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Muloghonto

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I remember we had a few mega threads here about history topics with many epic posts, especially by mulo. Below are their links, will add more if I remember or can dig them up...just in case posters want to go through the archives. I can't seem to remember them all, if others do please share the links so that we have everything at one place. 

 

 

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Of course mulo is the resident history expert but it will be more fulfilling if others too can chime in and add their knowledge, ask questions, stimulate deeper discussion. It can be anything, American or European history, Indian ancient/medieval/modern, regional history/tidbits/legends, Islamic, Fiji, Burkina Faso...anything. Maybe even some book review which pertains to historical subjects. The essays will be time consuming and posting might be irregular but hope we can use this thread specifically for history. 

Edited by Gollum
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I am really into WW-2 documentaries these days.

 

Indian history has always been written from a biased view  either from a invader’s angle or from a perspective of total rejection and denial and the total 180 of that history on the other side . It’s almost impossible to get to a common middle ground when it comes to Indian history.

 

Sure every history is biased but the more relatively modern history is just a retelling of facts with a biased view but there are still tangible facts.

 

Indian history comes with a lot of challenges.

Edited by maniac
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I: Rise of the Imperial Cholas

 

The Cholas are one of the most celebrated imperial dynasties of the south. Their imperial age lasted from roughly from 993 CE, when Rajaraja Chola I successfully conquered parts of Sri Lanka and extended Chola power for the first time outside Tamil country, till 1216 CE, when a rebellion by their vassal Pandyas ended the Chola imperial age and by 1220 CE had been restricted back to North of Cauvery to Chennai region ( the original Chola homeland was around the river-banks of lower Cauvery river). 

 

This 225 years of imperial zenith of the Cholas produced several famous Chola rulers and accomplishments - Rajaraja I, Rajendra Chola, Rajadhiraja, Rajendra-II, Kulothonga-I, Vikrama etc. to name a few. However, how did they start and who are the ones responsible for the rise of the imperial Cholas ?

 

To answer this question, we have to go back 150 years prior to Rajaraja-I and look at the scenario in Tamil country around 850 CE and perhaps even earlier.

 

Part-I : The original landscape:

This is a brief synopsis of the early eras,not an entire history expose on it:

 

The Sangam literature, as well as the Mauryan inscriptions and the Greco-Roman records, shows us that the Tamil country ( which in pre-900s AD, also included Kerala) was traditionally divided amongst three great houses and several minor ones, who owed their allegience to one of these three great houses. 

They were: 
1. The Cheras, also known as the 'Keralputras' in Mauryan inscriptions, who ruled most of Kerala up to Kottayam and southern-most parts of Karnataka.

2. The Pandyas, who ruled the southern Tamil Nadu to the districts adjoining the southern banks of the Cauvery river.

3. The Cholas, who ruled from the southern banks of the Cauvery river, to the region around Chennai.

 

Of the three great houses, the Cheras were an oddity, since they were the only great house that didn't organize in a centralized kingdom but rather, had a confederate nature, with several Chera kings ruling concurrently over several cities dotting the Kerala landscape. Such structure of the Cheras were preserved right up to the arrival of the Portuguese in the 16th century CE. 

 

Here is a map that approximates the extent of the rule of these houses:

 

Image result for cholas cheras and pandyas

 

The Pandyas and the Cholas however, organized themselves in centralized kingdoms, with typically only 1 monarch ruling at a time and very occasionally a co-monarch, which happened to be the son of the current monarch when the ruler was extremely old. 

 

It is worth noting however, that the Venad and Ay chiefs were mostly subordinate to the Pandyas at this time and ruled as vassals. The northern borders of the Chola kingdom is slightly exgaggerated, as parts of it were actually ruled by a minor house of that time known as the Pallavas. 

 

Around 100 BCE, the Pallavas became vassals to the original imperial power in the Deccan - the Satavahanas and were simply tasked with checking the Chola power to the south. The Satavahanas showed little interest in the Tamil country, since their imperial aspirations lay towards the north and from around 50 CE onwards, were locked in a serious power struggle with the Western Kshatrapas - an Indo-European group from the steppes who'd invaded & consolidated the Gujarat country. 

 

Part-II: The middle period:

 

This structure prevailed until somewhere around 250-300 CE, when an unknown entity, called the Kalabhras, took over after the fall of the Satavahana dynasty and unified the entire Tamil country under their rule. They were universally despised by the Tamil literature, have been recorded to've simultaneously imprisoned all the Chola, Chera, Pandya and the Ay kings & chiefs. Little is known about them, since they were not great builders or leave much artifacts behind and what we know of them, is mostly through Sangam, Buddhist and Jain literatures of that era. Their origin is also unknown - they could be a tribe migrating south from the north, they could be one of the forest tribe confederations rising in power during the power vaccum left behind at the collapse of the Satavahana dynasty. 

 

This period in history is called the Tamil dark age and lasts till around 600 CE, when a combined push by the remaining Cholas, Pandyas, Cheras, Ay and the extremely powerful Chalukyas of Badami(Vatapi) manage to defeat them and restore the Tamil country to its native rule. 

 

This however, saw the Cholas as the ultimate losers. A big proponent of the struggle versus the Kalabhras was the Pallava king Simhavishnu and the Pandyan king Kadungon, where they chose to divide the territory of the Tamil country between themselves and leave the Cheras to their own devices. 

This lead to the Pallavas taking over almost all the Chola territories and the Cholas being reduced to vassal status to the Pandyas and restricted to a narrow strip following the Cauvery river, with their capital in Urayur. 

