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The early medieval south

The Guptas and after · Part 4 / 4 · Fact-checked on · how we check

Written with AI from the sources listed at the bottom of this page, then fact-checked by a separate AI.

The Pallavas of Kanchi from Mahendravarman I to Rajasimha; the Chalukyas of Badami, Pulakeshin II and the Aihole inscription; Aihole, Badami and Pattadakal; the Rashtrakutas, the Kailasa temple, Amoghavarsha I and Takkolam; the imperial Cholas from Vijayalaya to Kulottunga I; Chola village assemblies and the Uttaramerur inscriptions; the Dravida temple, Chola bronzes, the Alvars and Nayanars.

While Harsha and his successors fought over the Ganga valley, the peninsula had its own great powers. From the late sixth century the Pallavas kings of Kanchi and the Chalukyas of Badami fought each other for some two hundred years. In the eighth century the Rashtrakutas kings replaced the Chalukyas in the Deccan and took part in the struggle for Kannauj described in Part 3. From the ninth century the Cholas kings rose in the Kaveri delta and built the strongest kingdom the south had yet seen, with a navy that reached Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Alongside the wars, these dynasties created the Dravida style of temple building and supported the devotional poetry of the Tamil saints. This part takes them in turn and ends with Chola village government, which UPSC asks about often.

The Pallavas power at Kanchi grew under Simhavishnu in the late sixth century, who pushed his frontier south to the Kaveri. His son Mahendravarman I (about 600–630 CE) was a soldier, a builder and a writer. He wrote the Sanskrit farce Mattavilasa Prahasana, which pokes fun at a drunken Kapalika ascetic and a greedy Buddhist monk. He began cutting temples into rock: an inscription at Mandagapattu boasts that he made a shrine without brick, timber, metal or mortar. Tradition says the saint Appar turned him from Jainism to the worship of Shiva. In his reign the Pallavas lost territory in the north to the Chalukya Pulakeshin II, opening the long feud between the two houses. Kanchi was also known for its ghatika, a college of Brahmanical learning; the Kadamba founder Mayurasharman is said to have gone there to study.

Mahendravarman's son Narasimhavarman I, called Mamalla (about 630–668 CE), turned the tables. He defeated Pulakeshin II, captured the Chalukya capital Vatapi (Badami) in 642 CE and took the title Vatapikonda, 'the one who took Vatapi'; Pulakeshin died in the fighting. Hiuen Tsang visited Kanchi in his reign. The port of Mamallapuram, named after him, holds the five monolithic rathas, each a whole shrine carved from a single rock, and the huge open-air relief often called Arjuna's Penance or the Descent of the Ganga. A later king, Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha (about 700–728 CE), took the next step and built in dressed stone: the Shore Temple at Mamallapuram and the Kailasanatha temple at Kanchi are his. The Group of Monuments at Mahabalipuram has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984.

The Chalukyas of Badami rose under Pulakeshin I, whose rock inscription at Badami, dated 543 CE, records that he fortified Vatapi and performed the horse sacrifice. The greatest king of the line, Pulakeshin II (about 610–642 CE), defeated Harsha on the Narmada and spread his power over much of the Deccan. His achievements are set out in the Aihole inscription of 634 CE, composed in Sanskrit verse by his Jain court poet Ravikirti and engraved on the Meguti temple at Aihole; Ravikirti even compares himself with Kalidasa and Bharavi. Pulakeshin placed his brother Kubja Vishnuvardhana in charge of Vengi in the eastern Deccan, and Vishnuvardhana's line became the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi, a separate dynasty that later married into the Chola royal family. Pulakeshin's reign ended in disaster when the Pallavas took Vatapi in 642 CE, but his successors recovered the kingdom.

