Kings and Kingdoms

This is Chapter 2 of Our Pasts – II. gess101 gave you the tools — read every source in its context, be careful with words, divide time with care. Here they are used on the centuries from about 700 to 1200: how new dynasties arose, how they ran their kingdoms, what their inscriptions and texts tell us, why they fought, and how the Cholas of the Kaveri delta built a large kingdom with strong local institutions. The next chapter (Delhi, 12th–15th century) begins where this one ends, with the Turkish rulers of Delhi.

• Links: gess101 (sources, prashastis, ‘region and empire’); iest105 (Class 9: states to 1000 CE, with the tripartite struggle and Uttaramerur) and iest203 (Class 9: resistance to the Ghaznavid and Ghurid invasions, with historians’ views of Mahmud’s motives).
• Senior pages: kefa106 (temple architecture — Thanjavur, Gangaikondacholapuram, nagara and dravida styles) and kefa107 (Chola bronzes and the lost-wax method) teach the art in depth; lehs202 (bhakti in Tamil Nadu — the Alvars, the Nayanars and the Periyapuranam’s world); lehs201 (al-Biruni, who came to India with Mahmud’s court); kehs104 (European feudalism, for comparison with ‘samantas’). This page links them and does not re-teach them.
• UPSC: Prelims has asked about the Cholas’ village administration (1980) and the Uttaramerur inscriptions (1993), the Chola navy and Southeast Asia (1985, 2003), Sri Lanka (2001), Dantidurga (2006), the Rajatarangini (1991) and Mahmud’s purpose (1979). GS1 asked about Chola temple architecture (2013) and the Cholas’ art and architecture (2024).

• New dynasties: samantas rose to maha-samanta, maha-mandaleshvara; Dantidurga (Rashtrakuta, mid-8th c.) overthrew the Chalukyas and performed hiranya-garbha; Brahmana founders Mayurasharman (Kadamba) and Harichandra (Pratihara).
• Administration: titles (maharaja-adhiraja, tribhuvana-chakravartin); power shared with samantas and associations; resources from producers and traders; 400+ Chola taxes — vetti (forced labour), kadamai (land revenue); hereditary officials.
• Sources: prashastis (Nagabhata’s, Gwalior) praise; copper-plate land grants record gifts; Kalhana’s Sanskrit history of Kashmir (12th c.) criticises rulers; the Periyapuranam shows ordinary lives.
• Warfare for wealth: Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas, Palas — the tripartite struggle for Kanauj; temples targeted; Mahmud of Ghazni: 17 raids, 1000–1025 (NCERT), Somnath; Prithviraja III beat Ghori in 1191, lost in 1192.
• Cholas: Vijayalaya (mid-9th c., Thanjavur); Rajaraja I (985); Rajendra I — Ganga valley, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, a navy; temples of Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram; bronzes; irrigation in the Kaveri delta.
• Chola local government: ur, nadu, sabha (brahmadeya), nagaram; titles muvendavelan, araiyar; land types vellanvagai, brahmadeya, shalabhoga, devadana, pallichchhandam; Uttaramerur: committees by lot.

By the seventh century there were big landlords or warrior chiefs in different regions. Existing kings often recognised them as their subordinates, or samantas, who were expected to bring gifts, attend the king’s court and give military support. As samantas gained power and wealth they called themselves maha-samanta, maha-mandaleshvara (great lord of a ‘circle’ or region) and so on, and sometimes asserted their independence. The Rashtrakutas of the Deccan are NCERT’s example: at first subordinate to the Chalukyas of Karnataka, their chief Dantidurga overthrew his Chalukya overlord in the mid-eighth century and performed the hiranya-garbha (‘golden womb’) ritual. Performed with the help of Brahmanas, it was thought to bring about the ‘rebirth’ of the performer as a Kshatriya, even if he was not one by birth.

In other cases men from enterprising families used military skill to carve out kingdoms. The Kadamba Mayurasharman and the Gurjara-Pratihara Harichandra were Brahmanas who gave up their traditional professions, took to arms and founded kingdoms in Karnataka and Rajasthan respectively.

Many new kings took high-sounding titles such as maharaja-adhiraja (great king, overlord of kings) and tribhuvana-chakravartin (lord of the three worlds). Yet in spite of such claims they often shared power with their samantas and with associations of peasants, traders and Brahmanas. Resources were obtained from the producers — peasants, cattle-keepers, artisans — who were often persuaded or compelled to surrender part of what they produced; sometimes this was claimed as ‘rent’ due to a lord who said he owned the land. Revenue was also collected from traders. The resources paid for the king’s establishment, the building of temples and forts, and wars, which were in turn expected to bring wealth as plunder and access to land and trade routes. Revenue collectors were usually recruited from influential families, and positions were often hereditary; the same was true of the army, and close relatives of the king often held these posts.