This is how the Tamil region looked after 600 AD, with the fall of the Kalabhras:

 

image.jpeg.2f192cc8ca804c98b85811cbd7cf0766.jpeg

 

For the next 250 years, the once illustrious Cholas were reduced to local fuedatory status, with even the names of their kings/rulers being spottily recorded. 

 

This period, ie, 600 AD- around 812 AD, was the Pallava golden age, where they were the clear-cut major Tamil power and were opportunistically antagonistic towards the Chalukyas of Badami, who's attention, like the Satavahanas, lay towards the Malwa region. 

 

By 750 CE, the Chalukyas were supplanted by what was to become one of the most powerful Indian dynasties after the Gupta age ( and arguably the most powerful one): The Rashtrakutas.

 

The Raskhtrakutas, unlike their Chalukya predecessors, did not ignore the Tamil country but like the Satavahanas, sought to establish their supremacy over the Tamil region. As such, in 812 CE, the extremely powerful Dhruva Dharavarsha, who'd left his imperial inscription in Kannauj and boasted about his horse drinking from the fresh meltwater of the ganges right at Gangotri, invaded the Pallava country and utterly decimated the Pallava king Dantivarman. Dhruva entered Kanchipuram, the Pallava capital, was crowned the king of the Pallavas there and left Dantivarman as his loyal subject.

 

Though the Pallava power to the north of the Cholas was crushed, none dared challenge the power of the Rashtrakutas ( not even the Imperial Arab Abbasid Caliphate, who were extremely respectful of the Rashtrakuta power) and the Cholas continued their time as Pandyan vassals. 

 

The loss of power of the Pallavas brought the Pallavas and Pandyas into conflict over supremacy of the Tamil region, but neither of them prevailed. Party because the Pandyas were checked back by Rashtrakuta re-enforcement to their Pallava vassals and party because the Cholas seemed to've mostly stayed out of the conflict, choosing to be 'switzerland' of its time. 

 

This all changed around Vijayalaya Chola, who was crowned the Chola king in Urayur at 848 CE. 

 

Part-III : Rise of the Medeival Cholas:

 

A: Vijayala Chola

 

When Vijayalaya Chola came to power, the Chola country was literally a narrow band along the lower cauvery river, along both its bands and the only major town they controlled was Urayur. 

However, Vijayalaya Chola came to power at the right time - in 848 CE, the Pandyas and the Pallavas had exhausted each other with continuous war over the last couple of decades and Vijayalaya Chola saw an opportunity to his south.

 

First things first, he conquered Thanjavur from a Muttiyar chief ( a long but minor royal house in Tamil country) and turned the dynsasty into loyal vassals. How this was done, is unknown but a good guess would be the traditional Indian way of matrimonial alliance. 

 

This shift in the power landscape was temporarily ignored by both the Pandyas and the Pallavas, who chose to continue the war with each other. Taking advantage of this, Vijayalaya ventured south of the Cauvery and dealt a defeat to the Pandyan ruler Srimara Srivallabha, who'd lead to a resurgence of Pandyan power about 30 years earlier.  The date of this is uncertain, but it happened somewhere in the 850s CE, before the death of Pandyan king Srivallabha and before the next king, Varagunavarman-II came to power in 862 CE. 

 

This power shift was finally noted by both the Pallavas and Pandyas, where the Pandyas, weakened by the Chola success ( as well as a raid on their capital by the Sinhala king Sena-II), entered a vassal alliance with the Pallavas, in order to contain the Chola threat.


The Pallava king Nandivarman-III , himself a vassal of the Rashtrakutas, instructed his new vassal Varagunavarman-II to attack the Cholas and carefully planned an invasion of the Chola country in the late 860s CE. By this time, Vijayala Chola had gotten quite old and soon the rumors started to fly that he'd become an invalid/cripple. 

 

Bolstered by this news, Varagunavarman-II marched on the Cholas, carefully approaching the Chola territory. A swift blow to the two major Chola-held cities of Urayur ( Tiruchirapalli) and Thanjavur would've extinguished the Chola power. 


However, he was surprised by the appearance of Aditya Chola-I, the crown prince, who seemingly took over the Chola forces from Vijayalaya and presented a stout defense against the Pandyas. For nearly two years the Pandyas seiged the Chola capital of Urayur but in the end, they returned home, defeated. 

 

Shortly thereafter, Vijayala Chola died and Aditya-I became the Chola monarch. The Chola line was secure for the time being, but their quest to supremacy would span another 100 years.

 

( To be contiuned....)

 

Edited by Muloghonto
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Some sport history opinion from my side:

 

I think the decline in spectator sports following across the globe is directly related to rise in digital age. All sports like cricket, football, hockey, rugby and etc. originated in 1700s England (including American sports since Britain was it's father) during industrial revolution, and spectator sports like baseball, cricket and football are all products of an industrialized society, these same sports were children's pastimes in an agrarian society.

 

I think the future is e-sports which directly relates to digital age. You never know, being a fortnite gamer could mean big money.

 

I don't like e-sports, get off that computer and be active!

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The other threads i started, fell off, because I don't have the time to write accurate essays on history every other day. Even though I know the historical events I am presenting for most part, I still have to cross reference the dates and names, etc.  to not create errors. 

Would be a big help if this was made a sticky, so we don't have to keep hunting it out of archives. This thread would also be a great sticky, since @Gollum has painstakingly found the other history threads and posted them here, so this thread can also act as a portal to the other threads.


Thank you mods

@beetle, @Malcolm Merlyn @velu @asterix

Edited by Muloghonto
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