The Chalukyas left the first great group of temples in the Deccan. Aihole has dozens of early shrines, among them the Lad Khan temple and the Durga temple with its rounded (apsidal) end, and is often called a laboratory of Indian temple building. At Badami four cave temples were cut into the cliff, three Brahmanical and one Jain. At Pattadakal, temples in the northern Nagara style stand beside temples in the southern Dravida style. Vikramaditya II (733–744 CE) occupied Kanchi but, instead of plundering it, made gifts to the Kailasanatha temple there. To mark his victory his queen Lokamahadevi built the Virupaksha temple at Pattadakal, modelled on that Pallava temple. Pattadakal has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. The last Chalukya of this line was overthrown by the Rashtrakuta Dantidurga in the mid-eighth century.

The Rashtrakutas kingdom was founded by Dantidurga around 753 CE. His successor Krishna I had the Kailasa temple at Ellora (cave 16) cut from one mass of hillside rock, the carvers starting at the top and removing stone downwards, until a whole temple and its courtyard stood free. Ellora as a whole, with Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain caves side by side, has been a UNESCO site since 1983. Dhruva and Govinda III marched into the north and defeated both the Palas and the Pratiharas, though they did not stay. Amoghavarsha I (814–878 CE) made Manyakheta (Malkhed) his capital and ruled for over sixty years. He patronised the Jain teacher Jinasena, and the Kavirajamarga, the earliest surviving work on Kannada poetics, is credited to him or to a poet of his court. The Arab merchant Sulaiman counted the Rashtrakuta king among the four great rulers of the world.

The last great Rashtrakutas king, Krishna III (939–967 CE), invaded the Chola kingdom and won the battle of Takkolam in 949 CE against Parantaka I; the Chola crown prince Rajaditya died on the field. For a time the Rashtrakutas held the northern part of the Tamil country. Soon after Krishna III, the dynasty collapsed: in 973 CE Taila II overthrew the last Rashtrakuta king and founded the line of the later Western Chalukyas, with their capital later at Kalyani. The Rashtrakuta age was also a time of Kannada literature. Pampa, Ponna and Ranna, remembered as the three gems of Kannada poetry, wrote in the tenth century; Ponna was honoured at the court of Krishna III. Like the Chalukyas before them, the Rashtrakutas supported Shaiva, Vaishnava and Jain institutions alike.

The later or imperial Cholas kings, distinct from the Cholas of the Sangam age, began with Vijayalaya, who took Thanjavur around 850 CE and made it his base. Parantaka I (907–955 CE) captured Madurai from the Pandyas, but lost to the Rashtrakutas at Takkolam. The dynasty reached its height under Rajaraja I (985–1014 CE). He defeated the Cheras and the Pandyas, annexed northern Sri Lanka, where Polonnaruwa became the Chola seat, and sent a fleet to the Maldives. He had land measured for revenue and began the custom of opening inscriptions with a historical introduction (meykkirti) listing the king's deeds. His Rajarajeshvara or Brihadeshvara temple at Thanjavur, completed around 1010 CE, has a vimana about 66 metres high over its sanctum.

Rajaraja's son Rajendra I (1014–1044 CE) went further still. He completed the conquest of Sri Lanka and led an army north to the Ganga, defeating the Pala king Mahipala, an expedition he celebrated by taking the title Gangaikondachola and founding a new capital, Gangaikondacholapuram, with a great temple and a large tank. Around 1025 CE his navy attacked the kingdom of Srivijaya in Southeast Asia, which controlled the sea route to China through the Straits of Malacca; the raid on its port of Kadaram (Kedah) protected Chola trade. Kulottunga I (1070–1122 CE), the son of an Eastern Chalukya king and a Chola princess, joined Vengi with the Chola kingdom, abolished many tolls and sent an embassy to China in 1077 CE. The kingdom faded in the thirteenth century as the Pandyas and Hoysalas rose.

