(and of course Rahul I sincerely beleive he saw lord shiva himself in the madurai temple.)
if it is the code of laws a king formulates then ashoka or akbar qualify.
if somebody becomes a great king without having come ina dynasty then hyder ali,chatrapathi shivaji, and ranjit singh qualify. because they all became kings on their merit rather than by right of birth.
however since this group is about rrc we should let others know why we feel he was great
let me take the first shot.
I THINK RRC was great beacuse he let go his right to the throne even when he was not sure it would come back to him. to him, a sibling of very ambitious people it was a tremondous thing to do venketesh
(and of course Rahul I sincerely beleive he saw lord shiva himself in the madurai temple.)
if it is the code of laws a king formulates then ashoka or akbar qualify.
if somebody becomes a great king without having come ina dynasty then hyder ali,chatrapathi shivaji, and ranjit singh qualify. because they all became kings on their merit rather than by right of birth.
however since this group is about rrc we should let others know why we feel he was great
let me take the first shot.
I THINK RRC was great beacuse he let go his right to the throne even when he was not sure it would come back to him. to him, a sibling of very ambitious people it was a tremondous thing to do venketesh
I dont think RRC can be called "The Greatest" ofcourse he was great but not the greatest. That title "The Greatest" should go to the kings who got the throne on merit rather than by right. Would Arulmozhi have become a king if he had started at the bottom of the food chain? I personally rate Malik Kafur very high in this list(influenced by MrVenketesh, all u Malik Kafur haters can take it out on him ;) ) Also isn't our imagination of RRC very much influenced by Kalki?
Somebody said outlast the cholas.. I have a point to prove, the roaches did outlast the dinosaurs.. does that mean roaches are the greatest??
nay... people become great by their deeds.. lets see if we can find a pandiya apart from the known sundara pandiya or mara varma, are there any other pandiyas worth mentioning... Pandiyas outdid themselves by going to the turks for the race to the throne, unlike cholas who had lost to troika of kings.. so who is the greatest in losing it?
:) Iets see if we can find the chola, pandiya & pallava people joining the fights.
Dear Mr Kamal; There is small segment in that article which gives Nilakanta Shastri's views on usage of the suffix "Great". I am sure that would be useful.
As MrVenketesh said by the end of this thread we should be getting a good character map of RRC.
comparing the pandyas to roaches is like insulting ourselves.
first- pandyas managed to maintain a clear line of heirs under the most adverse of conditions.
cholas did not go out in a fit of firing and glory. they just faded away seeing before their eyes bits of their land being plucked away by neigbours. the lethargy that set in after the great two and the matriachial inheritance watered down their greatness.
pandyas beat the cholas hollow, razed their capital to the ground, destroyed all their monuments, excepting places of religious and literary importance. and even melted down every chola coin with a tiger. thats one reason why we find very few chola coins around.
the turk was a great force from delhi. malik had finished off gujarat, dwarasamudra, hoysalas, the warrangal rudras befor coming here. any dynasty including the cholas at their peak could not have offered any resisitance.
it just happened the pandyas had to face him however after the pandyas initially retreated they did come back under vikrama pandya's leadership and drove malik off. the pandya kingdom continued for another decade before the second turk invasion finished them off. venketesh
You can call me Nanda..you can drop of "Mr." Lets not digress from the topic in hand....
Roaches story was meant to whip up the passion.. ;)
Greatness is attributed to Kings, who are able to leave a lasting impression in the minds of the people through their deeds, uncompromising justice, giving unhindered peace, people who are able to improve the life of all and sundry in their domains and make a difference in the altering the history.
Is Ivan called "Ivan the great" no, he is called "ivan the terrible"? lets look around, even Queen victoria is not called the Great.. she had an empire on which the sun never set...
Akbar, Ashoka, RRC, Shivaji
Kulothangan I ruled for 50 years, but he is never ascribed to the title "Great" .. likewise Rajendra I, acheived more land..but he was continuing what his father did.. and hence he is not given the title Great..
i AGREE with most of the your email.. I was providing a metaphor and was not equating pandyas to roaches..
