Hi Vijay so you think there is concrete evidence to write one full book on raja raja cholan? if there are a 100 questions a biography should answer concretely. 90 of them will remain unanswered in the case of RRC.
There are already books published/available for Chola History as given below.
* Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. (2000). A History of South India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195660686-8.
* Nilakanta Sastri, K.A. (1984). The Colas. Madras: University of Madras.
* Keay, John (2000). India, a History. London: Harper Collins Publishers. ISBN 0-00-638784-5.
* Vasudevan, Geeta (2003). Royal Temple of Rajaraja: An Instrument of Imperial Cola Power. Abhinav Publications. ISBN 0-00-638784-5.
* Kearney, Milo (2003). The Indian Ocean in World History. Routledge. ISBN 0415312779.
These books are not reaching day to day life as Ananda Vikatan. Madan's "Vandargal Vendrargal" also never reaced readers if its published as book initially.
My point is Madan is questioning Nilakanta Sastri's work as like someone questioning U Ve Sa's restoration of ancient Tamil scripts.
Madan has all the right to question but he shouldn't have used Chola theories in his famous "Hi Madan".
After "Vandargal Vendrargal" he said Indian history might have changed by Rajendra Cholan by defeating Gori during his ganges conquest.
He also worried about Rajaraja Cholan's cemetry(Pallippadai) in bad condition. He also compared how Maharastra gov portrayed Sivaji and TN gov atleast restore the Rajaraja Cholan's cemetry and put Tiger emblem on it.
Also he infamously quoted Y2K is roman number during 1999. It is YEAR 2K, K is greek number for 1000.
I can prove this if I visit Chennai Library once.
Madan used Chola theories in his "Hi Madan" and now asking about evidences. Suppose he shouldn't use these theories for commecrial exploitation if he doubted such histories exist.
So think about how people/person can make simple mistakes affect their credibility.
I think we are missing the wood for the trees. The objective of this group will not end with a book on RRC or if madan issues a written apology - all of us must accept that we are not inventing things about RRC but rather discovering more about him - there is obviously more work to be done - this is big zig zaw puzzle with the pieces lost over a large geographical span over 1000 years ( incl in places like indon, srilanka, malaysia and china) - pioneering work has been done but our hero is still bigger than all this - believe we have just scrapped the surface - we need to get more people connected across these regions who can collaborate with scholars across the globe , to cross reference data
madan is not the originator of these doubts.doubts on the cholas exist much before. I personally have a copy of nilakanta sastri's colas.
none of the books you have mentioned have details on rrc's death, his activities during 14 years of uthama's period, personal details etc.
i was shocked when i heard how expert's calculated the year of rrc's death. it is the firstyear in which no royal edict of his appears.
nilakanta sastri has till today done the maximum work on cholas. nobody is questioning it, but even in his book he raises possibilities of alternatives that could exist.
> Madan has all the right to question but he shouldn't > have used Chola theories in his famous "Hi Madan".
madan to my knowledge never raised any theories. he actually questioned so many theories that exist today without any basis.
. right now i am reading two excellent biographies
ponniyin puthalvar - by sunda and isaac Newton- by James gleick though its quite acceptable that these people about whom these books were written lived much closer to our periods i was amazed at the intricate facts the biographers have collected and provided.
well vijay what do you expect in a biograpy
to start with the birth date of rrc. there are contradictions as to whether he was a teenager who sacrificed his crown OR a breast fed baby. there is a copper plate proof for the first and a stone edict for the second.
we are all here together because of the novel ponniyin selvan which has as its climax the supreme sacrifice of arul mozhi. that can be questioned because of a stone edict in thirukoviloor which "suggests" rrc was a baby when his father died.
and from there onwards till his death date, and pallipadai location there is no firm evidence. there is no corraborative evidence on any of his battles. no clues to the location of his battle fields and the duration of his wars.
all this about your " greatest " king. then think of the rest.
there are historians today who ask " so what if you dont know when rrc died' we' ll mention that we havent found that yet and proceed with the rest of the book. but do you think thats right?
my answer to vijay was typed before yours appeared on the screen.
I beleive accepting that we know little will pave the way for learning or searching for more.
imagining that we know lots and lots about RRc will do us no good in searching for more clues.
and on clues I dont think there is any serious search going on. we seem to have exausted all locations. the copper plates discovered in the first half of the 20th century are still for the basis for chola history. But one expert I know is on the verge of a "honest" chola book including the grey areas.
That I think is the correct attitude that opens your mind to further learning
two quotes of newton( whose wonderful io I am reading.
"I have seen further by standing on the shoulders of giants"
"like a boy playing on the sea shore diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me" ( the trivia is that newton had never seen the sea in his life.)
The British epigraphists commenced the work.. Imagine them taking interest in the inscription - finding ways and means of decoding them in 1880 or so (till such time it was believed that Big temple was constructed by Karikal Chozhan and no one heard of Rajaraja !
Hultzh .. Teamed with Venkayya and others published the Early epigraphical editions. Now these editions are avl in the net. Links provided already (whatsindia).
The SI volumes pubished the materials decoded since 1910 or so. Beyond that Annual Reports of Ephigraphy - extracts only published (without Texts).
Epigraphia Indica dealt with some more inscriptions.
The copied inscriptions - estempage - close to about 100000 are lying in the basements of ASI, Mysore, unattended to - transferred from ASI, OOTY, just because the Officer Incharge of ASI was then housed at Ooty in the Independence India.
Several reminders - influence - could not get these details..
We are trying to sort out things (1) from Available materials (2) to concentrate on ASI Mysore (3) collected data through private / other channels.
Then we should look for missing data.
This only will give us a clearer picture..
Can we wait this long.. ?
Let our contemporary Historians start with avaiable data, add recent-finds and leave questions for futre. We will extend our support wherever possible.
the mahavamsa ( chronicle of srilanka - had posted a link of this is my prev mails) and silappatigaram - have been to used to explain much of dating of sangam age...Gajabahu synchronism is the chronological device used by historians to help date early Tamil history
Thanks Sheelu, venketesh, Sivapathasekaran and others
Maybe a request needs to be put to TN CM so that if there is copyright restriction the Govt can buy and upload it on the internet for general public availability.
Sheelu - How can I get the materials you mentioned? Are they available in CD? Again how did the historian think of assigning the chola to around 10th century - some kind of chalukya-chola or pallava-chola synchronism?
I saw Dr. Satyamurthy's phone in programme in Jaya TV on 12th. The programme was interesting, but short on data and statistics on openings available. He said knowledge of Tamil and its literature is sufficient to pursue a short certificate or diploma course. He did not give information on cost of courses, and most important - availability of jobs. It is necessary that viable employment is available after completing the course, if more people want to take this career route. It is not even known how many people will find jobs in ASI; it must be under-funded and short-staffed.
It is necessary to institute chairs, offer more courses, include more colleges in the programme, increase student intake and guarantee jobs and livelihood. Private sponsorship must also be explored.
Since all agree that lot of information is available, but beyond easy reach, more people must be involved in an organised way to study and evaluate the documents/inscriptions.
We have gaps in history, our efforts to reclaim are also jerky.