Whenever I read History, a particular thought always disturbs me. Who are all the greatest? Julius Caeser - Cleopatra - Alexander - Ashoka .... ? Rajarajan, Rajendran & Sundarapandian - never included in the list.
Why? Because there have not accomplised? Not at all.. As a matter of fact,from the entire India (Hindusthan) including Harsha - Ashoka - Chandra - Samudra Guptas - no one has any overseas expedition to his credit except Rajaraja & Rajendra! Do they get their due place in the Indian History? They have conquored Indonesia, Hongkong and what not.. Do they get their due place in the World History? No..
They have thought of everything which exists today..
Acceptance of other religions & cultures - Democracy in autocracy - vision through centuries ..... and so on ...
At least, I opine, we should accord them the due place in our regional History ... Like the Americans love Lincon, we also love them... They are Leaders ... Leaders of our Culture - Tradition and what not...
I am sure they are the Leaders of the mankind at their point of time..
Let us take pride that we hail from their soil ...
you ve done it again just taken the words out of my mouth.I totally agree with you in that our heros have been ignored by the historians...
I was listening to something on the radio yesterday...
The combodians belived that there existed a beautiful temple city built by the gods...But the french who ruled them did not belive that the rice eaters were not capable of such feat till a discovered stumbled into the ruins of ankorwat and then the world beleived what the Kmher kingdom had achived 3 centuries ago...
Beleive me a lot of combodian art is from south india and the cholas had regular trade to combojam as it was called infact kulothungan stayed there for a while...
Nowonder the cholas were called the phoenicians of the east....
I think its only right to take pride and adore them
History is written by powerful people and they modify truth according to their benefits. Kalki himself writes in Sivakamiyin Sapatham about the story of the Jayasthambam in which the Chalukyas had written that they had conquered Pallava kingdom, although the truth is that they could never enter into the Kanchi kottai. Even our history books are tainted. We all read about the greatness of Ashoka. But we are all concealed from the real story of how Ashoka tortured his own brother to capture the throne and killed 1000s of people in Kalinga. He embraced Buddhism only after doing all these.
Not just the cholas, even pallavas, even the early tamil kings and the early tamil culture has never received its due respect and regard in the world history.
A culture which supported evolution of Thirukkural, a land that generated greatest among the poets like Kaniyan Poongundran (Yadhum oore..) never got its due place in world history or even indian history.
While there are many reasons to it, one of the foremost is that things have not been project in proper light - in a single volume. The material is highly scattered and makes it difficult for anybody to get a wholesome picture.
Many bodies and individuals are doing what they can - but the amount of work that was done during british period and the early days of independence is far greater than what has been done in the last 50- 60 years. Quite ironic.
For example, not a single book exists about Rajaraja and his personality. Personality study has never been done for any of the south indian kings - including the chalukyans and the cheras. Study of wars, who won, who lost - ascending/descending the throne alone cannot make up history. There is more to it.
Why personality? I'll provide you one single example :
An inscription was found by Dr.M.Rajamanickanar Institute of Historic research in a temple near chengalpattu (If my memory is correct) that belongs to Rajaraja I.
A village officer got appoinment to meet the king. It was one of the late regional years of Rajaraja and the king had already become a chakravarthi. But he gave appoinment to meet this small officer.
The officer requested the king that he wanted to give endowments to burn one nandha vilakku (perperual lamp) in his village temple for the WELFARE OF THE KING. Since it involved the king's name, he came to seek permission.
The king said : DO NOT BURN THE LAMP IN MY NAME. BURN IT FOR THE WELFARE OF YOUR VILLAGE PEOPLE !
The guy came back and recorded the inscription detailing the whole incident and HE GAVE ENDOWMENTS FOR BURNING TWO LAMPS - ONE FOR THE VILLAGE PEOPLE AND ANOTHER FOR THE WELFARE OF THE KING.
You can imagine the relationship that existed between the king and his most common subjects just with this one example. It is for this reason that rajaraja should be hailed as a great king - not just for his conquests etc..
I've just touched the tip of the iceberg - just an example. We can go on and on...