Ilamcetcenni, died when Karikala was still a kid. Due to the absence of a king there was a political turmoil, and those who were loyal to the throne brought him back from exile. This time his political opponents imprisoned him. Karikalan escaped from the prison and went underground for a while.
He later built an army with the help of his uncle Irumpitarthalaiyan and defeated his enemies to get back his throne. After getting the throne he set his sights over all the major kingdoms of the South India. In the Battle of Venni, he crushed the Pandya and Chera forces, thereby becoming the first of the early cholas to conquer and unify all the three Dravidian kingdoms. We get most of the information about his military conquests from the books Pattinappaalai, Porunaraatruppadai, and a number of individual poems in Akananuru and Purananuru.
Some of the songs in purananooru explains the beauty of his war chariots. His legendary campaign into northern India has been mentioned in several literary works.
Cilappatikaram has a wonderful account of the northern expeditions of Karikala, which took him as far north as the Himalaya Mountains. Kings of Vajra, Magadha and Avanti were subjugated and they accepted his alliance. The temple history of Thiruvaiyaru Shiva temple says that his chariot wheel sank into the mud when he came back after his victories in North India, and when his chariot wheel was dug out idols of Dakshinamurthy and saptha rishis were discovered. Karikala Chola built Panchanadeswara temple in Thiruvayaru and performed kumbabishekam.
Karikala defeated the union of nine minor chieftains in the battle of Vakaipparandalai. This incident has been mentioned by Paranar, a contemporary of Karikala, in his poem in Agananuru.
Karikala was one of the few Tamil kings who won the whole of Lanka. Winning Lanka was important for Karikalan, because until he build Kallanai, the Kaveri delta was not irrigated well. So several spices, grains and food were imported from Lanka. He has built great temples like the Shiva temple in Perur , and forts, but his biggest legacy is the construction of Kallanai. There is a certain amount of misconception about Kallanai, some over enthusiastic tamil historians call this as the oldest living dam.
The fact is Kallanai is not a dam, it is one of the oldest water-diversion and water-regulatory structures in the world which is still in use. With his vision, Karikaalan changed the fate of Chola Kingdom forever. Karikalan did not just think of the near future, he thought about a structure that can stand the vagaries of time for a very long time it is now around years old and still fully functioning. In my opinion his extraordinary long term planning and foresight makes him even greater than Raja Raja Chola.
The Cauvery delta region has always been fertile, but the river caused great floods during the rainy season and the delta experienced droughts during the dry months. Karikalan wanted to change this, so he and his advisers devised this grand project to maintain a steady flow of water throughout the year.
Originally the the river got split in to two channels Northern channel is Kollidam, and souther channel retained the name Cavery at Srirangam and the two channels came close again downstream.
Karikalan built the kallanai in the southern channel where it came close to Kollidam river. Kallanai served two major purposes: Flood control and Irrigation. Vision without action is merely a dream.
Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. His first step was to raise the banks of Cauvery river. The rate of flow of water in Cauvery back then was 2,00, cubic ft per minute. Building an engineering structure like kallanai in such a ferocious river was unthinkable. However the architects back then used a peculiar method to build Kallanai. When we stand in a sea shore experiencing the waves, we can feel our feet getting under the sand when the waves go back, the longer we stay the sand under our leg will get eroded and our feet will move further in.
Based on this concept huge blocks of granite were dropped in the river, and as the stones moved under, they used an insoluble binding material and placed another block over the existing ones.
They were able to build a perfect structure even in such a ferocious river. Karikalan turned Tanjore from a kingdom importing food grains, to the rice bowl of South India. Even today Tanjore is addressed as the rice bowl of South India. In addition to diverting the existing flood water in to 4 smaller streams, he also built canals from those streams to utilize the water for irrigation. The structure when constructed was m 1, ft long, 20 m 66 ft wide and 5.
The structure was later developed by the British who laid the grid separators and a bridge on top of the old structure. One account say that at the time of construction Kallanai irrigated 69, acres of land, and another account says that it irrigated 84, acres of land. It now irrigates more than 1 million acres of agricultural lands. In my opinion, Karikalan is one of the greatest management gurus.
The engineering marvel, which has served its purpose for over years, was made possible because of a long term vision, excellent planning and meticulous execution.. During the times when Egyptian Kings built Pyramids for themselves by torturing the citizens and slaves, Karikala built a phenomenal architectural marvel to serve his people for s of years.
Agriculture and trade thrived during his rule, traders from Rome and South East Asia visited Kaveripoompatinam regularly.
He left a great legacy as an able and just king, by winning great wars, promoting commerce and administering justice. Several literary works depict how the whole country mourned his death.
One of those is from purananooru. Poor indeed is this world, which has lost him. Like the branches of the vengi tree, which stands bare, when their bright foliage has been stripped down by shepherds eager to feed their cattle in the fierce summer, are his fair subjects wives , who have cast off their happiness Jewels.
Translation: Even if the faultless, famous, bright Venus drifts to the south, even if the skylarks are distressed without rain drops to drink and even if the clouds change and the skies fail, Kaveri, which starts in the mountains and ends in the ocean, does not fail. The Karikala Chola some how managed to capture the throne by that time and faced the powerful confederacy formed, which included Chera, Pandya and 11 minor empires. This battle was called "Battle Of Venni". It was fought at a place called Venni modern Kovilvenni near Thanjavur.
As Karikala Chola was new to rule, the opposition underestimated his abilities. He gave a shock to the opponents and won the battle defeating all of them. This was one of the greatest moments in history of India where a king facing powerful allied forces stood victorious.
There can be no doubt that it marked the turning point in Karikal's career. Due to this defeat, the Chera ruler Uthiyan Cheralathan committed suicide. Karikala Chola and Chola empire became supreme power in the entire South India with that win. After the battle of Venni, Karikala fought other battles. He defeated confederacy of nine minor chieftains in the battle of Vakaipparandalai. He was one of the few tamil kings who occupied whole Ceylon modern Srilanka. At that time Ceylon was being ruled by Sinhalese kingdom.
He defeated Sinhalese and after that battle he decided to build a Anicut along the banks of Kaveri river. He used Sinhalese war prisoners to build Anicut.
They are used to carry massive blocks of rocks from mountains to the bank of river Kaveri. The Grand Anicut is now known as Kallanai dam, which is an ancient dam, which was built across the Kaveri river in Trichy district in the state of Tamilnadu.
It is considered as one of the oldest water diversion or water regulator structures in the world which is still in use. Karikala Chola was remembered for ever for his efforts to divert water from rivers to agricultural fields for irrigation purpose. This dam is meters high and 20 meters wide. Facebook Twitter. Social Plugin. Popular Posts. Follow Us. View this post on Instagram.
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