Prashastis contain details that may not be literally true, but they show how rulers wanted to be seen — as valiant, victorious warriors, for example. They were composed by learned Brahmanas, who sometimes also helped in administration. Kings often rewarded Brahmanas with grants of land, recorded on copper plates given to those who received the land. Unusual for the twelfth century was a long Sanskrit poem on the history of the kings of Kashmir, by Kalhana. He used many sources — inscriptions, documents, eyewitness accounts and earlier histories — and, unlike the writers of prashastis, was often critical of rulers and their policies.

Each dynasty was based in a region but tried to control others. One especially prized area was the city of Kanauj in the Ganga valley. For centuries the Gurjara-Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas and Palas fought to control it; because there were three ‘parties’ in this long conflict, historians often call it the ‘tripartite struggle’. Rulers also showed their power and resources by building large temples, so when they attacked one another’s kingdoms they often chose to target temples, which were sometimes extremely rich.

One such ruler, NCERT says, was Mahmud of Ghazni (Afghanistan). He raided the subcontinent 17 times (1000–1025) with a religious motive, NCERT states; his targets were wealthy temples, including Somnath in Gujarat, and much of the wealth he carried away was used to build a splendid capital at Ghazni. Other kings who engaged in warfare included the Chahamanas, later known as the Chauhans, who ruled the region around Delhi and Ajmer. They tried to expand west and east, where they were opposed by the Chalukyas of Gujarat and the Gahadavalas of Uttar Pradesh. The Chahamana ruler Prithviraja III defeated a Turkish ruler, Sultan Muhammad Ghori, in 1191, but lost to him the very next year, in 1192.

How did the Cholas rise? A minor chiefly family, the Muttaraiyar, held the Kaveri delta as subordinates of the Pallava kings of Kanchipuram. Vijayalaya, of the ancient chiefly family of the Cholas from Uraiyur, captured the delta from the Muttaraiyar in the middle of the ninth century. He built the town of Thanjavur and a temple there for the goddess Nishumbhasudini. His successors conquered neighbouring regions: the Pandyan territories to the south and the Pallava territories to the north were made part of the kingdom. Rajaraja I, considered the most powerful Chola ruler, became king in 985, expanded control over most of these areas and reorganised the administration. His son Rajendra I continued his policies and even invaded the Ganga valley, Sri Lanka and countries of Southeast Asia, developing a navy for these expeditions.

The big temples of Thanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram, built by Rajaraja and Rajendra, are architectural and sculptural marvels. Chola temples often became the nuclei of settlements that grew around them and were centres of craft production. They were endowed with land by rulers and others; the produce of this land maintained the specialists who worked at the temple and often lived near it — priests, garland makers, cooks, sweepers, musicians, dancers and others. So temples were not only places of worship; they were centres of economic, social and cultural life. Among the temple crafts, the making of bronze images was the most distinctive; Chola bronzes are considered among the finest in the world. Most images were of deities, but sometimes images of devotees were made too.

Many Chola achievements were made possible by new developments in agriculture. The river Kaveri branches into several small channels before it reaches the Bay of Bengal; these overflow often, depositing fertile soil on their banks, and their water gives the moisture needed for farming, especially rice. Although agriculture had developed earlier in other parts of Tamil Nadu, this area was opened up for large-scale cultivation only from the fifth or sixth century. Forests had to be cleared in some regions and land levelled in others; in the delta, embankments were built to prevent flooding and canals to carry water to the fields. In many areas two crops a year were grown. Where crops needed watering, many methods were used: wells were dug in some areas, and huge tanks were built elsewhere to collect rainwater. Irrigation works need planning — organising labour and resources, maintaining the works and deciding how water is shared — and most of the new rulers, as well as villagers, took an active interest.

Settlements of peasants, known as ur, became prosperous with the spread of irrigated farming. Groups of such villages formed larger units called nadu. The village council and the nadu did several administrative jobs, including dispensing justice and collecting taxes. Rich peasants had considerable control over the nadu, under the supervision of the central Chola government. The Chola kings gave some rich landowners titles such as muvendavelan (a velan or peasant serving three kings) and araiyar (chief) as marks of respect, and gave them important offices at the centre.

Brahmanas often received land grants, or brahmadeya, and many Brahmana settlements grew up in the Kaveri valley and elsewhere in south India. Each brahmadeya was looked after by an assembly or sabha of prominent Brahmana landholders. NCERT says these assemblies worked very efficiently; their decisions were recorded in detail in inscriptions, often on the stone walls of temples. Associations of traders, the nagarams, also occasionally did administrative work in towns. Inscriptions from Uttaramerur in Chingleput district, Tamil Nadu, describe how the sabha was organised. It had separate committees for irrigation works, gardens, temples and so on. The names of those eligible were written on small palm-leaf tickets, put into an earthenware pot, and a young boy drew out the tickets one by one for each committee.

