Chera dynasty


The Chera dynasty was one of the principal lineages in the early history of the present day states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu in southern India. Together with the Cholas of Uraiyur and the Pandyas of Madurai, the early Cheras were known as one of the three major powers of ancient Tamilakam in the early centuries of the Common Era.
The Chera country was geographically well placed to profit from maritime trade via the extensive Indian Ocean networks. Exchange of spices, especially black pepper, with Middle Eastern and Graeco-Roman merchants are attested in several sources. The Cheras of the early historical period are known to have had their original centre at Karur in interior Tamil Nadu and harbours at Muchiri and Thondi on the Indian Ocean coast.
The early historic pre-Pallava Tamil polities are often described as a "kinship-based redistributive economies" largely shaped by "pastoral-cum-agrarian subsistence" and "predatory politics". Tamil Brahmi cave label inscriptions, describe Ilam Kadungo, son of Perum Kadungo, and the grandson of Ko Athan Cheral of the Irumporai clan. Inscribed portrait coins with Brahmi legends give a number of Chera names. Reverse of these coins often contained the Chera bow and arrow symbol. The anthologies of early Tamil texts are a major source of information about the early Cheras. Chenguttuvan, or the Good Chera, is famous for the traditions surrounding Kannaki, the principal female character of the Tamil epic poem Chilapathikaram. After the end of the early historical period, around the 3rd-5th century CE, there seems to be a period where the Cheras' power declined considerably.
Cheras or Keralas of the Kongu country are known to have controlled western Tamil Nadu and central Kerala in early medieval period. Present-day central Kerala probably detached from Kongu Chera kingdom around 8th-9th century AD to form the Chera Perumal kingdom. The exact nature of the relationships between the various branches of Chera rulers is somewhat unclear. Some of the major dynasties of medieval south India - Chalukya, Pallava, Pandya, Rashtrakuta, and Chola - seems to have conquered the Chera or Kerala country. Kongu Cheras appear to have been absorbed into the Pandya political system by 10th/11th century AD. Even after the dissolution of the Perumal kingdom, royal inscriptions and temple grants, especially from outside Kerala proper, continued to refer the country and the people as the "Cheras or Keralas".
The rulers of Venad, based out of the port of Kollam in south Kerala, claimed their ancestry from the Perumals. In the modern period the rulers of Cochin and Travancore also claimed the title "Chera".

Etymology

The term Chera - and its variant form "Keralaputas" - stands for the ruling lineage and the country associated with them.
The etymology of "Chera" is still a matter of considerable speculation among historians. One approach proposes that the word is derived from Cheral, a corruption of Charal meaning "declivity of a mountain" in Tamil, suggesting a connection with the mountainous geography of Kerala. Another theory argues that the "Cheralam is derived from "cher" and "alam", literally meaning, "the slushy land". Apart from the speculations mentioned, a number of other theories do appear in historical studies.
In ancient non-Tamil sources, the Cheras are referred to by various names. The Cheras are referred as Kedalaputo in the Emperor Ashoka's Pali edicts. While Pliny the Elder and Claudius Ptolemy refer to the Cheras as Kaelobotros and Kerobottros respectively, the Graeco-Roman trade map Periplus Maris Erythraei refers to the Cheras as Keprobotras. All these Graeco-Roman names are evidently corruptions of "Kedala Puto/Kerala Putra" probably received through relations with northern India.
The term Cheralamdivu or Cheran Tivu'' and its cognates, meaning the "island of the Chera kings", is a Classical Tamil name of Sri Lanka that takes root from the term "Chera".

Cheras of ancient south India

Recent studies on ancient south Indian history suggest that the three major rulers – the Pandya, the Chera and the Chola – based originally in the interior Tamil Nadu, at Madurai, Karur -Vanchi, and Uraiyur respectively, had established outlets on the Indian Ocean namely Korkai, Muchiri, and Kaveri Poompattinam respectively. Territory of the Chera chiefdom of the early historical period consisted of the present day central Kerala and western Tamil Nadu. The political structure of the chiefdom was based on communal holding of resources and kinship-based production. The authority was determined by "the range of redistributive social relationships sustained through predatory accumulation of resources". There was more than one branch of the Chera family ruling at the same time and contenting for leadership.
The Cheras are referred to as Kedalaputo in the Emperor Ashoka's Pali edicts. The earliest Graeco-Roman accounts referring to the Cheras are by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century CE, in the Periplus of the 1st century CE, and by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE.
A number of Sanskrit works do mention the family and/or land of the Cheras/Keralas. There are also brief references in the present forms of the works by author and commentator Katyayana, author and philosopher Patanjali and Maurya statesman and philosopher Kautilya .

