A Medieval Monarch of South India: Rajaraja I, the Splendid Monarch

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Rajaraja Chola: Interplay Between an Imperial Regime and Productive Forces in Society

Raghavan Srinivasan

New Delhi: Leadstart

2021

Rajaraja I (985-1014) is the subject of the book under review and he is a difficult personality to pin down. Srinivasan has set out to write a biography of a medieval Tamil king and given the extremely limited and fragmented evidence, it is creditable that he has produced a book length narrative. The book is structured around the known events of his reign and are discussed around the themes enunciated by historians such as K A N Sastri, Burton Stein, R Champakalakshmi and others. The evidence extant from the period do not permit an indepth investigation into the Life and Times of Rajaraja I as the Chola monarch lacked a biographer and chronicler like Akbar had in his companion, Abul Fazal. Given this limiting condition, the author has done a reasonable enough job in presenting the political and economic lineaments of the reign of Rajaraja I, the Splendid Monarch as one historian has called him.

The Historian has to depend on Copper Plate Inscriptions as his source for reconstructing the history of the period. Politically the reign of Rajaraja, the Rajaesari, was responsible for rehabilitating the fortunes of the Dynasty that had taken a drastic turn for the worse following the Rashtrakuta invasion and the defeat and death of the heir apparent, Rajaditya in the Battle of Takolam in 949 AD. Rajaraja showed his political skill in ensuring the survival of both the State and the Dynasty by changing the pattern of Chola succession. This important change which imparted a firm institutional foundation to the Chola State has been ignored in the analysis proffered by Raghavan Srinivasan. 

Another important aspect that is argued in the book as per the current historiographical trend is an examination of Kingship as practiced during the Chola period. While there is a great deal of debate on this  issue, the writer has waded into an extremely contentious one by using the concept of Deva Raja to situate Chola kingship. God King in South East Asia, especially for the Khemer kings meant the apotheosis of king as god upon death. Unfortunately the interpretation advanced by  Nilakanta Sastri has gathered vehement traction and needs examination. First, Rajaraja or for that matter no Chola king, claimed the status of gods. The closest that Rajaraja came to divinity was when he claimed the title, siva-pada-shekara in his inscriptions in the Big Temple at Tanjavur. (South Indian Inscriptions vol II No 1 and 2). The Esalam Plates of Rajendra I also attest to the patronage extended to radical Saiva groups like the Kalamukhas and the Pasupatas, a link that we first encounter when the mahavrattins of the Kalamukha order are given custody of the pallippadai shrine of Arinjeya at Melpadi. The evidence that we have goes to prove quite conclusively that the Cholas did not claim divinity as a constituent element of the ideological apparatus of the state.

The very name of Rajaraja's magnificent temple at Tanjavur, the Rajarajes'vara Temple, built in his 25th regnal year encapsulates the enigma of Chola kingship. The double entendre' refers both to the name of the King and Deity and does not indicate an appropriation of divinity by the mortal king. The medieval European monarchs considered Kingship as a union of Two Bodies, the Body of Christ and that of Man, but the Chola conception was resolutely secular.

This book provides a good introduction to the political history of the period and the author has essentially followed the identification of places mentioned in the inscriptions as given by Sastri in his now classic history. The inscriptional rhetoric of taking the head of the king, as the author points out was merely rhetorical as defeated kings were never killed as was the practice under Islamic rulers. The  trade and commerce carried out by the guilds has been discussed, though the extent of coined currency being used in commercial transactions may by disputed.

This is a well written and interesting book and deserves to be read by all those interested in the past of South India.

The Cat who saved Books Reading and Redemption

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Cat Who Saved Books

Sosuke Natsuawa 

New York, Picador 2021

A young boy, Rintaro, finds his world falling apart when his grandfather, the owner of Natsuki Books died suddenly leaving him a second hand boo store filled with the Classics. Enter Tiger the Tabby and the boy discovers his inner strength and realizes the redemptive power of compassion, love and the quest for peace through the pursuit of knowledge and books. The book shop tucked in a corner of an unnamed city in Japan is a portal that opens up to a parallel universe in which Books are trapped and Tiger  the Orange Tabby wants Rintaro's help to save them. What follows in an allegorical tale, plainly told but redolent with wisdom and at time deeply moving in its intense description of greed, power and self love.

The Cat presents himself without ceremony, "The name is Tiger the tabby" he says with his triangular ears and piercing eyes. Books have been imprisoned declared that Cat and Rintaro Natsuki is tasked to rescue them and the Cat adds rather mysteriously that should he fail in the task he would be trapped in a timeless labyrinth. Aware of the tremendous power of books, Rintaro hold up the futility of hoarding knowledge as an end in itself and there by rescues the books hoarded in giant cavernous halls. The books saved from imprisonment by the power of truth that resides in one who truly loves them, A lesson learnt from his grandfather.

