Short Essay on Religion of Chola Dynasty

In the field of religion the Chola period was generally one of consolidation though new trends were also evident. Sankara had already written his commentary on the Brahmasutra. His monistic interpretation was challenged by Ramanuja who also wrote a commentary on the same text but with a different bias of qualified non-dualism.

Meykandar wrote his Sivagnanabodam which introduced the crux of Saiva-Siddhanta philosophy in a nut-shell.

The Vaishnava and the Saiva texts were explained in a number of ancillary works each one of which can claim to be a classic. The Chola kings were all of them Saivas. The devotion of some of the Chola rulers for example, Kulottunga II verged on fanaticism. The Chola persecution of Ramanuja led to the flight of the latter to Melkote from where he converted Bittideva to Vaishnavism.

Persecution only strengthened Vaishnavism, Chidambaram was the chief beneficiary of Chola religious patronage; Srirangam was however the headquarters of Ramanuja the high priest of Sri Vaishnavism. Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I are known to have taken a tolerant view of the activities of other religionists. Some of them munificently endowed Vaishnava shrines also. They could liberally endow a Buddha Vihara at Nagappattinam.

But there is a story that Tirumangai Alvar robbed the gold in the Buddha Vihara at Nagappattinam to renovate the Srirangam temple and the story carries its own moral with it. Some of the Chola kings like Gandaraditya even contributed to the Saiva canonical literature. The primitive religious sects like the Kapalikas, the Kalamukas, Pasupathas, the Kaumaras and the Sastas were either splinter groups of an original Saivism or gave place to a refined Saivism during the bhakti age.

During the Chola period these sects became less and less evident. It is possible to trace dim relations between the Saivism and Vaishnavism of North India and those of Meykandar and Ramanuja though the bhakti movement as a whole in its finished form originated in the Tamil country and spread to the north possibly through the efforts of Ramananda. Art and Architecture

The Cholas carried the tradition of Tamil art and architecture, many steps forward. We have seen how Sambandar, the great saint musician, was a landmark in the evolution of Tamil music, the earlier stages of which can be noticed in the Kudumiyamalai inscription and in the Silappadikaram.

At the beginning of the Chola period Nathamuni who collected the 4000 sacred verses set it to vedic music. Nambiandarnambi learnt the Thevaram tradition of music and it received royal patronage when the Chola kings arranged for the recitation of the Thevaram hymns in Saiva temples.

The Chola period can be considered to be a period of transition in Tamil music tradition. The foundations for the conversion of the old Tamil musical system into what is now Karnatic music were in all probability laid then.

The Cholas were great builders. Till about AD 1000 the Chola temples were somewhat small in size and on their way to becoming distinctive. Their model in the earlier stages was the Pallava structural temple. The early Cholas from Vijayalaya to Parantaka experimented in this style of architecture.

In the neighbourhood of Trichy, Tanjore and Pudukkottai we have a number of early Chola temples. The Vijayalaya Cholesvaram at Narthamalai is the earliest of early Chola architectural efforts. Its special feature is the vimana in four storeys over the sanctum surrounded by a prakara or a circumambulatory pathway. The sikhara is domeshaped and has a kalasa on its top. A courtyard with a mandapa faces it. The four corners carry human or animal capitals. There are minor shrines inside the middle one and this anticipates the full-fledged temple of later times. Aditya I built a temple in Kannanur.

The Nagesvaraswami temple at Kumbakonam is noteworthy for its beautiful sculptures. Already the art of the lapidary is being applied to the medium of stone. The temples of the times of Parantaka I had undergone sufficient change to accommodate Dakshinamurthy on the south.

The sanctum, however, followed the old style of accommodating the Trimurthy with Vishnu on the west and Brahma on the north. The Muvarkoil at Kodumbalur is the last significant early Chola temple. The innovation of providing separate vimanas for separate shrines is seen here. The arthamandapa, the mahamandapa, the nandi, the balipitah (the altar) and the flagstaff are all complete here.

It is after the construction of the big temple in Tanjore by Rajaraja I that a major departure in the Dravidian style of temple architecture begins. This is not only the largest of Dravidian temples i.e., with the tallest tower over the sanctum rising to a height of nearly 200 feet, but also is situated in a quadrangle 500/250 ft., is visible many miles away, and is noted for its massiveness all-round.

A sikhara of single stone was raised to the top by the best engineering talent of those times. The tower itself is conical-pyramidal. There are no gateway towers in this temple. The temple as a whole has earned the deserved reputation of being ‘unquestionably the finest single creation of the Dravidian craftsman’. The linga and the nandi in the front are appropriately large but beautiful in execution.

Rajendra I imitating his father built a similar temple in his new capital Gangaikonda Cholapuram also called Brahadeesvaram; it is nearly 160 feet tall. It is equally beautiful and graceful but lacks the manliness of the Tanjore proto-type. Percy Brown says, ‘it is the feminine counterpart of Tanjore’. It has a voluptuous beauty but not the masculine vigour. This does not indicate a decline in the style. It was only a variation.

The early Chola period witnessed many Devi shrines. The Tirukkamakkottam at Gangaikondacholapuram is worth mentioning here. The later Chola period also witnessed the construction of a number of temples. The Iravathesvara of Darasuram is also called Rajarajesvara after Rajaraja II; it is built on a pedestal conceived as a compromise between the Imperial Chola style and the Imperial Pandya style.

Kulottunga in built the Tribuhvanaviresvara which is similar to the Darasuram temple. The different bharatanatya poses are represented in the temple. The vimana of this temple is a conical pyramid of six tiers.

Iconography during Chola times came to be decided by the agamas. When the agamas started laying down the rules of iconography, aesthetic appeal was necessarily subordinated to the religious purpose. The Chola period is known for its beautiful bronzes, but of all this the most beautiful is the Nataraja, the dancing Siva.

The Cholas knew and practised painting of a high order. The remains of paintings in the Tanjore temple are fine specimens of medieval Tamil painting. The theme is generally from Saiva mythology. There are fragments of painting in the Vijayalayacholesvaram also.