Cholas, Cheras and Pandyas

Three kingdoms of the south

In southern India, from about the 2nd or 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, three strong kingdoms rose to prominence: the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas. They often competed with one another, yet together they made the region rich in trade and culture. Ashoka’s empire had stopped at their borders; his edicts mention them, so they stayed independent even at the peak of Maurya power. Kharavela of Kalinga claims to have beaten an alliance of southern kings, but no one knows where that battle was fought, and there is no sign that he marched into the south.

The Sangam Age

Many poets lived in this period, and their works, together called Sangam literature, gave the era its name, the Sangam Age. The word sangam comes from the Sanskrit sangha, meaning an association or a coming together, here an assembly of poets. These collections of poems are the oldest literature of south India. With great skill and delicacy they express personal feelings such as love and social values such as heroism and generosity, and historians study them to understand the society of the time. The Sangam poems speak of three ‘crowned kings’: the Cholas, the Cheras and the Pandyas.

The Cholas and the Grand Anicut

The Cholas ruled parts of south India for a very long time, from the 3rd century BCE until the 13th century CE. Their king Karikala is said to have defeated the Cheras and Pandyas together and made himself supreme. He also worked for his people. His most famous project is the Kallanai or Grand Anicut, a water diversion system built at a carefully chosen point on the Kaveri, just downstream of Srirangam island. It sends river water to the central and southern Kaveri delta, so much more land could be farmed, and the area came to be called the ‘rice bowl of the South’. It has been restored many times and is still in use, watering the fields of millions of people in Tamil Nadu.

Silappadikaram

Soon after the Sangam collections came the epic Silappadikaram, ‘The Tale of the Anklet’. Kannagi lives happily with her husband Kovalan in Puhar, the rich Chola port also known as Kaveripattinam. Kovalan loses his wealth, comes back, and Kannagi forgives him. In Madurai, the Pandya capital, he tries to sell one of her anklets, is wrongly accused of theft and put to death by the king. Kannagi proves his innocence with her second anklet; the king dies of shock, and Madurai is destroyed by fire. She then walks west to the Chera kingdom, where she is honoured as a goddess, and she is still worshipped in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The poem is about justice and a ruler’s duty to protect it, and it carries the reader through all three kingdoms and their busy cities.

The Cheras

The Cheras, also called Keralaputra (sons of Kerala), ruled Kerala and the western part of Tamil Nadu from their capital, Vanji, today’s Karur. They encouraged Tamil literature and supported Sangam poets. Their kingdom became a hub for exporting spices, timber, ivory and pearls, and it traded widely with the Roman Empire and West Asia. Chera kings issued coins, some showing their royal emblem, the bow.

The Pandyas

The Pandyas ruled parts of Tamil Nadu and nearby regions from their capital at Madurai, a rule going back several centuries BCE. Megasthenes, in his Indika, describes their kingdom as prosperous and well run, trading with distant powers such as the Greeks and Romans. The Pandyas were famous for pearls, Kharavela says hundreds of pearls reached him from their land, and they were an important naval power. Their inscriptions speak of the kings’ care for their subjects’ welfare and their support for all schools of thought and belief.

Why it matters

The southern kingdoms show how farming, trade and poetry went together, and how ideas of justice and welfare guided rulers. The kingdoms of the north and the Deccan are in kingdoms after the Mauryas, and the rulers from outside in Indo-Greeks, Shakas and Kushanas. Answers to every question are in the NCERT solutions for Chapter 6; see also the full Chapter 6 notes.