The chapter’s question boxes, in page order, and ‘Imagine’.

‘Let’s recall’ (1–4), ‘Let’s understand’ (5–8), ‘Let’s discuss’ (9–10) and ‘Let’s do’ (11–12), pages 28–29.

Numbers

One-liners

• Samantas rose to maha-samanta and sometimes broke free.
• Dantidurga overthrew the Chalukyas and performed hiranya-garbha.
• Mayurasharman and Harichandra were Brahmanas who founded kingdoms.
• Kings took grand titles but shared power with samantas and associations.
• Vetti was forced labour; kadamai was land revenue.
• Prashastis praised; copper plates recorded land grants; Kalhana criticised.
• Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas and Palas fought for Kanauj: the tripartite struggle.
• Rulers targeted rich temples; Mahmud raided Somnath.
• Prithviraja III won in 1191 and lost in 1192 to Muhammad Ghori.
• Vijayalaya took the delta from the Muttaraiyar and built Thanjavur.
• Rajaraja I (985) reorganised the administration; Rajendra I built a navy.
• Chola temples were centres of settlement, craft and bronze-casting.
• Embankments, canals, wells and tanks irrigated the Kaveri delta.
• Ur, nadu, sabha and nagaram ran local affairs under central supervision.
• Uttaramerur: committees chosen by lot from eligible landholders.

Traps to avoid

• Tripartite struggle: Pratiharas, Rashtrakutas, Palas — for Kanauj; not the Cholas.
• Vetti = forced labour; kadamai = land revenue.
• Hiranya-garbha made a ruler a Kshatriya by ‘rebirth’ — it is a ritual, not a grant.
• Mahmud: NCERT says 1000–1025; Somnath is usually dated 1025–26 and the last raids c. 1027.
• Prithviraja III’s ‘1168’ is NCERT’s bracket, not his accession (c. 1178).
• Thanjavur temple — Rajaraja; Gangaikondacholapuram — Rajendra.
• Vijayalaya took the delta from the Muttaraiyar, subordinates of the Pallavas.
• Nadu = a group of villages; ur = a peasant settlement.
• Sabha = Brahmana landholders of a brahmadeya; nagaram = traders.
• Uttaramerur committees were chosen by lot, not by universal vote.
• Vellanvagai is non-Brahmana peasant land; pallichchhandam is Jaina land.
• Kalhana criticised rulers; prashasti writers praised them.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Cholas (the heart of the chapter): village administration — Cholas (1980); the inscriptions at Uttaramerur (1993); conquest of Southeast Asia explained by a strong fleet (1985); Pandyas and Cheras defeated and an expedition against the Sailendras (2003, both true); Ceylon conquered — Rajaraja I (2001).
• Dynasties and sources: the founder of Rashtrakuta power — Dantidurga (2006); Kalhana’s Rajatarangini — the history of Kashmir’s dynasties (1991); Mahmud’s purpose (1979).
• Answer-key notes (all kept): 1979 Mahmud ‘to plunder the wealth of India’ — disputed: NCERT now says ‘a religious motive’, Habib argued plunder; pick plunder in that question, set out both in Mains. 2001 Ceylon — Rajaraja I keyed; Rajendra I completed the conquest, so the key is defensible but the overlap is a trap.
• Learn the terms as pairs (vetti/kadamai, ur/nadu, sabha/nagaram, brahmadeya/vellanvagai, devadana/pallichchhandam) — they recur in matching questions on iest105 and in culture papers.

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• Chola art and architecture (GS1 2013 ‘high watermark of temple architecture’; GS1 2024 ‘remembered for art and architecture’): this chapter gives the social base — temples built by Rajaraja and Rajendra to display power, endowed with land, nuclei of settlement, centres of craft and of the finest bronzes; take the architectural detail (vimana, gopuram, Dravida style) from kefa106 and the bronzes from kefa107.
• Local government and state formation: use ur, nadu, sabha, nagaram and Uttaramerur for answers on early local self-government, with the limits NCERT itself raises (eligibility, women, labourers) and the Nilakanta Sastri / Stein / Subbarayalu–Karashima debate. For temple raids and Mahmud, write the attributed readings side by side (NCERT, al-Utbi, Habib, Eaton, Thapar) and avoid any present-day framing.

Tap an option. NCERT's own exercise questions come first; the rest test the figures and common confusions.

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