Labyrinth Two is far more complex and it concerns the appropriation of knowledge by those claiming to understand books and see to distort the meaning by imposing their misguided interpretations on the books they read. Is the author taking a swipe at the current fashion of Deconstruction which has taken the literary world by storm. There is no text only readers. And readers have no objective standards by which to judge the meaning of what they read. "The style is free from any individuality, expressions are deliberately kept to those in common usage--the passages are touched up to achieve the utmost plainness and simplicity." Interpretation is a supreme act of power and true meaning eludes the reader as interpretation is ultimately grounded in innate wisdom not the technicalities of language, grammar and rhetoric.

And finally Labyrinth Three is a metonym for the power and élan of the publishing industry which has grown so huge and gargantuan that it can claim to be the final arbiter of human knowledge, taste and political opinion. Publishing books and making huge profits is the only aim of  mega corporations and human well being is not promoted by men motivated by economic interests. Rintaro now faces an adversary who does not love books.

The Cat who saved books is a story that teaches empathy and compassion and above all the immense power books have in making the world what it is today. I enjoyed this book and strongly recommend this book. 

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks A REview

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks

David Rooney

New York; W W Norton and Company Inc, 2021.

"What is time then? If nobody asks me, I know; but if I were  desirous to explain to one that should ask me; plainly I do not know." St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.

The book under review by an internationally acclaimed Horologist  is a study of time from two rather distinct perspectives. The first part is a well researched study of early ventures into time-keeping in different parts of the world and his discussion of  the history of mechanical time keeping by investigating the construction of large mechanical clocks from the thirteenth century on wards is lucid and valuable. Inexplicably ne changes track and meanders into the impact of time and clock culture on modern civilization and goes on to claim that standardization of time led to exploitation, tyranny and oppression. Whether the mechanical clock with its relentless motion signaling the passage of time had anything to do with these rather unsavory developments is open to debate.

Human beings have always  found the movement of the stars  or rather the planets both mysterious and fascinating. The length of the noon day shadow seemed to vary according to the movements of the celestial bodies giving the first device of measuring time: the sun dial. The Chinese invented the clepsydra which sounded out the hours. And ancient Greece had its Tower of Winds which seems to have been an early observatory.

The tower of Winds has miraculously survived the tumultuous passage of time, though its exact function is still largely a matter of conjecture. With the rediscovery of ancient Greek and Latin texts as part of the great cultural shift that Historians call the Renaissance, mechanical means for time measurement were soon discovered and there was an early instance of civic competition when cities, states and communities started building clock towers all over in order to proclaim their status as free cities and progressive civic entities. The first mechanical clocks were introduced in 1275 and by 1600 nearly 200 clock towers existed all over Europe. 

The clock tower in the Italian city of Chioggia was characterized by a sophisticated mechanism consisting of intermeshing gear wheels driven by falling weights, an early attempt at the escape mechanism which lies at the heart of all mechanical time keeping. Apart from this clock, the designer of this device, Jacopo de Dondi constructed in Padua in 1344 a n astronomical clock which gave the relative position of the planets vis a vis the Earth, a planetarium in short. The other important step towards sophisticated time keeping is seen in the Salisbury Cathedral

One of the oldest clock towers still running on its own medieval design is the tower attached to the cathedral at Salisbury. Unfortunately sacked during the awful days of the attack on Church during the reign of Henry VIII, the tower and its clock survived destruction. The history of all these experiments in design and execution of time measurement is ably brought out in the book. 

The author has bought into the Foucauldian paradigm that science and the growth ( I will in a subsequent Book Blog Review Seb Falk's The Light Ages). The imposition of this interpretive element in this book is a distraction and it interrupts the otherwise well constructed narrative.

The author has tried to take a global approach to the issue of time keeping and its History and has adequately explored other cultures like Islam, India and China. One major drawback lies in the fact that time keeping is closely tied to Astronomy and therefore the transition from the Ptolemaic view to the Copernican view of the Universe is a sine quo non for a comprehensive investigation.

In the sixteenth  century the Roman Catholic Church made serious attempts to reform the Calendar as the celebration of Easter was seriously out of sync with the planetary motion. Apart from reforming the calendar steps were taken to measure the meridian and take correct readings of the sun as it passed over the spring equinox. Cathedrals in France and Italy were designed to function as Solar Observatories and the readings provided played an important role in reforming the Calendar, David Rooney has ignored this vital aspect and is a serious flaw.