Kochengat Chola

Kochchenganan
Chola Ruler
Dynasty	Chola

Kochchenganan (Kōccengaṇān) or Śengaṇān (also spelt Senganan) was one of the Tamil kings of the Early Cholas mentioned in Sangam literature. The only surviving details about his reign come from the fragmentary poems of Sangam in the Purananuru poems. Today historical accounts of the life of Kochchenganan are often confused with more contemporary accounts.

The only contemporary source available to us on Kochchenganan is the mentions in Sangam poetry. There is one song in Purananuru and the forty verses of Kalavazhi Narpathu by the poet Poygaiyar form the earliest evidence of the king’s life. The references to him in the hymns of Thirugnana Sambanthar and Thirumangai Aazhvaar and Sundaramoorthy Nayanar are from a later period which emphasises the religious side of Kochchenganan.

Kochchenganan also figures in the legendary genealogy of the Chola copper-plate inscriptions of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The legend of a spider turning into the Chola monarch is the version found in the later texts as well as in the Periyapuranam, the great compendium of the Shaiva saints.

The period covered by the extant literature of the Sangam is unfortunately not easy to determine with any measure of certainty. Except the longer epics Silappatikaram and Manimekalai, which by common consent belong to the age later than the Sangam age, the poems have reached us in the forms of systematic anthologies. Each individual poem has generally attached to it a colophon on the authorship and subject matter of the poem, the name of the king or chieftain to whom the poem relates and the occasion which called forth the eulogy are also found.

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