There is no arguing that today, the Chola period is best remembered for its overseas expansions.
In 1025-26, Chola emperor Rajendra I (r. 1014-1044) dispatched an expedition to Kedah, a rich Malay port, and claimed the conquest of a number of other cities in Indonesia and the Malay peninsula.
Given that Indian Ocean trade has always passed through our shores, why did no other kings replicate this feat? The answer lies in Rajendra Chola’s partners: the great Tamil merchant corporation known as the Ainurruvar or the Five Hundred.
Cementing the empire
The Chola Empire in the 1020s was arguably India’s most powerful polity. Over the previous decades, emperor Rajaraja I (r. 985-1014) had extended its power into southern Karnataka, coastal Andhra Pradesh, and northern Sri Lanka. This was a vast territory, and Chola authority was challenged on many frontiers.
And so, his heir Rajendra Chola explored new ways of cementing the empire. In the late 1010s, temple inscriptions show that he encouraged Tamil peasant-warriors to settle down in South Karnataka, particularly in the Kolar region.
Soon after, using regalia seized from defeated foes, he crowned his sons as sub-kings, bearing titles like “Chola Lord of Lanka” or “Chola-Pandya”. But the most definitive, unconventional way to establish Rajendra’s authority would be a “conquest of the directions” or a digvijaya, as it is known in Indian texts. This would establish him as a legitimate King of Kings, with vassals in all directions.
Early in his career, Rajendra had already led expeditions south and west. In 1021, he ordered an expedition north to the Ganga River to seize the sacred waters and consecrate a colossal imperial temple. But no coastal Indian king had ever been able to imagine a conquest east, across the seas.
Also read: Brahmins, Mughal yogis, British propaganda–How Kumbh Mela became world’s greatest gathering
Politics and economics
Of course, we cannot be sure to what extent symbolism actually influenced Rajendra’s decision to attack Kedah, which was just two weeks’ sailing east during the monsoon. The port was a long-standing but difficult trading partner for the Tamil coast.
Known in Tamil as Kadaram, Kedah was an important Indian Ocean emporium. By the time of the Cholas, it had already been known to Tamil merchants for a millennium.
In the early 11th century, though, Kedah’s ambitions were growing. It had erected a splendid Buddhist monastery in Nagapattinam, the most important Chola port; it also made modest gifts at a Shaivite temple there. Scholars such as Tansen Sen have suggested that Kedah ambassadors sought better tariff rates in China by claiming that the Cholas were their vassals.
Perhaps more importantly, Kedah had a dominant position in the global trade of exotic wood, camphor, and spices—all of which it sourced from deeper in the Indonesian archipelago. These were sought by courts and temples across the Indian Ocean, and Tamil merchants wanted a cut.
Temple inscriptions suggest that large assemblies of these merchants, particularly of the Ainurruvar corporation, were present at Nagapattinam. Chinese court records show that some had served as Chola ambassadors in 1015, visiting the capital of Kaifeng. Others lived in Gangai-konda-Chola-puram, the Chola capital. As such, they had front-row seats to Kedah’s commercial ambitions, as well as Rajendra Chola’s political necessities.
By providing their logistical expertise to Chola forces, the Tamil merchants could not only eliminate Kedah but muscle into the most valuable trade networks in the Indian Ocean. And so, in 1025-26, they did just that. Conveyed by the monsoon winds, it appears that the annual trade fleet of the Tamil merchants helped Rajendra’s troops cross the Bay of Bengal, allowing the capture of Kedah’s king. Rajendra Chola adopted the title of Kedah-Seizer, Kadaram-Konda, and publicly exhibited a city gate which his troops had torn down and transported back. However, there’s no archaeological evidence that he sought to rule Kedah as an outpost—which makes sense, given his main challengers were in mainland India.
What the archaeology shows us instead is that, by 1080, Tamil merchants had set up an independent port on the island of Sumatra, in present-day Lobu Tua on the west coast. Soon after, they built a fort, Kota Cina, on the east coast. From here, they ventured into the highlands in search of camphor, gold, and exotic woods.
To this day, the upland Karo people of Sumatra have Tamil loanwords in their vocabulary and tell stories of magic-bearing Tamil priests and traders. This suggests a centuries-long interaction with Tamil settlers from the coasts.
Also read: A Sanskrit Bible story was written in Ayodhya. The patron was a Lodi, the poet a Kshatriya
Long-term developments
Once the Cholas established a precedent, the rest of the Indian Ocean soon followed. The kings of Lanka raided Myanmar in the 12th century; a Malay king tried to conquer Lanka in the 13th century. But the question then becomes: why did no other mainland Indian king send a maritime expedition to Southeast Asia?
Simply put, it seems that Rajendra Chola’s unique constellation of factors never came together in India again. He was a man of boundless imagination, willing to try new things and use unconventional solutions.
But overseas expeditions were risky and costly. It was generally not worth it for land-based states to invest in them. Rajendra tried the Kedah expedition because it was profitable in other ways—geopolitical signalling and building an alliance with merchants. Even so, it is significant that in the latter part of his reign, no inscriptions suggest that he sent a second expedition there.
Next, there are the Tamil merchants, who had a deep drive to expand and seize markets, and were able to operate both under and beyond the rules of states. They had a formidable understanding of navigation and military logistics: many came from the same landowning and martial groups who composed the Chola martial aristocracy.
In fact, the Ainurruvar merchant corporation outlived the Cholas, surviving well into the 16th century. By that time, however, the Tamil coast was ruled by the upland Vijayanagara Empire, which was more interested in Deccan wars and would not risk a Southeast Asia gamble.
More importantly, the merchants were already extremely successful by the 16th century and Tamil textiles dominated Indonesian markets—so there was little to gain from a naval expedition. This trade dominance had begun with the Chola raid but was really maintained by a thriving Tamil diaspora that extended as far as China. Sometimes, cultural diasporas can achieve as much, if not more, than an armed force.
Overseas expeditions do capture the imagination in a time when Indians are searching for a past which fulfils our yearning to be a contemporary superpower. But I would suggest that the uniqueness of Rajendra Chola’s Kedah expedition, given the unlikely set of factors that made it happen, makes it all the more singular. It was easily the most astonishing logistical and military display of the entire medieval period, with nothing to equal it anywhere on the planet.
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.
This article is a part of the ‘Thinking Medieval‘series that takes a deep dive into India’s medieval culture, politics, and history.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)