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University of California, Berkeley
2nd Tamil Chair Conference
The Time of the Cholas 900 - 1300 C.E.
22-23 April 2006
[see
U.C. Berkeley Department of South and South East Asian Studies,
Center for South Asian Studies and Berkeley Tamil Chair Web Site]
[Note by tamilnation.org
see also Chola Dynasty
& the Chola Empire]
Panel I: Saturday, April 22. 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Moderator: Padmanabh Jaini Anne E. Monius,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Being a King the Chola Way: Contested Models of the Dharmic Ruler in Tamil
Literary Culture
Taking as its point of departure recent studies of South Indian courts and
kingship (Ali, Howes, Inden, etc.), this paper examines competing images of the
ideal king in Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu literary works in Tamil composed during
the time of the Cholas. While recent scholarship has focused almost exclusively
on the social, political, and economic contexts for the production of such
texts, this paper argues that the literary figure of the king provides a
critical locus for inter-sectarian debates about ethics, aesthetics, and the
proper articulation of religious identities.
Somadevah Vasudevah
Oxford University, England Problems with Saiva Prosopography
The textual study of Saiva scriptures and ritual manuals has in recent years
yielded significant new results. We now have a clearer understanding of the
evolutionary history of the Saiva religions and the syncretic strategies of the
redactors and exegetes of its scriptures.
Jennifer Clare
University of California, Berkeley "As it is said" : Chola-period Commentaries on Poetic and Common Language in the
Tolkappiyam
The earliest extant commentaries on the
ancient grammar Tolkappiyam date from
the Chola period, during which time many authoritative works on grammar and
language were produced. The Tolkappiyam, while usually understood as a Tamil
grammar for literature, also includes rules that apply to "common" usage of
language. This paper looks at Chola-period commentaries on such rules in order
to better understand this distinction between poetic and ordinary language in
Tamil as well as to examine the function of grammatical works during the Chola
period.
Panel II: Saturday, April 22. 10:45 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Moderator: Vasudha Dalmia George L. Hart
University of California, Berkeley Sangam Ambivalence in the Kamparamayanam
The Ramayanam of Kampan is a strange work. It presents a dark view of a world in
which nothing is stable, even Rama, who ostensibly represents an absolute,
unchanging, and unalterable reality. We find villains suddenly becoming heroes,
ugly demonesses turning into women of irresistible beauty, perfect wives
becoming shrewish or wicked, and landscapes whose virtue hides menace. On a
larger scale, the work finds itself constantly shifting between two views of the
world -- that of poem, in which the predominant virtue is self-control and the
ordered system of Brahmanical thought, and of maram, which is characterized by
martial valor, courage, and ultimate power. These two incompatible views not
only determine the structure of Kampan's great work; they also, I would argue,
reflect the political realities of his day, in which the great military and
imperial power of the Cholas was leavened by the Brahmanical system that they
supported. And, in a strange way that brings to mind some modern political
themes, they reflect a historical reality, one in which a system from the North
came to coexist with a conflicting indigenous system. Kampan had great regard
for both world-views, and he knew that they could not be entirely reconciled. He
used that fact to endow his work with a creative tension and a constantly
shifting perspective that account for its extraordinary power and popularity.
Indira Viswanathan Peterson
Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts Becoming a Chola monarch in 19th century Tanjavur: The Maratha Ruler Serfoji II
and the Brihadisvara Temple
This paper is an examination of the evocation of the Chola kings by the Maratha
king Serfoji II (1798-1832), the titular ruler of the kingdom of Tanjavur under
British supervision in the early 19th century. The Colacampu and the
Brihadisvaramahatmya, two Sanskrit texts written during or just before or during
Serfoji's reign, narrate, respectively, the geneaology of the Cholas, and their
connection with the Brihadisvara Siva temple in Tanjavur. Early in his reign,
Serfoji undertook a pilgrimage to the major Siva temples sung by Nayanmar, and
commissioned a Marathi poem (Sarabhendratirthavali) on his pilgrimage, which was
described as a circumambulation of "Choladesa". He also took major steps to
shift the cultic focus of his realm from the Tyagaraja temple at Tiruvarur to
the Brihadisvara temple at Tanjavur, through genealogical inscriptions,
consecration of lingas, and the institution of a dance drama at the temple. In
this paper I discuss the possible motivations for Serfoji's "revival" of
references to Chola monarchs (Rajaraja Chola in particular), and of Chola royal
styles and sites in the colonial-early modern era.