Archaeological discoveries

Archaeology has found epigraphic and numismatic evidence of the Early Cheras. Two almost identical inscriptions discovered from Pugalur dated to c. 1st - 2nd century CE, describe three generations of Chera rulers of the Irumporai lineage. They record the construction of a rock shelter for Jains on the occasion of the investiture of Ilam Kadungo, son of Perum Kadungo, and the grandson of Ko Athan Cheral Irumporai.
A short Tamil-Brahmi inscription, containing the word Chera was found at Edakkal in the Western Ghats.
Recent archaeological discoveries increasingly confirm Karur as a political, economic and cultural centre of ancient south India. Excavations at Karur yielded huge quantities of copper coins with Chera symbols such as the bow and arrow, Roman amphorae and Roman coins. An ancient route, from the harbours in Kerala through the Palghat Gap to Karur in interior Tamil Nadu can be traced with the help of archaeological evidence. Historians are yet to precisely locate Muziris, known in Tamil as "Muchiri", a base of the Chera rulers. Archaeological excavations at Pattanam suggest a strong case of identification with the location. Roman coins have over a period of time been discovered in large numbers from central Kerala and the Coimbatore-Karur region.

Chera coinage

A number of coins, assumed to be of the Cheras, mostly found in the Amaravati riverbed, are a major source of early Chera historiography. This includes a number of punch marked coins discovered from Amaravati riverbed. The square coins of copper and its alloys or silver have also been discovered. Most of these early square coins show a bow and arrow, the traditional emblem of the Cheras on the obverse, with or without any legend. Silver-punch marked coins, an imitation of the Maurya coins, and with a Chera bow on the reverse, have been reported. Hundreds of copper coins, attributed to the Cheras, have been discovered from Pattanam in central Kerala. Bronze dies for minting punch marked coins were discovered from a riverbed in Karur.
Other discoveries include a coin with a portrait and the Brahmi legend "Mak-kotai" above it and another one with a portrait and the legend "Kuttuvan Kotai" above it. Both impure silver coins are tentatively dated to c. 1st century CE or a little later. The reverse side of both coins are blank. The impure silver coins bearing Brahmi legends "Kollippurai", "Kollipporai", "Kol-Irumporai" and "Sa Irumporai" were also discovered from Karur. The portrait coins are generally considered as imitation of Roman coins. All legends, assumed to be the names of the Chera rulers, were in Tamil-Brahmi characters on the obverse. Reverse often contained the bow and arrow symbol. An alliance between the Cholas is evident from a joint coin bearing the Chola tiger on the obverse and the Chera bow and arrow on the reverse. Lakshmi-type coins of possible Sri Lankan origin have also been discovered from Karur.
The macro analysis of the Mak-kotai coin shows close similarities with the contemporary Roman silver coin. A silver coin with the portrait of a person wearing a Roman-type bristled-crown helmet was also discovered from Amaravati riverbed in Karur. Reverse side of the coin depicts a bow and arrow, the traditional symbol of the Chera family.

