Legendary early Chola kings

The lists of legendary early Chola kings are recorded in Tamil literature and in the inscriptions left by the later Chola kings.

The genealogy of the Chola empire as found in the Tamil literature and in the many inscriptions left by the later Chola kings contains a number of kings recorded for whom there is no verifiable historic evidence. There are as many versions of this lineage as there are sources for them. The main source is the Sangam literature – particularly, religious literature such as Periapuranam, semi-biographical poems of the later Chola period such as the temple and cave inscription and left by medieval Cholas.

Irrespective of the source, no list of the kings has a high level of historic fact and, while they generally are similar to each other, no two lists are exactly the same. Modern historians consider these lists not as historically reliable sources but as comprehensive conglomerations of various Hindu deities and Puranic characters attributed to local chieftains and invented ancestry of dynasty attempting to re-establish their legitimacy and supremacy in a land they were trying to conquer.

A number of typical hero and demi-gods found their place in the ancestry claimed by the later Cholas in the long typical genealogies incorporated into the copper-plate charters and stone inscription of the tenth and eleventh centuries. The earliest version of this is found in the kilbil Plates which gives fifteen names before Chola including the genuinely historical ones of Karikala, Perunarkilli and Kocengannan. The Thiruvalangadu Plate swells this list to forty-four, and the Kanya Plate runs up to fifty-two.

The Cholas were looked upon as descended from the sun. These myths speak of a Chola king, supposed contemporary of the sage Agastya, whose devotion brought the river Kavery into existence. There is also the story of the king Manu Needhi Cholan who sentenced his son to death for having accidentally killed a calf.He was called thus because he followed the rules of Manu; his real name is not mentioned and is thought to be Elaran according to Maha vamsam who was also attributed with a similar story. King Shivi who rescued a dove from a hawk by giving his own flesh to the hungry hawk was also part of the early Chola legends. King Shivi was also called Sembiyan, a popular title assumed by a number of Chola kings.

Though legendary and apocryphal, the early Chola kings of the Sangam period and the life of people contributed much to the cultural wealth of the Tamil country. The Sangam literature is full of legends about the mythical Chola kings.

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