Infact, in one of dr.Jaybee's email(not sure) I read that Angorwat is mostly pandya style architecture..Hats off to our anscestors..
By trying to prove and compare who is the greatest, are we not trying to alienate each region individually..
Balasubramani's email on the Hathikumba enscription, stated an alliance of tamil kings, but its like the Karavela has broken the same...
Why is that we never had a person(eg. Bismark) who could think in terms of bringing the warring factions together to make a larger homeland?
Can we not find the root cause for all this breakup and wars?
We as a civilization killed ourselves in petty wars and petty fights that we have lost our place in the sun..
coming back to the topic of RRC being the greatest.. I am yet to be told of a single great pandya king(from 5th - 12th century AD).. Come on pandya naatu katrorare..
Pallavas have left their glory in their temples all around Thondainaadu.. and even in the Sirapalli pillayar temple.. so who is the greatest of them all? Mamalla, Mahendra or Simha vishnu?
Come on guys, I am expecting a lively competition here...
> > coming back to the topic of RRC being the greatest.. I am yet to be told of a single great pandya king(from 5th - 12th century AD).. Come on pandya naatu katrorare.. >
the pandyas were indeeactive during the period you mention till atleast the rise of the cholas.
during this period pulikesi sought nedumaran as an alliance partner against the pallavas. (8th century?) even in thiruppurambayam pandyas were a major faction.
nedumaran's conversion to hinduism is a turning point in the history of hindu tamil nadu. ofcourse chola enthusiasts would say it happened because of a chola princess mangaiyarkarasi.
Hi all; Looks like a good arguement is going. I am glad i started it from MrVenketesh's mail. Oru Narathar feeling irukku "Narayana, Narayana"
I think we are digressing towards who is greater Pandyas or Cholas instead of sticking to the main issue which is "is RRC great or THE GREATEST"
"THE GREATEST" is not a correct term when we are comparing kings from different eras, who had different types of opponents, who had access to different levels of technical skills. Kings before RRC might not have had access to stone building techniques so thier super structures built of mud/clay would have been destroyed over time. These superstructures could have been bigger and more beautiful than whatever RRC built. Remember mud/clay is easier to mould into complex shapes than stone carving, hence the complexities of structures then would have been greater. This is just an example of the issue. All i am saying is we cant just grant RRC the title "THE GREATEST". He has an unfair advantage over his compatriots in a lot of things also RRC had the The Incomparable Amarar Kalki writing about him and introducing him to a whole new generation centuries after his death. Regarding RRC looking like "the moon has come to earth" (that article in varalaaru), I think we had a discussion regarding how RRC looked like a Mongol with slit eyes,etc. Hope Mr Venketesh can back me up on this. RRC is surely one of the greatest kings to have ruled India/TN. We cant give the title "The Greatest" as it is a comparision of different eras.
Regarding who is greater Pandyas or Cholas. Ofcourse Pandyas were greater as MrVenketesh said they beat the Cholas hollow. If we have a war now Nanda who called the Pandyas roaches would be given "special treatment" during the war. A Pandya naattu special! ;);) Is that passion enough, Nanda?
That was a nice mail, Mr Venketesh. We will throw Nanda in that sirai and laugh like PS Veerappa.
Regarding cockroaches, i am sure almost everybody knows that the cockroach is the only being which can live longest without its head. Even though insulting dont you think this is similar to the Pandya clan. These guys even after thier kings (head) had been slain managed to regroup and come back strongly.Roaches are the hardest insects to kill.
