1. Discuss the agrarian and political features of the Cola state.

The rise of the Colas as a major political dynasty may be traced to the middle of the ninth century AD. At the time, dynastic politics in the Tamil country revolved around four prominent dynasties. The Pandyas controlled the southern region from Madurai on the Vaigai River, while the Ceras continued to rule in Kerala. In the central Tamil region (Colamandalam), the Colas of ancient times had been completely suppressed. The major political power in the Tamil country was the Pallava dynasty based in the northern region or Tondaimandalam, around the Palar River. The Pallavas began to decline as a power by the 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 Colas.

The first Cola ruler was Vijayalaya who acquired a substantial military following by allying himself with friendly families such as the Irukkuvels and the Paluvettaraiyars. Under his successors, the Colas were able to extend their sway to the north and the south, bringing the Pallava country under their control and subjugating the Pandyas for almost four hundred years. A defeat at the hands of the Rashtrakutas in 949 posed a temporary setback but the Colas rose to the status of a major imperial power under their greatest ruler, Rajaraja I. Under Rajaraja I, the Colas were able to dominate Colamandalam as well as Jayangondacolamandalam (Tondaimandalam). They also reasserted their authority over the Pandyas and subjugated the Gangas bringing south Karnataka (Gangavadi) under their control. Under his son, Rajendra I, the Colas extended their power over northern Sri Lanka and launched an expedition along the east coast to Bengal. They also sent raids across the Bay of Bengal to attack trading centres in Malaysia and Indonesia. Cola hegemony remained stable under subsequent rulers until 1170 when Kulottunga I came to power. He also happened to be the eastern Calukya king owing to generations of intermarriage between the two dynasties and attempted to send another expedition up the eastern coast of India and engaged in constant conflict with the western Calukyas. However he faced revolts and the Colas lost control over Gangavadi to the western Calukyas. Moreover there were indications of unrest in Tondaimandalam where several local notables began to make alliances against the Cola state and in the Pandya country where members of the Pandya line began to challenge the authority of the imperial Colas. The reign of Kulottunga III ended in the complete destruction of the Cola kingdom as the Hoysala dynasty began carving out a principality in south Karnataka and expanded to the south and the east at the expense of the Colas. The Pandyas united and cast off the yoke of the Colas in southern Tamilakam while chieftains claiming to be of Pallava descent created problems in Tondaimandalam. By the thirteenth century, the realm of the Colas was confined to the Kaveri delta in Colamandalam and by the end of the century, the line had been extinguished altogether.

The fall of the Colas is explained by Kesavan Veluthat as the result of the deeply entrenched character of the centrifugal tendencies of local chieftains. According to him, the 12th century marks the reassertion of chiefly rule in the Cola domains, the weakening of the revenue mechanism and the decline of officialdom. Veluthat, who considers the Cola kingdom to be a feudal state, attributes the decline of the Colas to the revival of feudal forces. An alternative model is suggested by Burton Stein who studies the Cola state as a segmentary state. A third model has been advanced by Y. Subbarayalu and James Heitzman who look upon the Cola kingdom as an early state. However the earliest work upon the Colas was by scholars who viewed the state as a centralized empire. We shall go on to discuss the political and agrarian features of the Cola state under each of these models.

A Centralized Empire

In the first half of the 20th century the accepted historiographical construction of the Cola polity conformed to the approach to all major pre-modern South Asian polities. In the writings of scholars such as K.A. Nilakanta Sastri and A. Appadorai, the Cola state has been presented as a great unitary state with a massive bureaucratic apparatus, resembling the structure of the Mauryan state in the Arthashastra. The state was supported by a huge military establishment under the direct authority of the king. There was a standing army which would perform military functions internally and be engaged in campaigns against the armies of other kings. The administration was typically conceived of as structured at different levels—from the ‘central royal administration’, to ‘provincial government’ and ‘local government’. The different chiefs were treated as ‘governors’ and the chiefdoms as districts or divisions of the centralized empire. Persons endowed with various official titles were members of different administrative departments at the village, district or provincial level, handling revenue and administrative affairs within a bureaucratic network. The centralization of the administration applied in particular to the collection of land revenue. A. Appadorai discusses the various forms of taxation in the Cola state and interprets terms such as kadamai and kudimai to mean land revenue which is paid directly to the centre, distinct from other terms which refer to taxes utilized to maintain irrigation works, maintain temples, pay village officials, etc. However, as both Burton Stein and Kesavan Veluthat demonstrate, there is no evidence that the as proceeds from these taxes were appropriated by the Colas. 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 Cola 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. At the same time he challenges the empirical validity of the definition of these groups as autonomous, as we shall go on to see in the section on the nadu.

