Maharishi Yagnyavalkya, in his smruthi, advises a just ruler to accumulate wealth through dharmic means and also spend a part of it on charity to the worthy. The successive chapters of the smruthi advise the importance of documenting the land and wealth donated, so that they continue to benefit the receiver even after the times of the king.
The smruthi goes on to discuss the possible materials on which such documents can be recorded and the prescribed format to be followed when describing the donations. Inclusion of eloquent praises of the royal ancestry, and the achievements and conquests of the king and his benevolent contributions were also made mandatory by the smruthi when recording the grants.
Royal scribes entrusted with the duty of authoring such documents usually accompany the kings through their ruling period. The issuing of such authorised copper plates appears to have been quite popular since the times of the Pallavas and Pandyas.
The Pandya copper plates have an established tradition of listing out a long genealogy of their ancestors, starting from the devas and rishis. By around the 9th-10th century CE, this tradition seems to have been well in place and the imperial Cholas too have followed the smruthi recommendations religiously.
Of the several copper plates discovered and deciphered so far, the Udayendiram plates issued by Parantaka I, around the early 10th century CE, are the earliest.
Considering the Cholas' affiliation to Vedic dharma and its prescriptions, it is not surprising that several of their copper plates link their ancestry to puranic rishis and sometimes even to divinities like Brahma and Vishnu.
Comparing a king whose primary duty is to protect his country and its citizens to Vishnu, the protector God, is an ancient tradition. So we see a common trend among these dynasties to claim their origin from Vishnu.
Brahma often follows Vishnu in the genealogy sequence, as he is the grantor of progeny, followed by one of his sons and the rishis who carry forward the lineage. The Cholas (and several other dynasties) however claim to hail from the solar race.
So, quite interestingly, the Sun god Surya is brought into the ancestral track as the son of sage Kashyapa. The Udayendiram copper plates for instance detail a lineage that includes Vishnu, Brahma, Marichi, Kashyapa and Surya.
However, the solar race described in the Maha Puranas differs from the list claimed by the Cholas. Post-10th century CE copper plates start including prominent characters from traditional lore like Muchukunda, Sibi, Manu, Ikshvaku, Mandata, Harishchandra, Bageeratha, Sri Rama and his brothers, to name a few, in the genealogy.
Though this list varies from plate to plate, the manner in which their connection to the solar race is emphasised cannot be overlooked.
Into this illustrious list, at one point in the ancestral sequence, a certain "Chozhan" is introduced, followed by the names Parakesari and Rajakesari, both popular titles of the imperial Cholas - thus merging the royalty with the divinity.
Let's pause here for a moment and scan the puranas and ithihasas to see what they have to offer about the Chola dynasty. Vayu Purana attributes the origin of Chola, Chera and Pandya dynasties to Yayati from the lunar race.
And the Mahabaratha narrates the Chola's participation in the Rajasuyayagna of Dharmaraja and the Kurukshethra war. But these incidences are not mentioned in the copper plates. Thus, the ancestral lineage claimed by the Cholas in their copper plates seems to be vastly different from whatever little information we get about them from the puranas.
A comparative study of these copper plates helps us identify the similarities and the differences. All the plates invariably attest to the Cholas' solar race ancestry. Sibi is the most common name that appears in the plates, closely followed by Manu and Ikshvaku.
The famed Thiruvalangadu copper plates of Rajendra I have the longest running ancestral lineage, cutting through many yugas. Essalam and Sarala plates have eight and twenty five puranic kings listed, respectively.
Coming back to the genealogy, the next part of a copper plate goes on to hail the Chola kings recorded in the anthologies of Tamil Sangam. Names like those of Ko-ch-chenganan, Kari-kalan, Killi-valavan and Peru-nar-killi are celebrated for their valour and rule in Sanskrit verses of the copper plates.
Kari-kalan, popular for raising the banks of Kaveri, and Ko-ch-chenganan, the Saivite Nayanmar saint who raised several temples for Siva along the banks of Kaveri, are the names frequently mentioned. The Udayendiram plates remind us of the previous birth of Ko-ch-chenganan as the spider that wove a canopy to protect the Siva Lingam of the Thiruvanaika temple.
This popular episode has been revered since time immemorial in traditional literature and historic records. The larger of the Anaimangalam plates (Leiden plates) identifies a certain Nal-adi-kon as the son of Ko-ch-chenganan. And a few scholars date Nal-adi-kon as a Sangam-period Chola king. That would position Ko-ch-chenganan too in the Sangam period.
Each plate with its unique draft on the genealogy offers a wide range of topics for academic research. Of all the segments, the one on puranic kings and Sangam-age Chola kings need special focus and an unbiased approach to draw conclusions about the ancestry.
An appropriate year for the beginning of this tradition can indeed be determined but what cannot be is the historic basis on which such theories came into being. The claims cannot be brushed off as totally baseless as it is quite unlikely that these dynasties created such a complicated genealogy out of thin air.
A structured system, evolved over centuries, based on binding theories and substantial proofs should have been in vogue and nurtured over time. Although the origin from Vishnu and solar race as the core are common to all the genealogy lists, why the names of the rishis and the puranic kings vary between plates is a question to be pondered over.
That being said, one cannot brush aside these claims as imagination or later additions. The names of these puranic characters are as historic as the kings mentioned in Sangam poetry and cannot be just dismissed as myth or lore.
Further research on the origin of Cholas - their nativity, their adherence to the Saiva Siddanthaacharyas, and the prominence that they give to Vedic scriptures and Saiva school of philosophy are topics that would help us understand their roots. That a common root existed, binding these dynasties that ruled from different parts of the Indian subcontinent, is a good hypothesis to begin with.
(The writer is an architect, who serves on government-instituted panel for conservation of temples in TN and can be reached at madhu.kalai0324@gmail.com)