Layne Little
Clarkson University, New York Counting Saints & Sites Across a Reinvented Landscape: Tirumurugarruppadai and
Other Oddities in the Formation of a Saiva-Chola Canon
This paper explores the incongruities and ruptures that arise in the
canonization process of the Tirumurai. It explores the wider theological context
that shaped both its content and structure, but places special emphasis on the
awkward inclusion of a Sangam period work amongst its more homogenous body of
later bhakti works. The Tirumurukarruppadai is often represented as marking the
precarious beginnings of the bhakti movement. Certainly, it does seem to
beautifully capture the character of a number of clearly distinct forms of
devotional expression and experience. When taken together these forms show an
amalgative ur-form of Tamil bhakti. But what really distinguishes the
Tirumurukarruppadai from later integrated forms of Saiva devotionalism is that
here the specific strands can be viewed as discrete and complete. Here there is
no unified sense of community amongst worshippers, but rather the poet surveys
the vast variety of communities, places and modes of worship that celebrate the
God, Murugan.
Panel III: Saturday, April 22. 1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. Moderator: Joanna Williams Leslie Orr
Concordia University, Canada The Cholas Lost and Recovered: Imagining Medieval Tamilnadu without (and again
with) the Cholas
In the usual periodization of the history of the Tamil country, the 10th to 13th
centuries are fixed for posterity as the Chola era, with the 11th century
representing the peak of cultural attainment and political ascendancy (including
the domination of Pandyanadu) under the great rulers Rajaraja I and Rajendra I.
But were we to adopt a less dynasto centric division of the chronology --
considering, for example, the period of the 12th to 15th centuries as a coherent
historical epoch -- we might gain new perspectives on developments in medieval
Tamilnadu. With reference to religion and society, this period is crucial for
the emergence of institutions and practices which were to structure interactions
and activities in the later pre-colonial context. New patterns of patronage, and
of relationship between kings and communities, came into being, with Pandya and
Hoysala rulers, and generals from the Deccan and from Delhi – among others --
figuring as major players, and largely upstaging the Cholas. The Cholas were transformed from actors to icons, so that by Nayaka and Maratha
times they were cast as legendary and paradigmatic Tamil rulers. In the present
paper, I will use the evidence of temple inscriptions to trace the early history
of this development, beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries with the
contesting and waning of Chola power, and carrying into the 14th and 15th
centuries with the advent of new political, social, and religious formations
that drew on – and constructed -- the legacy of the now-vanished Cholas.
Vidya Dehejia
Columbia University, New York The Persistence of Buddhism in Tamil Nadu
Scattered across Tamil Nadu, at bus stops, beside Hindu temples, in make-shift
shrines, are a large number of granite images of the Buddha. In addition, there
is the better-known group of over 350 Buddhist bronzes from Nagapattinam. By
focusing on these Chola images, this paper explores the endurance of Buddhism
which appears to have survived by the strategy of adopting the popular Hindu
mode of bhakti. Perhaps this accounts too for the persistence of Buddhism in
Tamil Nadu all the way into the 17th century, long after it had lost its
vitality in northern India.
Gita V. Pai
University of California, Berkeley The King's Two Bodies: Vikramachola as a Valiant and Virtuous King
Court poet Ottakkuttan wrote Vikramacolanula for his patron, Vikramachola
(1118-35) prior to when the king began extensive renovations of the Nataraja
Temple at Chidambaram in 1126. In this 12th century poem, the poet details the
heroic and erotic qualities of the monarch who travels through his kingdom in an
imaginary procession much to the delight of an adoring female audience. The
purpose of this paper will be to examine notions of medieval kingship as
revealed in this ula, using as inspiration Ernest H. Kantorowicz's The King's
Two Bodies: A Study in Mediaeval Political Theology.