The roaches also have a tendency to "generate" resistance mechanisms to whatever new pesticides man invents. If a pesticide is used for a longtime on thier clan they tend to start developing thier own mechanisms to resist those. fascinating insect!! Sorry to digress but blame Nanda! ;);)
Please donot make comparision between a looter and the Great Emperer Rajaraja,whose most of his War expeditions were taken up not as matter of Ksththriya principle,whose achievments are even praised by Established British and american Historians , Architects and Art Historians, Viz., Christober Tadgell .
one mans bread is another man's poison one man's hero is surely another's villian.
even in this forum we have heard of chalukya history terming pallavas as dastardly looters
I am sure the ceylonese chronicles will not appreciate the role of rrc( like kalki did).
remember siruthodar ( one of the 63)even looted a pillaiyar from vatapi looting was a form of funding warfare. every king who went to war looted and burnt down cities.
Well said MrVenketesh. It is not possible for kings to conquer without destroying and looting. Why do we always tend to make an exception for RRC when it comes to this issue? This has already cropped up sometime back in our group. As MrVenketesh said looting is not a passion, it is done to motivate an army for the next battle. Whoever the king it is not possible for him to motivate the troops for every battle by giving "Hollywood" speeches.
that was a very nice justification. but arent we depending on the meikeerthi too much. meikeerthi is something they might have sung before the king himself daily. and our lands are known for sychophancy thro the ages.
( for example in kachur near madras a small chieftain called gopala thevar inscribes himself as "THirubuvana chakravarthi") and inside the temple there is a kalvettu of rrc himself.
but can the experts in the group list rrc's achivements in different fields. that would enable a lot of people to judge for themselves
his conquests and victories in the battle field his achievements in architecture his people friendly laws and justice etc and any other things you might think of
but the first question is what did rrc conquer( in terms of kingdoms)
definitely loyalty i am a diehard pandia citizen and one small request ""evvalavu naalaai umathu peyarukku mun "madurai" endru join parnriinga"" parnriinga endru vilikum alavirku i am not worth (at any degree of comparision)
if we were all not fans of rrc we wouldnt be here in the first place.
he was a phenomenal man , one who has left his mark a millenium hence.
but the point as I said is we should attempt to derive a real charecter map of him
In fact its mainly because of kalki that we dont get a real picture of the real RRc.it is the image shri. krinamurthy left us which is preventing us. reading ps ,I still imagine rrc with a baby face and large biceps( that itself is a paradox)
I am not doubting his meikeerthi at all. because we know when he died he was literally undefeated.
but how good was he during the conquests. once again shri krinamurthy clouds our understanding. he goes out of the way to say grains were sent for the invading chola army in lanka. if they were so good why conquer at all.
should we only depend on the chola version for his life on the warfield. or should we not make a search for contradicting accounts from the opposite side too?
my simple point is history should not be written by the victors alone.
Actually I wanted argue for Kuloththungan-1 as a greatest King we have seen in Tamilnadu History because he, the only King ruled under centralised system from Godavari south bank to Ceylon and also It was the country that time was the biggest (and also Hindu kingdom) over other kingdoms in India. And no doubt, he was a real emperor in his times like Samudra Gupta or Akbar.
But Kamal's valuable points have changed my perception. KL has equalant qualities what RRC possess, but lacking in democratic process. Though he started the initiative for an independent ruling system in Madurai, he has not allowed the same in his paternal kingdom in Vengi and Ceylon where he appointed his own people as representative of him (like present day governors). RRC did not do this in Vengi and Celon.. He has handled the Vengi and Celon matters very very cleverly and this particular rajathandram is still valid. Here RRC scored over KL.
At the same time, we could not blame KL for his handling of Vengi matters too because he wanted this country to be included as part of Tamilnadu. Had he succeeded in that effort, the coastal belt of present Andhra Pradesh would have been a pure Tamil country like Thondai mandalam. He has even sent quite a number of Tamil population during his period to settle in godavari and krishna districts. So, it was a worth try.
Meykiirthis are valid points to consider as proof.
We can't compare KL with RR, there still some unanswered quetions in KL.