Cheras from early Tamil texts

A large body of Tamil works collectively known as the Sangam texts describes a number of Chera, Pandya and Chola rulers. Among them, the most important sources for the Cheras are the Pathitrupattu, the Akananuru, and the Purananuru. The Pathitrupattu, the fourth book in the Ettuthokai anthology, mentions a number of rulers and heirs-apparent of the Chera family. Each ruler is praised in ten songs sung by a court poet. However, the book is not worked into connected history and settled chronology so far.
A method known as Gajabahu-Chenguttuvan synchronism, is used by some historians to date the events described in the early Tamil texts to c. 1st - 2nd century CE. Despite its dependency on numerous conjectures, the method is considered as the sheet anchor for the purpose of dating the events in the early Tamil texts. Ilango Adigal author of the legendary Tamil epic poem Chilapathikaram describes Chenguttuvan as his elder brother. He also mentions Chenguttuvan's decision to propitiate a temple for the goddess Pattini at Vanchi. A certain king called Gajabahu, often identified with Gajabahu, king of Sri Lanka, was present at the Pattini festival at Vanchi. In this context, Chenguttuvan can be dated to either the first or last quarter of the 2nd century CE.
Uthiyan Cheral Athan is generally considered as the earliest known ruler of the Chera family from the Tamil texts. Uthiyan Cheral was also known as "Vanavaramban" . His headquarters were at Kuzhumur. He is described as the Chera ruler who prepared food for Pandavas and the Kauravas at the Kurukshetra War. He Married Nallini, daughter of Veliyan Venman, and was the father of Imayavaramban Nedum Cheralathan..
Uthiyan Cheral Athan is probably identical with the Perum Cheral Athan who fought against the Chola Karikala at the battle of Venni. In the battle of Venni, the Chera was wounded on the back by the Chola ruler Karikala. Unable to bear the disgrace, the Chera committed suicide by slow starvation.
As the name Pathitrupattu indicates, they were ten texts, each consisting a decad of lyrics; but of these two have not till now been discovered.
The following Cheras are knowns from Purananuru collection .
After the end of the early historical period in south India, c. 3rd-5th century CE, there seems to be a period where the Chera family's political prestige and influence declined considerably. Little is known for certain about the Cheras during this period.
Cheras of Kongu country initially appear as the rulers of western Tamil Nadu and central Kerala. There was a domination of present-day Kerala regions of the ancient Chera country by the Kongu Cheras/Keralas. The family claimed that they were descended from the Cheras who flourished in pre-Pallava south India.
There are clear attestations of repeated Pandya conquests of the Kerala or Chea country in the 7th and 8th centuries AD.
While the Pallava and Pandya rulers in Tamil Nadu emerged into established kingship by c. 5th - 6th centuries CE, the formation of the monarchical polity in Kerala took place not before c. 9th century CE. The Chera Perumals are known to have ruled what is now Kerala between c. 9th and 12th century CE. Scholars tend to identify Nayanar saint Cherman Perumal and Alvar saint Kulasekhara with some of the earliest Perumals.
The exact nature of the relation between the Cheras of Kongu and the Chera Perumals remains obscure.
The Perumal kingdom derived most of its wealth from maritime trade relations with the Middle East. The port of Kollam, in the kingdom, was a major point in overseas India trade to the West and the East Asia. Political units known as "nadus", controlled by powerful hereditary chiefs or by households, occupied central importance in the structuring of the Chera Perumal state. The rulers of the nadus usually acted with the help of a Nair military retinue. The prominent nadus continued to exist even after the end of the Chera rule during the beginning of the 12th century. Nambudiri-Brahmin settlements of agriculturally rich areas were another major source of support to the kingdom.
The Chea Perumal kingdom had alternating friendly or hostile relations with the Cholas and the Pandyas. The kingdom was attacked, and eventually forced into submission, by the Cholas in early 11th century AD. When the Perumal kingdom was eventually dissolved in 12th century most of its autonomous chiefdoms became independent.

Government

The extent and nature of state formation of the Chera kingdoms, from the ancient period to early modern period, cannot be interpreted either in a linear or in a monochromatic way. Each ruling family had its own political prestige and influence in southern India over their life spans.
The extent of political formation in pre-Pallava south India was a matter of considerable debate among historians. Although earlier scholars visualised early historic south Indian polities as full-fledged kingdoms, some of the recent studies rule out the possibility of state formation. According to historian Rajan Gurukkal, ancient south India was a combination of several "unevenly evolved and kinship based redistributive economies of chiefdoms". These polities were structured by the dominance of "agro-pastoral means of subsistence and predatory politics". Kesavan Veluthat, another prominent historian of south India, uses the term "chief" and "chiefdom" for the Chera ruler and Chera polity of early historic south India respectively.
Reaching conclusions based on the early Tamil poems and archaeological evidences are another topic disagreement. It is assumed that the institution of sabha in south Indian villages, for local administration, was first surfaced during the early historic period.

Economy

The early Chera economy can be described as a predominantly "pastoral-cum-agrarian" based system. The emphasis on agriculture increased with time, and provided the base for larger economic change. The early historic south India can be described as a "semi-tribal political economy". In a 2013 paper, historian Rajan Gurukkal describes ancient south India as a collection of "unevenly evolved and kinship-based redistributive economies."

