the nadu was ‘basically a cohesive
group of agricultural people tied by marriage and blood relationships’.
Veluthat however denies that kinship had any place in the social milieu of the 9th-10th
centuries CE as an ordering principle and attributes Burton Stein’s formulation of endogamy
to the misapprehension that south Indian societies remained static from the 2 nd-6th
centuries CE despite the fact that there is sufficient indication of the fragmentation of such
ties even in the Sangam Age. Veluthat therefore disputes that there was an absence of extra-
local, non-peasant authority over resources for the nattar were primarily landowners and
did not in any sense constitute a caste by themselves.
He asserts that while the possibility of the nattar being related to one another in an affinal
way is not entirely excluded, our evidence proves that it was their common interests as
landed magnates that brought them together and gave them their corporate character as
nattar.
Burton Stein argues for three types of nadus, based on differences in internal organization
and their relation with other localities. There were nadus which are ‘vertically segmented’
or horizontally divided with an elaborate hierarchy with political chiefs at the top,
brahamana ritual specialists below them, the dominant peasantry of the nadu still lower,
followed by the lower peasantry and dependents at the next level followed by artisan-
traders further down and the landless laborers at the bottom. These nadus are designated
‘central nadus’ which figure in the fertile plains where agriculture was easiest and most
profitable. Here Chola influences and political authority were most evident, Brahmans were
most numerous and accorded high status and chieftainships were ritually assimilated to the
Chola kingship. In those tracts of the lowlands or in the large interior upland above the Tamil
plain lacking reliable sources of water for irrigation, the lack of necessary surplus retards the
process of differentiation. Consequently, these nadus were vertically divided or horizontally
segmented. In these ‘intermediate nadus’ the sovereignty of the Cholas was recognized but
also that of other ruling dynasties and could be detached from Chola over lordship by other
dynasties as did happen in the intermediate nadus on the edge of the Kaveri delta. These
segments were less fully incorporated by the Chola kingship and the political chiefs of these
localities appear to have exerted more direct political control. The number of brahamans
also appears to have been fewer and the order of social relations was not as hierarchically
organized.
The third category of nadus are the ‘peripheral nadus’, in those regions least hospitable to
agriculture. These were scattered nadu localities without any differentiation whatever and
displayed a strong tribal character. The members of these nadus were excluded from
contemporary dharmic society but there were undoubtedly interactions with the
prosperous peasant populations in other parts, which secured the peripheral nadus a place
within the larger society of Tamil country and provided a model way of life for the people of
the region. Stein goes on to identify areas in the Chola state- core, intermediate and
peripheral- as determined by the preponderance of one of these three types in a certain
region. Veluthat contends that this structure of three types of nadus is at best ‘inspired
guesswork’ for there is not a shred of evidence to support such a classification. He points at
Stein’s failure to back up his formulations with evidence from primary or secondary sources
and rejects his classification entirely.

ADMINSTRATION
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 center 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 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.
Veluthat however disputes the characterization of what he calls royal functionaries as
locality chiefs, asserting that Stein confuses landed magnates with chiefs. He goes on to cite
evidence of the dependence of these ‘executive officers’ of the nadu upon the center and
suggests that they acted as royal agents rather than members of a supposedly autonomous
body. According to Veluthat, officials such as the nadu-vagai-ceyva, the nadu-kuru-ceyvar
and the nadu-kankani-nayagam should be seen as royal agents rather than employees of
the nadu groups. He cites cases where the records mention an elaborate two or three tier
hierarchy of royal functionaries which carries out the king’s orders including in the localities.
For instance, a record from Rajaraja I’s twenty-eighth year from Tiruvilangudi in the Kulattur
taluk in Tiruchirappalli describes a nadu-kankani-nayagam as a kanmi under a senapati, a
clear indication that the officials of the nadu were a part of a larger, albeit decentralized
bureaucratic structure and puts paid to Stein’s contention that ‘no contemporary
documents speak of the nadu in terms of Chola government structure or function’. Further
an inscription of AD 1116 of Kulottunga I instructs a nadu-kuru to settle the affairs of a new
devadana (temple grant) and arrange for the services out of the income from the land. This
is to be done expressly under the authority of a tirumugam (royal order) from the king of
the ulvari (a duplicate entry made in the tax register) of the puravuvariyar (an officer of the
land revenue department) and of a kadayidu (an officer of the land revenue department)
and of a kadaiyidu (deed of execution) of the mandalamudaligal. This is a clear instance of
the king’s government penetrating into the nadu through its agents at various levels and of
the officials of the nadu acting as royal agents.
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 Chola 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 center. Furthermore, this also
means that the Cholas 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.
TRADE AND TRADERS
Nagapattinam was one of the most prominent ports in the Chola period beginning from the
11th century onwards. There were other important ports too like Kaveripattinam, other than
that, Tiruppalaivanam and Mayilarppil were important coastal towns. More often than not,
corporate organizations of merchants set up warehouses, customs duties and also provided
protection to both the merchants and their merchandise in these ports and coastal towns.
Goods that were both exported and imported consisted of both staple and luxury goods like
rice, pulses, sesame, salt, pepper, oil, cloth, betel leaf, areca nut, metals, wheat and other
food grains, groundnuts, jaggery, sugar, cotton, cumin, mustard, coriander, ginger, turmeric,
elephants, precious and semi-precious gems such as moonstones, rubies, diamonds, pearls,
lapis lazuli, onyx, topaz and carbuncles, horses, sandalwood, camphor, musk, saffron,
aloeswood, silk, rose water and perfume. Out of these horses came from Arabia, silk from
China, elephants from Myanmar and rose water from West Asia.
The Chola kings promoted trade in several ways. One way was to set up protected
mercantile towns, which emerged as important centers of trade called erivirapattanas.
Some of the Chola military expeditions such as those to Sri Lanka in the 1080s and against
ports in the Malaysian peninsula and Indonesian islands in 1025 and the 1070s were more
than looting expeditions, in that, they were aimed at controlling important trade sectors.
There was an increasing contact between Southeast Asia and the Cholas as is evidenced in
inscriptions and sculptures. For example, the Tanjore inscription of Rajendra Chola I
mentions a kingdom of Madamalingam, which can be identified with Tambralinga, not far
from the Kra isthmus (this links Thailand and Malaysia), an important center of maritime
trade. An important route linked Takuapa to the Bay of Bandon. Hindu images dating from
the 4th century onwards have been found in this area. Two Chola period images were
discovered at Vieng Sra and a Surya image at Ko Kao Island, situated at the mouth of the
Takuapa River. Many were from China, while soma may have possible West Asian and Indian
origins.
As Chola power waned in the 12th century, the merchant guilds of South India became
increasingly independent and less dependent on royal support. Trading caravans moved
around with armed protection. Merchant guilds jointly fixed tolls and cesses and made joint
donations to temples along with the Chittirameli and Pandinen Vishaya, which were
associations of agriculturists controlling the production and exchange of agricultural
commodities.