I am Jayaprakash Narayanan and this is my first post in this group. The recent discussion about the greatness of cholas and pandyas has made me to send my views also to the group. Through out the history, we can find that the real truth is suppressed continuously by the winners. Take Dravidian civilization"DC"(harrapa-mohenjadaro) which existed before the aryan invasion. The vast amount of literature works explain about the aryan culture but none has been available about "DC" as the same would have been destroyed by Aryans. If some later King with a power greater than Rajaraja has conquered cholas, destroyed the sculptures and said Rajaraja is Demon we would have believed. Still only the great architectures & sculptures of Cholas & Pallavas are standing as a great proof of those flourished Kingdoms. In my view we haven't got the right history yet, but through the tamil literature(it is pity that most of the young generation ignore this) we can imagine that our part of the country was of great wealth and culture in the past 3000 years.(Thirukural was said to be written in 2nd A.D) We can find inspiration from the past to make the present more memorable in the future.
Your name resembles the great politician jayapraksh narayan.Was it by any chance after him?)
I think what you said is mostly correct.But actually two versions of history exist and people choose which version they like.Mongolian history will call genghis khan as a great emperor,warrior and pious lama buddhist.Persian history will call him as a murderer and kafir.Those are 2 views.
Pandyas would have called RR as an invader.But actually I dont think pandya people would have minded.He was a benevolent ruler.
I am not agreeing with your view that they were opportunists. They have done their duties as rulers and certainly gave a great rule in terms of food,law & ordrder, art & culture. (kallanai as an example) As Sembian Madevi said in Fifth Part " the warriors has to fight the war so that common people will leave in peace" it is the duty of a king to extend his territory and fight with the enemies.
Compared to Present day political rulers, those(chera,chola,pandiya & pallava) were far greater and good in their attitude. Because in our (tamil) history(available) we havent heard of any cruel ruler who gave bad rule.
(sometimes i do think that their rule is better than this so called democrazy?)
I agree with JP. Our Tamil kings and emperors ruled much better than present day politicians.
They had great visions. Kallanai was a best example how Karikal Cholan felt importance of dam and explored technologies to achieve that. Kallanai built by "end on method". Here the interesting link.
THere is no need to compare our great chola kings with the current lot.Our chola,chera and pandya kings lived for the people.For example earlier noyyal river flooded entire cauvery basin.chola kings came and built all the canals and ponds in kovai thus mitigating the floods of noyyal and also helping kovai people.
they even allowed democracy as can be seen from uthira merur kalvettus.