Spice trade

Exchange relations with the merchants from Graeco-Roman world, the "Yavanas", and with north India provided considerable economic momentum for the Chera chiefdom. Indian Ocean exchange was the major economic activity. There is some difference of opinion with regard to the nature of the "spice trade" in ancient Chera country. It is disputed whether this "trade" with the Mediterranean world was managed on equal terms by the Tamil merchants, in view of the existence of apparently unequal political institutions in south India. Some of the more recent studies point out that the "trade" was an exchange of "serious imbalance", because of its being between the Roman Empire and South India with uneven chiefdoms.
The geographical advantages, like the favourable Monsoon winds which carried ships directly from the Arabia to south India as well as the abundance of exotic spices in the interior Ghat mountains combined to make the Cheras a major power in ancient southern India.
Spice exchange with Middle Eastern and Mediterranean navigators can be traced back to before the Common Era and was substantially consolidated in the early years of the Common Era. In the first century CE, the Romans conquered Egypt, which probably helped them to establish dominance in the Indian Ocean spice trade. The earliest Graeco-Roman accounts referring to the Cheras are by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century CE, in Periplus Maris Erythraei of the 1st century CE, and by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century CE. The Periplus Maris Erythraei portrays the "trade" in the territory of Keprobotras in detail. Muziris was the most important centre in the Malabar Coast, which according to the Periplus, "abounded with large ships of Romans, Arabs and Greeks". Bulk spices, ivory, timber, pearls and gems were "exported" from the Chera country to the Middle East and Mediterranean kingdoms.
It is known that the Romans brought vast amounts of gold in exchange for black pepper. This is testified by the Roman coin hoards that have been found in various parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Pliny the Elder, in the 1st century CE, laments the drain of Roman gold into India and China for luxuries such as spices, silk and muslin. The spice trade across the Indian Ocean dwindled with the decline of the Roman empire in the 3rd - 4th centuries CE. With the exit of the Mediterraneans from the spice trade, their space was picked up by the Chinese and Arab navigators.

Wootz steel

The famous damascus blades relied on the unique properties of the wootz crucible steel from medieval south India and Sri Lanka. There are several ancient Tamil, Greek, Chinese and Roman literary references to high carbon Indian steel. The crucible steel production process started in the 6th century BC, at production sites of Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu, Golconda in Telangana, Karnataka and Sri Lanka and exported globally; the Chera Dynasty producing what was termed the finest steel in the world, i.e. Seric Iron to the Romans, Egyptians, Chinese and Arabs by 500 BC. The steel was exported as cakes of steely iron that came to be known as "Wootz". Wootz steel in India had high amount of carbon in it.
The method was to heat black magnetite ore in the presence of carbon in a sealed clay crucible inside a charcoal furnace to completely remove slag. An alternative was to smelt the ore first to give wrought iron, then heat and hammer it to remove slag. The carbon source was bamboo and leaves from plants such as Avārai. The Chinese and locals in Sri Lanka adopted the production methods of creating wootz steel from the Cheras by the 5th century BC. In Sri Lanka, this early steel-making method employed a unique wind furnace, driven by the monsoon winds. Production sites from antiquity have emerged, in places such as Anuradhapura, Tissamaharama and Samanalawewa, as well as imported artifacts of ancient iron and steel from Kodumanal. A 200 BC Tamil trade guild in Tissamaharama, in the South East of Sri Lanka, brought with them some of the oldest iron and steel artifacts and production processes to the island from the classical period.

Society and culture

Early Cheras

In general, early Tamil texts reflects the Dravidian cultural tradition. It is logical to conclude that most of the Chera population followed native Dravidian religions. Religious practice might have consisted predominantly of conducting sacrifices to various gods, such as to the pre-eminent god Murugan. The worship of departed heroes was a common practice in the Chera territory, along with tree worship and other kinds of ancestor worship. The war goddess Kottravai was propitiated with elaborate offerings of meat and toddy. It is theorised that Kottravai was assimilated into the present-day form of the goddess Durga. It is thought that the first wave of Brahmin migration came to the Chera territory around the 3rd century BCE with or behind the Jain and Buddhist missionaries. It was only in the 8th century CE that the Aryanisation of the old Chera country reached its organised form. Though the vast majority of the population followed native Dravidian practices, a small percentage of the population, mainly migrants, followed Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanism. Populations of Jews and Christians were also known to have lived in Kerala.
Early Tamil texts does make a number of references to social stratification, as expressed by use of the word kudi to denote "caste". A striking feature of the social life of the early historic period is the high status accorded to women.
Agriculture and pastoralism were the primary occupations of the people. Various agricultural occupations such as harvesting, threshing and drying are described in the early Tamil texts. Poets and musicians were held in high regard in society. Early Tamil texts is full of references about the lavish patronage extended to court poets. There were professional poets and poetesses who composed texts praising their patrons and were generously rewarded for this.