The Brihadishvara Temple at Thanjavur is still one of the most stupendous monuments ever built in India. While often seen primarily as a religious monument, its inscriptions also reveal a Chola court of spectacular opulence, capable of gifting literal tonnes of gold and silver, thousands of animals, and tens of thousands of pearls. Sometimes we hand-wave the question of how medieval Indian kings obtained such vast riches. But in the figure of Rajaraja Chola – perhaps the most remarkable ruler of the period – we have some interesting, and counterintuitive, answers.
The Cholas and their world
In the late 10th century, the political situation in South Asia was dismal. Just a few decades prior, great transregional imperial formations – the Rashtrakutas, Palas and Pratiharas – had lorded it over the subcontinent before being shattered by various internal forces. This left India divided among many small regional kingdoms.
One of these was the Chola kingdom, which at the time was led by a dowager queen, Sembiyan Mahadevi – one of the most formidable figures in Indian religious history, who deserves a future column of her own. Sembiyan and her son, King Uttama Chola, did not move to exploit the broader political situation, instead strengthening the Cholas’ position at home. They built alliances with the Tamil gentry through temple patronage. An interesting example of this comes from the 970s when Uttama went to Kanchipuram in northern Tamil Nadu. His court made administrative arrangements at the Ulagalanda Perumal temple, one of the city’s many Vishnu shrines.
Uttama ordered that new immigrants to the city were to give a monthly quota of oil and rice to the temple. Weaver communities, who traditionally received interest-bearing loans from the temple, were appointed temple managers to audit these immigrants’ dues. Finally, the chief of Kanchi’s merchant assembly was given the lucrative honour of administering the temple accounts on behalf of the Cholas. All these made Chola temples not just devotional centres but also economic and political centres, where capital could be accrued, directed to businesses, and used to build relationships with important constituents.
Also read: How Cholas, Mings dominated Indian Ocean before INS Vikrant
The rise of Rajaraja Chola
Rajaraja Chola was Uttama’s successor, though – for reasons too complex to get into here – the two did not share the best relationship. What we can say for sure is that Rajaraja did not continue Uttama’s sedate foreign policy. At his accession, the upper Tamil plain finally possessed the mix of factors – internal cohesion and external disarray – to turn the tables on all its neighbours. And this Rajaraja did with violent efficiency, leading expeditions to the Malabar Coast, Sri Lanka, and southern Karnataka.
What really sets Rajaraja apart is what he did after these expeditions. Most medieval Indian kings would simply demand tribute, vassalise foreign rulers, and return home. It was just too difficult, logistically, to administer conquered territory. But Rajaraja broke the mould: in south Karnataka, he renamed Talakkad, an old regional centre, “Rajaraja-puram”—Rajaraja City; in Lanka, after taking control of the town of Polonnaruwa, he renamed it “Jananathapuram”, People’s Leader City. These would hereafter serve as Chola centres. Rajaraja was able to do this with confidence because he had the support of Tamil merchant assemblies, who migrated to both regions accompanied by professional mercenaries.
It was Tamil merchants who enabled the Chola kingdom to become a Chola Empire. In fact, according to the Culavamsa, a Sri Lankan chronicle, it was a Tamil horse merchant who tipped Rajaraja off about the island’s political situation, enabling the Chola conquest. And Rajaraja rewarded the merchant assemblies appropriately: as historian Meera Abraham argues in Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India, inscriptions suggest they took over pearl fisheries on Lanka’s north shore right after.
But paralleling this was Rajaraja’s own remarkable administrative prowess. He amplified, by several degrees, the temple patronage policy of his grand-aunt, Sembiyan Mahadevi. After every war, he gifted animals, gold, and jewels at strategically-chosen sacred sites. These gifts were accompanied by eulogies to his martial prowess – turning them, essentially, into medieval political ‘advertisements’. This effectively broadcast his charisma into the Tamil countryside, winning over subjects, recruits and administrators. From the 990s onwards, Rajaraja’s court set up new administrative divisions – all bearing his titles, such as Keralantaka-Valanadu (roughly ‘Kerala-Destroyer Prosperity District’). This created easily the deepest taxation system in all of medieval South Asia.
The fortunes of Rajaraja’s temple
With all this in mind, let’s return to where we began: Rajaraja’s colossal Brihadishvara temple in Thanjavur. Here are the overall numbers, as calculated by historian SR Balasubrahmanyam in Middle Chola Temples: Rajaraja I to Kulottunga I. Rajaraja alone gifted 38,604 gold coins. This was more than what most European courts at the time could muster. Then there are the precious corals, pearls and jewels—about 85 in total—that Rajaraja’s inscriptions declare were seized from the rival Pandya and Chera dynasties. These were valued at 8,462 coins. Then 155 silver items, similarly seized from the Cheras and Pandyas, worth 48,400 gold coins.
Adding all of these up, Rajaraja alone gave away gifts worth 95,466 gold coins: several tonnes of the precious metal. Rajaraja’s sister and queens also made gifts of bronze idols, adorned with tens of thousands of Lankan pearls. There is no earlier indication that these ladies had large treasuries of their own; this suggests that their fortunes stemmed from Rajaraja himself. And the ultimate source of this was the seized treasuries of Rajaraja’s political rivals.
This, as it were, is merely the tip of the temple-spire. The temple received ghee from 1,623 cows, 2,563 ewes, and 40 buffaloes—about 40 per cent of which were gifted by Rajaraja. Over 5,000 tonnes of rice were brought in annually, mostly from nearby villages but also from conquered territory. Rajaraja’s officers and army regiments also made gifts to the temple, and its staff came from across Chola territories, turning it into a political centre for the imperial elite. But all these endowments were not just intended to conduct rituals: like his uncle Uttama, Rajaraja was also aware of the temple’s potential as an economic engine. Its animals were gifted to shepherds, especially in his kingdom’s drier regions; in return, the shepherds were to send the temple constant gifts of ghee for its lamps. Gold coins were loaned to Brahmin assemblies in the still-wild lower Kaveri delta, allowing them to clear forests and set up irrigation in return for a neat 12.5 per cent annual interest.
So, what made Rajaraja Chola the richest man on Earth? Military daring; alliances with merchants, smart public relations, and administrative genius. But more than anything else, it was his boundless imagination—his ability to break with the old and create new institutions. As we’ll see in next week’s column, this ability to imagine was shared by his son and successor, Rajendra – though sometimes with morally difficult consequences.
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of ‘Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire’, and the award-winning ‘Lords of the Deccan’. He hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti, and is on Instagram @anirbuddha. Views are personal.
(Edited by Ratan Priya)
Evryone knows krishnadevaraya ಕೃಷ್ಣ ದೇವ ರಾಯ rulef the richest kingdom. Forget about self appraisal by kings, other historians have wrotten that diamonds were being sold on the streets of vijaya nagara which was the capital of karnata samrajya. There are seven volumes of inscriptions on donations made by the kings in the past to Lord Venkateshwara. One entire volume is about donations made by Krishnadevaraya, that mostly constituted gold jewellery. Probably one gold jewelry is worth 100 gold coins.
Rajaraja Chola was an idiot who made the Islamic conquest of India easier. Instead of fighting the armies of Islam, he attacked his Hindu neighbouring rulers. Instead of defeating the Islamic invaders with nefarious designs on India, he plundered and pillaged Indian rajas.
So much for being a great warrior. He was a useful idiot who helped Islam in it’s pursuit of dominance over the Indian subcontinent.
Rajaraja Chola had the foresight to invest in crypto. Thus he became the richest king.