Panel IV: Saturday, April 22. 3:15 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Moderator: Eugene Irschick Archana Venkatesan
St. Lawrence University, New York A Comparative Look at the Matal poems of Tirumankaiyalvar and Jayamkontar
This paper compares the use of the matal motif by two very different Tamil
poets, Tirumankaiyalvar (c.9th century) and Jayamkontar (12th century).
Tirumankai, one of Tamil Vaisnavism's foremost poets, composes two matal poems
(Ciriya and Periya Tirumatal) spoken through the voice of a heroine longing for
Visnu. Jayamkontar, the author of the famous Kalingattuparani, follows a more
traditional format, in his matal, Karanai Viluppuraiyan Matal, where a local
chieftain threatens to ride the matal to prove his love. Jayamkontar's poem
clearly takes Tirumankai's poems as a model, even ending his poem in a manner
similar to that of his predecessor. This paper explores Jayamkontar's treatment
of the matal motif within the context of Chola kingship, comparing it to
Tirumankai's vision of divine kingship.
John Richardson Freeman
University of Michigan, Michigan Eccentrically "Tamil": Kerala Identity in Relation to the Cholas
The narrative construction of Kerala as a historically given entity with a
distinctive and continuous cultural, territorial and linguistic "identity" is
arguably the modern creation of scholars with a regionally vested perspective.
Much of this narrative has been wrought in reaction to a perceived Tamil
hegemony throughout the cultural and political history of south India. Given the
Chola imperium as the high-water mark of this hegemony, Tamil scholarship in
celebration of its achievements has inspired a compensatory historiography on
the contemporaneous dynasty of the Cheras in Kerala. This Chera dynasty is
reputedly the source of much that is historically distinctive in Kerala culture
and society, despite its avowedly "Tamil" linguistic and cultural affiliation.
This paper provides an overview of this Kerala scholarship on Chola Chera
identity relations, its cultural claims, and evidentiary basis, and raises
critical questions concerning the Chera's "Tamilness" in relation to the Cholas
based on a variety of historical, literary, linguistic, folkloric and
ethnological evidence.
Sujatha Arundathi Meegama
University of California, Berkeley Contested Sites: Chola Temples in Polonnaruva, Sri Lanka
The Chola period (1017-1070) in Sri Lankan was the first historical occupation
by a South Indian kingdom, leaving their permanent mark on the island by carving
inscriptions, constructing temples, and casting bronzes, primarily to their
dynastic deity Shiva. Although George Spencer and W. M. K. Wijetunga have
written extensively on the Cholas in Sri Lanka, their temples have received
scant attention. In studies of Polonnaruva, they are discussed either in
dichotomous terms, or as "foreign" impositions on a Buddhist landscape. In this
paper, I will trace the historcial discourse as these Chola temples and argue
for a more nuanced place for them in Sri Lankan art history.
Panel V: Sunday, April 23. 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. Moderator: Lawrence Cohen Daud Ali
The School of Oriental and African Studies, England The Representations of Ghosts and Goblins in Later Chola and Early Hoysala South
India
This paper, using both literary and visual sources from the late Chola and early
Hoysala periods (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) will explore the
representations of ghosts and demons (peykaL, bhutangkaL) in South India from a
number of different angles. The paper will place these representations in the
context of widespread beliefs about the roles of such beings in war and their
invocation in certain battle rituals. At another level, the paper will explore
the obvious comic dimensions of these representations—apparent in both poetry
and sculpture—which seem to invoke at once the grotesque and the ridiculous. The
paper will ask what wider social significance might be gleaned from such
representations.
Sunday, April 23 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION Discussant & Moderator: Sanjay Subrahmanyam
University of California, Los Angeles |