RR was asked to rule , but his dharma didn;t allow , he waited for his turn, How KL captured power?, anybody has any clarity what happend on that period? what about Son's and grand Sons of Rajajadhirajan anybody has idea? same in Veera rajendra also? and Adhirajendra also? No history , who did? who is responsible?
KL is not a real chola King.
So, RR is in diff height, pls don't bring KL here.
Yes. I too agree with Mr. Shankara . Ragnarok is way ahead of Kulothunga I
However, KL C I introduced some social reforms including the removal of Tariffs on many items, so He was Called as Sungham Thavirtha Chola and was very diplomatically handled the turmoil arised out of sudden death of Adherents which remains a mystry till today, which culminated in the end Tamil Cholas of Vijayalaya Line and heralded the Chalukya Chola dynasty in The Tamil soil. I During Kulo. I reign, Cholas lost the Gangavadi and Ezham to the Hoysalas and Parakrama Bahu respectivily
To be frank, Pandyan Dynasty, Kings and Country is very very ancient. Most of which is dipped in mystry and mythology. However full pandyan lineage has been completely described in Thiruvilayadal puranam written by Parnjyothi Muniver. Even many Names as held by the Cholas like Paranthagan, etc wer already kept by the Pandyans. U will be surprised know that Lord Muruga himself ruld the Panyan Kingdom as Ugra Peruvaluthi Pandyan and their History is time immemorial. Even lord Krishna's Sister or daughter by name Pandyya was married to the ancestors of Pandyans. Main contribution of Pandyans is that they were the first people to recognise learned people in the society by the way of organising the Sangams. Beautiful stories and informations are there to discuss. let me see the response of members.
To be frank, Pandyan Dynasty, Kings and Country is very very ancient. Most of which is dipped in mystry and mythology. However full pandyan lineage has been completely described in Thiruvilayadal puranam written by Parnjyothi Muniver. Even many Names as held by the Cholas like Paranthagan, etc wer already kept by the Pandyans. U will be surprised know that Lord Muruga himself ruld the Panyan Kingdom as Ugra Peruvaluthi Pandyan and their History is time immemorial. Even lord Krishna's Sister or daughter by name Pandyya was married to the ancestors of Pandyans. Main contribution of Pandyans is that they were the first people to recognise learned people in the society by the way of organising the Sangams. Beautiful stories and informations are there to discuss. let me see the response of members.
To be frank, Pandyan Dynasty, Kings and Country is very very ancient. Most of which is dipped in mystry and mythology. However full pandyan lineage has been completely described in Thiruvilayadal puranam written by Parnjyothi Muniver. Even many Names as held by the Cholas like Paranthagan, etc wer already kept by the Pandyans. U will be surprised know that Lord Muruga himself ruld the Panyan Kingdom as Ugra Peruvaluthi Pandyan and their History is time immemorial. Even lord Krishna's Sister or daughter by name Pandyya was married to the ancestors of Pandyans. Main contribution of Pandyans is that they were the first people to recognise learned people in the society by the way of organising the Sangams. Beautiful stories and informations are there to discuss. let me see the response of members.
>At the same time, we could not blame KL for his >handling of Vengi matters too because he wanted this >country to be included as part of Tamilnadu. Had he >succeeded in that effort, the coastal belt of present >Andhra Pradesh would have been a pure Tamil country >like Thondai mandalam. =====================================
I have a small doubt. Was Thondai mandalam also made as "Tamil country"?
I would like to argue to exclude Kulothungan I, as one of the attributes that qualifies to greatness is to leave a kingdom to their heirs which is stable, and allows then to expand and hence kulothungan cannot be ascribed with this yardstick
RR did leave behind a stable and wonderful launch pad for Rajendra to go about bringing down others.
In this case, we can include Mahendra Varma Pallavan, infact of getting defeated or blocked by pulikesi, he did leave a stable and a launch pad for Narasimha pallavan to build upon. Also Mahendra as a patron of arts did well to leave such ever lasting monuments, that we can feel proud to be a tamil..