Mani Ratnam’s big-budget global hit film Ponniyin Selvan Part – 1, based on the novel of the same name by Kalki Krishnamurthy, deals with the Chola king Rajaraja I before he ascended the throne in 985 CE. Digging into the history of the king’s capital in Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur reveals a fluid religious culture thriving a millennium ago.
Historical facts, sometimes, can be more interesting than historical fiction. Consider the situation today when non-Hindus are not permitted to enter most Hindu temples. They are not allowed to be members of administrations of Hindu religious charities. And now there is also a growing movement to discourage the involvement of non-Hindus in Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam.
Considering that both Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam have the Cauvery delta as the base, it’s a surprise that in Thanjavur, a Muslim was superintending the dancers and musicians at the Brihadisvara Temple in the 11th century. Later, he was an important imperial official, who ensured that grants to temples were properly issued. His artistic qualification is described in the inscriptions of Rajendra I with the title ‘Kandhiruvapperaraiyaṉ’, which literally means ‘great king of classical music’. In turn, he made donations for Thanjavur temple activities. Clearly, the fields of religion, performing arts, and government administration in the 11th-century Tamil region were far more open than today.
Who was the Muslim superintendent?
The Muslim superintendent at the Brihadisvara Temple was Chonahan Chavur Paranjoti. Scholars first noticed him in an inscription dated 29th year of Rajaraja I — 1014 CE — in the temple. He is mentioned as living on the Rajavidyadhara Great Street outside Thanjavur. Later, Rajendra I, the son and successor of Rajaraja I, made Paranjoti a superintendent of royal writs, who came to live in Rajendra I’s new imperial capital Gangaikondacholapuram.
In the inscription, Chavur Paranjoti is mentioned as donating a total of 96 ewes (female sheep) to three shepherds so that they could supply ghee to the temple for the lamps. In the Thanjavur temple, there is also a significantly damaged inscription, which seems to refer to another of Paranjoti’s donations. “The inscription records a deposit of money, the interest of which was to be used for feeding ten Siva-yogins on each of twenty-four festival days,” according to Rai Bahadur V. Venkayya, the editor of this inscription. That a Muslim made these donations to the temple points to a situation of real religious amity.
Far more significant than his charitable donations was Paranjoti’s important role in facilitating ritual activities in the temple. To appreciate its significance, one has to first look into Rajaraja I’s deep interest in dance.
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Rajaraja I’s love for dance
Rajaraja I was an ardent devotee of Adavallan or Nataraja, the dancing god of Thillai, also known as Chidambaram. It was in his devotion to Nataraja that the king built the Brihadisvara Temple — whose scale would have dwarfed any other temple in India at that time. Although the main visible deity in the temple is the huge Sivalinga, many clues show that Rajaraja I’s intention was to have Nataraja as the main deity.
One, there is a beautiful Nataraja icon called Adavallan in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple. Two, in Rajaraja I’s days and earlier, the grain measure (marakkal) used in each temple was often named after the main deity. In the Brihadisvara Temple, the measure was called Adavallan. Three, there is a corridor around the sanctum sanctorum, where one can see a painting of Nataraja dancing in the Chidambaram temple.
There could also be another reason for his interest in dance. Rajaraja I married a temple dancer named Nakkan Thillaiyalahi and made her an important queen known as Panjavan Mahadevi. In the Thanjavur temple, on the second floor, there is a corridor in which relief sculptures of 81 dance karanas are seen.
Rajaraja I also brought 400 female temple dancers from all over his kingdom and established them in Thanjavur, giving each of them individual houses and grants. He also brought dance teachers, singers, and various instrumentalists to support these dancers. Dancing with accompanying music was a part of the ritual activities of the temple too. In this project of Rajaraja I, Chavur Paranjoti played an important role.
