Medieval Economics: Why and how did the Cholas conquer the seas?

Rajendra Chola depicted in battle at the Kolaramma temple. After Rajendra I became sole co-ruler in 1015–1016, it seems to have been both a personal and a political imperative to outdo the conquests of his father. (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

In the previous edition of Medieval Economics, we tried to understand the Chola dynasty beyond the glamour, and glimpsed the political economy that financed the conquest of Sri Lanka under the emperor Rajaraja I, perhaps best known today as “Ponniyin Selvan”. But the conquest of Lanka pales before the undertakings of the Chola state under his successor Rajendra I, whose armies raided as far away as present-day Bengal, Malaysia, and Indonesia. How were such undertakings possible in the 11th century?

The answer lies partially in the ever-shifting politics of medieval India and the political culture of the Chola court. But to a much greater extent, it lies in the long-forgotten merchant corporation known as the Ainnurruvar, the Five Hundred.

Manpower and military success

Between 985-1014 CE, the Chola emperor Rajaraja I had presided over one of the most astounding reversals of fortune in the subcontinent’s history. As I have written elsewhere, he appears to have possessed a political and military mind of almost unbelievable capabilities, single-handedly transforming the political geography of southern India. As his expanding power reached the southern tip of the subcontinent, alliances were cultivated with the Five Hundred merchant corporation. His armies seized southern Karnataka and intervened in the politics of coastal Andhra. And, of course, Lanka was conquered to appropriate its trade infrastructure.

But who were the people actually fighting in the Chola armies? What was the source of their apparently inexhaustible manpower? The availability of bodies for the war-machine has made and broken empires, from the Roman Republic to Soviet Russia. Indian kingdoms were not immune to these constraints.

Many historians, including Noboru Karashima and James Heitzman, have shown that there is little epigraphic evidence that the Chola state could recruit or conscript troops on demand from their Kaveri heartlands. Local manpower was overwhelmingly controlled by local assemblies and chiefs, who preferred to focus on cultivation and irrigation. Instead, as Professor Y. Subbarayulu writes in South India Under the Cholas, it was Adivasi populations who had the most to gain from Chola service. Forming regiments of bowmen under royal command, they were granted prestigious titles, luxury goods, land, and plunder in return for manpower. By the late 11th and early 12th century, they were taxing settled populations and making land-grants to temples, and forming the nuclei of the Right-Hand and Left-Hand caste divisions that survived till the 19th century.

The successful incorporation of these martial groups allowed the Cholas to wage war like no other South Indian kingdom. While most of their rivals were hard-pressed to field even a single large army, the Cholas often had at least two large armies in the field, allowing them to fight on multiple fronts. But this came at a tremendous politico-economic cost.

Conquering the seas

To remain the premier recruiter of manpower in Southern India, the Cholas had to not only pay their armies but create the impression of unceasing, almost effortless military success. After Rajendra I became sole co-ruler in 1015–1016, it seems to have been both a personal and a political imperative to outdo the conquests of his father. This was the direct motivation for his destruction of Manyakheta, the capital of the Later Western Chalukyas, c. 1017. The next few years of his reign were occupied with planning two much more spectacular loot-gathering expeditions.

The first moved along the east coast for two years through 1022–1023, reaching as far as Bengal. It seized forts and destroyed and captured towns in the regions corresponding to modern-day Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Bengal. Chola sources claim the cities of Tandabutti, Takkanaladam and Uttiraladam were sacked, and Madura-mandalam, Namanaikkonam, and Panchapalli destroyed (their precise locations are debated to this day). No less than three kings who attempted to fight off the marauders in Bengal were defeated and their elephants, women and treasure seized. The detailed lists of cities looted and burned certainly indicate organised attempts to seize wealth for redistribution.

The logistical requirements for such a campaign are difficult to overstate. While local foraging certainly helped feed the army, its activities over two years definitely disrupted harvesting and planting seasons. As such, it must have relied on regular shipments of grain from merchant corporations such as the Five Hundred. Chola texts such as the Kalingattuparani also describe the use of flaming arrows—a fact which must be connected to city-burning, apparently a favoured Chola tactic. Oil for these arrows certainly came from merchants, and merchant shipping may also have been used to transport loot, reinforcements, and wounded troops.

Around 1024–1025—almost immediately after the return of the northern expedition—Rajendra Chola also claims to have raided a number of cities in Southeast Asia. Kedah, commanding the entrance to the Malacca Strait, appears to have been the primary target, with Rajendra claiming the capture of its king, of various jewelled gates in the city, and a number of elephants. He also claimed the sacking of twelve other cities: six on the Malay Peninsula, four in Sumatra, and two whose location is unknown. There is little contemporary evidence that the Chola state could or did maintain a navy, let alone one capable of operating at such a distance with such effectiveness. Instead, it is far more likely that this expedition was undertaken in partnership with merchant guilds. Merchant inscriptions already mention their participation in the trading of elephants and horses, which means they certainly had the vessels capable of transporting an army. Perhaps the 1022–1023 Ganga expedition was a prelude to this much more audacious and profitable partnership, as was the earlier conquest of Lanka. Indeed, as Professor B. Arunachalam writes in Chola Navigation Package, fleets heading to Southeast Asia would catch the best winds if they departed from the Lanka coast.

Certainly the loot and prestige of such a raid benefited the Cholas, but the real winners were the merchant guilds. From the 11th century onwards, there is a noticeable increase in Tamil merchant inscriptions in Southeast Asia, and evidence that local elites developed a taste for the textiles of the Coromandel Coast. In Two Medieval Merchant Guilds of South India, historian Meera Abraham argues that Tamil merchants also entered the Indian Ocean transshipment trade that had hitherto been dominated by Malays. And by the 13th–14th centuries, Tamil merchants were influential enough to build a Shiva temple in Quanzhou, one of the greatest maritime emporia of the world at the time.

No medieval power operated in isolation: as soon as we peer beyond the glamour of royalty, we see the sinews of money at work. Perhaps the most intriguing example of this comes not from Chola conquests, but from their awe-inspiring temples.

Also read: The wealth behind Ponniyin Selvan: The Kaveri and the Kallanai