Chola government is the part UPSC asks about most. The kingdom was divided into provinces (mandalam), which were split into valanadu and then nadu, groups of villages. Villages ran much of their own business through assemblies. The ur was the general assembly of landholders in an ordinary village; the mahasabha was the assembly of a brahmadeya village granted to Brahmanas; and the nagaram was the assembly of merchants in a trading town. Two inscriptions of Parantaka I at Uttaramerur, dated 919 and 921 CE, set out how the sabha there chose its committees. Each of the thirty wards put forward men who owned some land and a house, were between 35 and 70 years old and knew the Vedic texts; anyone who had served in the past three years or had failed to render accounts was barred. Each eligible name went on a palm-leaf slip; the slips were dropped into a pot and a small boy pulled one out, the method called kudavolai. The chosen men sat on committees (variyam) for gardens, tanks, the annual business of the village and other tasks.

The temples of these dynasties show the Dravida style growing up. The Pallavas moved from rock-cut halls under Mahendravarman to monolithic rathas under Mamalla and then to built stone temples under Rajasimha. The Chalukyas and Rashtrakutas added Pattadakal and the Kailasa at Ellora. Under the Cholas the style reached its full scale: a sanctum crowned by a towering, stepped vimana, halls (mandapa) in front, enclosing walls, and gateways, the gopuram, which in later centuries grew taller than the vimana itself. Chola craftsmen also cast bronze images by the lost-wax method, of which the Nataraja, Shiva dancing within a ring of flame, is the best known. The devotional hymns of the twelve Alvars poets, who sang of Vishnu, and the sixty-three Nayanars saints, who sang of Shiva, were sung in these temples; the Nayanar hymns were later gathered into the Tirumurai and the Alvar hymns into the Nalayira Divya Prabandham.

Southern temples to remember
TemplePlaceDynasty and kingType
Five rathasMamallapuramPallava, Narasimhavarman I MamallaMonolithic, each cut from one rock
Shore TempleMamallapuramPallava, Narasimhavarman II RajasimhaStructural stone
Kailasanatha templeKanchipuramPallava, Narasimhavarman II RajasimhaStructural stone
Virupaksha templePattadakalChalukya, built by Lokamahadevi, queen of Vikramaditya IIStructural, Dravida style
Kailasa temple (cave 16)ElloraRashtrakuta, Krishna ICarved from the rock, top down
Brihadeshvara (Rajarajeshvara)ThanjavurChola, Rajaraja IStructural, vimana about 66 m
Temple of the new capitalGangaikondacholapuramChola, Rajendra IStructural

Looking back over the four parts, the chapter traces how power in India became regional. The Guptas built the last large north Indian empire of the ancient period; Harsha briefly rebuilt one; after him no single dynasty held both north and south. In the peninsula, the Pallavas, Chalukya, Rashtrakuta and Cholas kings fought for the same rich river valleys, yet each left monuments that define Indian art: Mamallapuram, Pattadakal, Ellora and Thanjavur. Land grants, temples and feudatories ran through the whole period, and the Chola village assemblies show that local self-government had deep roots. The Rajput states, the Turkish invasions and the Delhi Sultanate, which come next in Medieval History, grew out of this regional world.

Exam traps

Recap

Practice questions

Q1. Which ruler captured the Chalukya capital Vatapi in 642 CE and took the title Vatapikonda?

  1. Mahendravarman I
  2. Narasimhavarman I
  3. Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha
  4. Dantidurga
Show answer

Answer: B. Narasimhavarman I

Answer (b). The Pallava Narasimhavarman I Mamalla defeated Pulakeshin II and took Vatapi in 642 CE. Mahendravarman I, his father, had lost ground to Pulakeshin; Rajasimha ruled about sixty years later and is known for the Shore Temple; Dantidurga was the Rashtrakuta who ended the Chalukya line in the eighth century.

Q2. Consider the following statements:
1. The Kailasa temple at Ellora was carved out of the rock under the Rashtrakuta king Krishna I.
2. The Shore Temple at Mamallapuram was built under Narasimhavarman I Mamalla.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  1. 1 only
  2. 2 only
  3. Both 1 and 2
  4. Neither 1 nor 2
Show answer

Answer: A. 1 only

Answer (a). Statement 1 is correct. Statement 2 is wrong: Mamalla's reign produced the monolithic rathas, while the structural Shore Temple was built by Narasimhavarman II Rajasimha. So (b) and (c), which accept statement 2, and (d), which rejects statement 1, are wrong.

