Tag Archives: Anirudh Kanisetti

In My Hands Today…

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Lords of Earth and Sea: A History of the Chola Empire – Anirudh Kanisetti

The great empire of the Cholas was unexpected. It sprouted out of the blue in the Kaveri floodplain around 850 CE. Till then, the region had for centuries been dotted by self-governing village assemblies. From here, the Cholas established a vast empire, the first – and only – time an empire based in coastal South India was the dominant power of the a perch usually occupied by the Deccan or northern India.

The Cholas were as creative and imaginative as they were unexpected. They built stupendous temples – the tallest freestanding structures on earth after the pyramids of Egypt. Chola queens popularized new forms of gods and worship, such as the iconic Nataraja and the singing of Tamil poems to deities. And they were spectacularly daring, raiding not just the powerful Deccan and North India but also Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka. For a dynasty that was so influential – and is so loved today – its actual historical achievements were surprisingly forgotten by the late nineteenth century, for they had faded into myth and legend.

In this book, the award-winning historian Anirudh Kanisetti brings to life the world of the Cholas. Not just the world of kings and queens attended by generals and ‘service retinue’ women – but the stories of the ‘little people’, whose lives were buffeted by big events. What was life like on board a merchant vessel making its way from the Tamil coast to Southeast Asia and China? What kind of food was served at temples to devotees and to soldiers in times of war? What became of a landless peasant who murdered his brother in a fit of rage? Why did a noble woman commit sati holding a lemon over her head? Based on thousands of inscriptions and hundreds of secondary sources, this deeply researched book is not just a procession of dazzling kings and queens but also a portal that transports us to the peasant settlements of over a thousand years ago. In this book, Kanisetti crucially separates fact from fiction and tells us one of the most extraordinary stories in human history.
Genres
History
Nonfiction
Indian Literature

In My Hands Today…

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Lords of the Deccan : Southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas – Anirudh Kanisetti

The history of the vast Indian subcontinent is usually told as a series of ephemeral moments when a large part of modern-day India was ruled by a single sovereign. There is an obsession with foreign invasions and the polities of the Gangetic plains, while the histories of the rest of the subcontinent have been reduced to little more than dry footnotes. Now, in this brilliant and critically acclaimed debut book, Anirudh Kanisetti shines a light into the darkness, bringing alive for the lay reader the early medieval Deccan, from the sixth century CE to the twelfth century CE, in all its splendour and riotous glory.

Kanisetti takes us back in time to witness the birth of the Chalukyas, a dynasty that shaped southern India for centuries. Beginning at a time when Hinduism was still establishing itself through the Deccan, when the landscape was bereft of temples, he explores the extraordinary transformation of the peninsula over half a millennium. In vivid and colourful detail, Kanisetti describes how the mighty empires of medieval India were made: how temple-building and language manipulation were used as political tools; how royals involved themselves in religious struggles between Jains and Buddhists, Shaivas and Vaishnavas; and how awe-inspiring rituals were used to elevate kings over their rivals and subjects. In doing so, he transforms medieval Indian royals, merchants, and commoners from obscure figures to complex, vibrant people. Kanisetti takes us into the minds of powerful rulers of the Chalukya, Pallava, Rashtrakuta, and Chola dynasties and animates them and their world with humanity and depth.

It is a world of bloody elephant warfare and brutal military stratagems, of alliances and betrayals, where a broken king commits ritual suicide and a shrewd, hunchbacked prince founds his own kingdom under his powerful brother’s nose. This is a world where a king writes a bawdy play that is a parable for religious contestation; where the might of India’s rulers and the wealth of its cities were talked of from Arabia to Southeast Asia; and where south Indian kingdoms serially invaded and defeated those of the north. This painstakingly researched, forgotten history of India will keep you riveted and enthralled. You will never see the history of the subcontinent the same way again.