A Socio-Cultural History of The Later Colas - As Gleaned Through Epigraphy

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The present study entitled "A Socio-cultural History of The Later Colas: As Gleaned through Epigraphy" is an attempt to give a connected and coherent account of the culture of Tamils, particularly of the Cola country based on Tamil inscriptions. This aspect of the legacy of the Tamils has not been thoroughly studied by any one so far. A good number of new inscriptions have come to light in recent times, thus making a fresh probe into this aspect a necessity.

A close and concerted study of the Tamil inscriptions of the period of the later Colas made by the author have yielded good dividend. Many new types of information have come to light from this study. These information complement the already set pattern of the Cola social fabric and makes the social history of the period more enriched with information. No drastic or sudden change in the pattern of Tamil culture could be made out from the present study. However, new types of information added to the already known Tamil social structure helps us to understand the various nuances, shades and many finer aspects of the Tamil culture that were hitherto unknown.

The study of cultural aspects of the Tamil inscriptions of the period for the sake of easy exposition of the subject, has been divided into eight chapters. The importance of the study, the facts discussed, and the facts revealed through the study are summarized as follows:

Chapter one deals with the Administration of the Tamil country. It has been very clearly stated in this chapter that during this period, the Cola power was at the helm of affairs in the entire Tamil country. The Pandya, and the Cēra powers were on a low profile. Therefore, the Administrative pattern of the Colas dominated the entire setup of Tamil country.

The present book on "A Socio-cultural History of The Later Colas: As Gleaned through Epigraphy" is the work of Dr. K. Karuppiah in the Mysore University for his study. A well document work, it is in eight chapters dealing with the following aspects: Administration, Law and Justice, Social Conditions, Economic Conditions, Education, Warfare, Religion, and Art and Architecture. It is a known fact that after the pioneering works of Prof. K.A. Nilakantha Sastri in the thirties of the last century, a number of Indian and Western scholars have delved into the realm of Cola history and culture of which the present work is one of the academically rewarding. The Sharada Publishing House itself has published few works Ion Cola of which those of S. Swaminathan and K.R. Sita Narsimhan are noted. Dr. Swaminathan has concentrated on political history, particularly of the time of Parantaka I. Dr. Sita Narasimhan Cõlas as gleaned through their monuments. The present work is also important in as far as it reviews Cola polity mainly from epigraphical sources.

Since K.A. Nilakantha Sastri did his pioneering work, several scholars such as Sadasiva Pandarathar, S.R. Balasubramanian, Vidya Dehejia, Burton Stein, Noboru Karashima, Y. Subbarayalu and others have written on the subject. If for Sastri the Cola polity was "Bysantine", for Stein it was "segmentary state". The lavishness of epigraphical sources could be seen interplayed in the works of Karashima and Subbarayalu for whom epigraphy is the be all and end all of history. Sita Narsimhan choose the temples of the Cõlas as a viable source of history that talk to the historian with visual examples.

**Contents and Sample Pages**