Q3. Match List I with List II:
List I (Work) — List II (Associated with)
A. Mattavilasa Prahasana — 1. Amoghavarsha I or his court
B. Kavirajamarga — 2. Mahendravarman I
C. Aihole inscription — 3. Parantaka I
D. Uttaramerur inscriptions — 4. Ravikirti
Select the correct answer using the code given below:

  1. A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3
  2. A-1, B-2, C-4, D-3
  3. A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4
  4. A-4, B-1, C-2, D-3
Show answer

Answer: A. A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3

Answer (a). Mahendravarman I wrote the Mattavilasa Prahasana; the Kavirajamarga is credited to Amoghavarsha I or a poet of his court; Ravikirti composed the Aihole inscription; the Uttaramerur inscriptions belong to Parantaka I. Option (b) swaps the first two works; (c) swaps Ravikirti and Parantaka; (d) gives the farce to Ravikirti and the inscription to Mahendravarman.

Q4. In the Chola period, kudavolai refers to

  1. a tax on trade paid at toll gates
  2. a method of choosing committee members by drawing palm-leaf tickets from a pot
  3. the assembly of merchants in a trading town
  4. the historical introduction at the start of royal inscriptions
Show answer

Answer: B. a method of choosing committee members by drawing palm-leaf tickets from a pot

Answer (b). The Uttaramerur inscriptions describe names written on palm-leaf tickets, placed in a pot and drawn by a young boy. Option (a) describes tolls, which Kulottunga I abolished; (c) is the nagaram; (d) is the meykkirti.

Q5. The battle of Takkolam (949 CE) was fought between

  1. Pulakeshin II and Narasimhavarman I
  2. Rajendra I and Mahipala
  3. Krishna III and Parantaka I
  4. Govinda III and Nagabhata II
Show answer

Answer: C. Krishna III and Parantaka I

Answer (c). At Takkolam the Rashtrakuta Krishna III defeated the Chola Parantaka I. Option (a) is the seventh-century Chalukya–Pallava war; (b) is Rajendra I's Ganga expedition of the eleventh century; (d) is Govinda III's northern campaign of the early ninth century.

Q6. With reference to Rajendra I Chola, consider the following statements:
1. He led an expedition to the Ganga and founded Gangaikondacholapuram.
2. His navy attacked the kingdom of Srivijaya.
3. He built the Brihadeshvara temple at Thanjavur.
Which of the statements given above are correct?

  1. 1 and 2 only
  2. 2 and 3 only
  3. 1 and 3 only
  4. 1, 2 and 3
Show answer

Answer: A. 1 and 2 only

Answer (a). Statements 1 and 2 describe Rajendra I. Statement 3 is wrong: the Brihadeshvara at Thanjavur was built by his father Rajaraja I. Options (b), (c) and (d) all include statement 3.

Q7. Consider the following pairs:
1. Ur : assembly of landholders in an ordinary village
2. Mahasabha : assembly of a brahmadeya village
3. Nagaram : assembly of merchants in a trading town
How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?

  1. Only one
  2. Only two
  3. All three
  4. None
Show answer

Answer: C. All three

Answer (c). All three pairs are correct: the ur, the sabha or mahasabha and the nagaram were the three kinds of local assembly in the Chola kingdom. So (a), (b) and (d) undercount.

Q8. The Alvars were devotional poet-saints of the Tamil country who sang in praise of

  1. Shiva
  2. Vishnu
  3. the Jain tirthankaras
  4. the Buddha
Show answer

Answer: B. Vishnu

Answer (b). The twelve Alvars sang of Vishnu, and their hymns were gathered into the Nalayira Divya Prabandham. Shiva (a) was the god of the sixty-three Nayanars; neither group was Jain (c) or Buddhist (d).

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