Lords of Earth and Sea

The great empire of the Cholas was unexpected. It sprouted out of the blue in the Kaveri floodplain around 850 CE. Until then, the region had been dotted by self-governing village assemblies for centuries. From here, the Cholas established a vast empire, the first and only time an empire based in coastal South India was the dominant power of the subcontinent, a position usually occupied by the Deccan or northern India. The Cholas were as creative and imaginative as they were unexpected. They built stupendous temples, the tallest freestanding structures on earth after the pyramids of Egypt. Chola queens popularized new forms of gods and worship, such as the iconic Nataraja and the singing of Tamil poems to deities. They were also spectacularly daring, raiding not just the powerful Deccan and North India, but also Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. For a dynasty that was so influential, and is so loved today, its actual historical achievements were surprisingly forgotten by the late nineteenth century, as they had faded into myth and legend. In this book, the award-winning historian, Anirudh Kanisetti, brings to life the world of the Cholas. Not just the world of kings and queens attended by generals and service retinue women, but the stories of the "little people" whose lives were buffeted by big events. What was life like on board a merchant vessel making its way from the Tamil coast to Southeast Asia and China? What kind of food was served at temples to devotees and to soldiers in times of war? What became of a landless peasant who murdered his brother in a fit of rage? Why did a noble woman commit sati, holding a lemon over her head? Based on thousands of inscriptions and hundreds of secondary sources, this deeply researched book is not just a procession of dazzling kings and queens, but also a portal that transports us to the peasant settlements of over a thousand years ago. In this book, Kanisetti crucially separates fact from fiction and tells us one of the most extraordinary stories in human history.