South India under the Cholas by Y Subbarayalu, A Review

Medieval South Indian history has attracted a good deal of attention since 1980 when Burton Stein published his monumental work, Peasant State and Society in Medieval Soutn India. The agenda set forth by him revolved around the nature of state formation and the processes, both economic and political that resulted in the rise of the Chola state in the Kaveri region from the middle of the ninth century onwards. Burton Stein painted the broad historical canvass and subsequently we have the work of Noboru Karashima and now the book by Y Subbarayalu. When Stein's work first appeared, more than 3 decades back he was soundly criticised for suggesting that the Chola state was not a centralised bureaucracy. Now after nearly 3 decades historians have finally began to realise that given the material conditions existing in the medieval period and the complex distribution of Land rights, it would have been impossible for the Chola state to acquire the trappings of a bureaucratic state.

Karashima inaugurated a new trend in reconstructing the South Indian past by looking intensely at localities--nadu units-- on the basis of the epigraphic sources. Unlike Stein who relied mostly on published inscriptions, Karashiam and his group worked with inscriptions. The terms which appear in the records are assembled in time series and the statistical and geographical distribution of the terms, particularly revenue terms, are studies. Thus, Karashima was among the first historians to suggest that the political and social structure of the dry regions was different than that which existed in the riverine areas. The method of studying the inscriptions to the neglect of other sources has led to a heated debate between Sanjay Subramaniam and Noboru Karashima. While David Shulaman, Sanjay Subramaniam and Velcheru Narayana  Rao depend more on the written "histories" collected by Colin Mackenzie, Karashima and his group treat the manuscript sources with a faint contemt as they are totally unrelaiable and project the aspirations of social groups which were ostling for power in the Peninsula in the early modern period.

Y Subbarayalu whose Political Geography of the Chola Country is the only indepth study of the settlement pattern and social geography of the eleventh centry has now collected his papers in the volume under review. Those who are familiar with Kaveri and Studies on the Cholas will find some of these papers in this book. However, the book brings together the important contributions made by Subbarayalu over the years. The trade guilds have been studies very closely and Subbarayalu does break new ground in the study of the Tamil inscription found in south east Asia. Though only 6 Tamil inscriptions have been found, ranging in dates from the 7th century till the 14th century, historians have waxed eloquently on Tamil participation in the trade with Sumatra and the rest of Srivijaya. Subbarayalu's study of the Barus epigraph from Sumatra is interesting and well argued. His study of the Pulankurrichi inscriptions is certainly a worth wile contribution as he explicitly rejects the use of the unreliable and mistakenly labelled" Sangam literature" as the basis for dating the earliest record giving details of the land structure in the dry regions of the Pandyan territory. Another interesting finding which needs to be considered is the fact that after a detailed study of the personal names found in Chola records, Subbarayalu finds that only 7% of the "officers" of the Chola state came from this social group. It has become the grist to the mill of Tamil historiography to date "Brahman domination" to the patronage extended to the Brahmans by the medieval rulers. Such important contributions from a historian of the integrity of Subbaraylu will certainly influence public debate on the politically concenient myth of Bbrahmin domination". I would like to point out that Karashima was the first to point out that non-barhman villages called UR practiced social exclusion as there is mention of tindachcheri in inscriptions.

The resource base of the medieval state is always an interesting issue. Earlier historians had maintained that the level of taxation was rather high and with the grant of sarvamanya iraiyilli status to more and more villages as they came under the control of temples. Subbarayalu's work has hepled us understand a few extremely difficult questions. Was taxation done on the basis of productivity of the land or the extent of the land under cultivation.

Oxford University Press, New Delhi, has brought out an important work and has done historians of the medieval period a great deal of service by bringing out the papers of Subbarayalu in an attractive manner. An important aspect of the book is the maps.