A Segmentary State: Theoretical Formulations

The segmentary state view of the Cola state was formulated by Burton Stein in his book Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India. 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 Cola state, uses in his study of the Cola period. Burton Stein’s contribution stresses the importance of the intermediary, supra-village units called nadu spread over wide areas in the Tamil country. A segmentary state is a pyramidally segmented state formation consisting of a number of small units of political organization which are linked to ‘ever more comprehensive units of political organisation of an ascending order’ where each unit stands in opposition to other, similar units for some purposes. A segmentary state rests on two main assumptions. One is that the exertion of political authority is not the sole prerogative of the centre but is exercised at various levels by bodies which are foci of the administration of that region. In this sense, rather than there being political decentralization, there is a multiplicity of centres, each possessing an administrative apparatus and military establishment which mirror those existing at the ritual centre. Executive power is the same at the level of the subordinate segmental centres as that at the prime centre (or ritual centre) except that it is exerted over fewer people. The second assumption is that these more or less autonomous political units are knit together by a conception of ritual sovereignty and that there exists a centre of ritual worship to which these multiple political centres in a state are ritually subjugated. There is hardly any overarching political control exerted by the ritual centre over the political units. Thus in a segmentary state, sovereignty is dual. There exists actual political control or sovereignty which is exercised by the various political units and ritual authority which is wielded by the ritual centre. 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 Cola 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 centres on these grounds in that there existed multiple political centres, but there was only one ritual centre. In Stein’s formulation, each nadu constituted a political centre while the the centre of the Colas or their capital—Rajarajesvara under Rajaraja I and Gangaikondacolapuram under Rajendra I was the ritual centre where the canonical temples and the principal centres of worship existed. The political centre in Colamandalam or ‘Cola country’ therefore, possessed a ritual primacy.

Again, a significant aspect of this formulation is that the ‘specialized administrative staff’ is not an exclusive feature of the primary centre but is found operating at and within the various segments of which the state consists.

Further, the organization of the subordinate levels or ‘zones’ is ‘pyramidal’ which means that the relationship between the centre and the peripheral units of any segment is the same, except in reduced form, as the relationship between the prime centre and all the subordinate foci of power. The principle of pyramidal segmentation rests upon the assumption of complementary opposition between the segments and within them which facilitates vertical integration. This integration, it must be mentioned is less political, given the kind of separation of authority and power that existed, than ritual in nature. Amongst the segments certainly, vertical integration is primarily attendant upon ritual incorporation. The segmental units in this polity remain largely autonomous because each is pyramidal and consists of balanced internal groupings which cling to their own independent identities, privileges, and internal governance and demand that these units be protected by their local rulers. Within each local unit or nadu, there existed a number of groups with mutually opposed interests. The brahmans, the right and left hand castes (valangai—the castes associated with agriculture and idangai—the artisan and trader castes) and lower castes all constituted integral units within 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 opposed localized segments, the only possible supra-local, extra-segmentary integration which could take place was of a ritual nature.

Thus the pyramidal character of the segments in this polity is a prominent feature of this model.

In order to better understand the manner in which Stein applies the segmentary state model it is necessary for us to analyse the nature of the body he suggests be regarded as the constituent segments of the segmentary Cola 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 Colas 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 Cola inscriptions increase over the period from the 9th-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 Cola overlordship’ in these nadus. Veluthat however asserts that the nadus mentioned earlier occur in the more fertile lands while those that appear later in the Cola 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 Cola 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 Cola 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 Cola 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 AD as an ordering principle and attributes Burton Stein’s formulation of endogamy to the misapprehension that south Indian societies remained static from the 2nd-6th centuries AD 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, brahmana 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 labourers at the bottom. These nadus are designated ‘central nadus’ which figure in the fertile plains where agriculture was easiest and most profitable. Here Cola influences and political authority were most evident, Brahmans were most numerous and accorded high status and chieftainships were ritually assimilated to the Cola 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 Colas was recognized but also that of other ruling dynasties and could be detached from Cola overlordship 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 Cola kingship and the political chiefs of these localities appear to have exerted more direct political control. The number of brahmans 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 the Tamil country and provided a model way of life for the people of the region. Stein goes on to identify areas in the Cola 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.

Administration

In conventional literature, the nadu is treated as a sort of territorial assembly which consisted of the representatives of each village or the more influential residents of the locality. It was seen to be an organ of the government, specifically constituted for the purpose of executing the will of the ruler at the local level. However, as we have already observed, this was certainly not the case. According to Burton Stein each nadu constitutes an autonomous political centre which carries out the tasks of administration through its assembly. Officials were appointed from amongst the nattar to carry out these functions.

The evidence does seem to suggest that the nattar played a vital role in the administration. Most copper-plate inscriptions relating to land grants seem to have been addressed to the nattar who were expected to act on the order by delimiting the boundaries, resettling the occupants and implementing the injunctions of the grants. In many cases they took care of irrigation management. From records stating that the nadu undertook to pay the taxes on lands made tax-free, it seems that it was the nadu which assessed and collected 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 centre 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 Tiruchirapalli 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 Cola government structure or function’. Further an inscription of AD 1116 of Kullotunga 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 Cola state, there were more references to the nattar groups in inscriptions than in core areas indicating that matters of administration were left to the nattar groups to a far greater extent in the peripheral areas. However, in the period immediately after the reign of Rajaraja I there are more references to the royal functionaries in the inscriptions, supporting Veluthat’s argument for an attempt at centralization under Rajaraja I. The evidence from the nadu therefore also supports the theory that there was a greater penetration of the state through its functionaries after Rajaraja I. This attempt at centralization, as will be made clearer in Veluthat’s formulations, was unsuccessful.

Veluthat also counters Stein’s argument for a nadu chief, asserting that there is no evidence to suggest that there was a leader or a president of the group. While Stein grants this position to those bearing titles such as muvenda-velar, Veluthat emphasizes that these were landed magnates rather than locality chiefs and given the number of persons with such titles referred to in the context of one nadu, surely this must be obvious for it is unlikely that there could be many ‘locality chiefs’ in each nadu. He asserts that Stein’s motive in declaring these persons chiefs is quite clear, for if there was no chief among the nattar, then the nadus cannot be described as replicas of the political system at the centre. Furthermore, this also means that the Colas themselves must be characterized as monarchs and not one among the chiefs of many nadus as Burton Stein contends. This naturally defeats the argument for a segmentary state.