Significance of Chavur Paranjoti’s roles
Rajaraja appointed two persons as Superintendents to oversee the above-mentioned 400 dancers and numerous musicians. One of the two was Chavur Paranjoti. In appointing Chavur Paranjoti, Rajaraja I saw it as no different from appointing a Vaishnavite in the Siva temple. “Coming together of such a large number of dancing girls, and performing within the same temple, raised the art to supreme heights and excellence, which left its impact on the succeeding centuries,” according to historian R. Nagaswamy.
Clearly, Paranjoti had a role in ensuring the success of this project of Rajaraja I.
In those days, when the king gave the order for a grant orally, it was the duty of an official called Tirumandhira Olai (royal scribe) to prepare the order on palm leaves. Those leaves would be verified and approved by one or more royal officers called Tirumandhira Olai Nayaham (Superintendent of Royal Writs). Rajendra I had four such officers. This position obviously demanded a person with honesty and administrative expertise, who was trusted by the king.
While the influential Brahmin Krishnan Raman, a Chola army general, and his sons held the post of the Superintendent of Royal Writs for a long time, Rajendra I’s inscriptions also tell us that Chavur Paranjoti was a superintendent working alongside them at least from 1023 CE till 1035 CE.
Rajendra I made donations to several temples. Extant inscriptions show that Paranjoti verified the contents of grants to the temple of the goddess Pidariyar at Kolar in Karnataka, the Siva temple built by Sarvasiva Pandita, the Rajaguru of Rajendra at Esalam (in Villupuram district, Tamil Nadu), and the Vishnu temple at Mannarkovil (in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu).
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Was Paranjoti actually a Muslim?
In 1895, taking notice of the last name, Paranjoti, Venkayya did not consider him to be a Muslim since he believed that Muslims came to South India much later. He thought Chavur Paranjoti could be a Greek or Arab. However, researchers have now learnt a lot more about West Asian trade with South India. That knowledge helps us confirm that Paranjoti was a Tamil Muslim indeed.
We know from ancient Tamil texts like the Purananuru that Roman traders were called Yavanar, plural of Yavanan. They came by ship to buy spices like pepper. Tamils also imported Roman wine and lamps. After the advent of Islam in the seventh century in Arabia and its rapid spread in the region, West Asian trade passed into the hands of Arab and Persian Muslims. Later, West Asians mostly came to be called Chonahar (plural of Chonahan). In the course of time, the words Chonahan and Yavanan referred to any Muslim irrespective of their origin.
As for Paranjoti, the Tamil Lexicon glosses it as ‘Supreme Being, as the Light Divine’. Paranjoti had been used in the Tamil region earlier referring to Siva in the devotional work called Tevaram and Vishnu in the Vaishnava devotional text, the Nalayirat Tivviyap Pirapandham. It was not referring to any specific god. Etymologically, Paranjoti can be parsed into param (derived from Sanskrit para) meaning ‘divine’ and choti (derived from Sanskrit jyotis) meaning ‘light’. In fact, in the later Tamil Islamic work called Chirappuranam, authored by Umaruppulavar, both param and choti are used to refer to Allah just as the Tevaram used param and choti to refer to Siva.
We should note that Muslim West Asian traders and navigators had settled on the South Indian coasts at least as early as the 8th century. Given the usual rules of Tamilising foreign sounds, a possible Middle Eastern source of the name Chavur could be the Arabic ‘Sabur’, derived from the Persian ‘Shapur’, meaning ‘prince’ in the 10th century.
Thus, we can be certain that Chonahan Chavur Paranjoti was indeed a Muslim.
The case of the multi-talented Paranjoti during the time of Rajaraja I and Rajendra I highlights the remarkable attitude of inter-religious amity that prevailed in the 11th century Tamil region. Both kings deemed Islam to be just one among several religious traditions such as Saivism, Vaishnavism, Jainism, and Buddhism. Islam was not considered to be a foreign faith separate from the rest.
Sudalaimuthu Palaniappan, Ph.D., is President of South Asia Research and Information Institute Dallas, Texas, USA. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)