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Karikala Cholan

Karikala Chola or Karikala Chozhan (Tamil: கரிகால சோழன்) was one of the great Tamil kings of Early Chola during the Sangam period. He was the son of Ilamcetcenni and ruled around 270 BC.
He was also known by the epithets Karikala Peruvalathaan (கரிகால பெருவளத்தான்) and Thirumavalavan (திருமாவளவன்).

The story of Karikala is mixed with legend and anecdotal information gleaned from Sangam literature. Karikala has left us no authentic records of his reign. The only sources available to us are the numerous mentions in Sangam poetry. The period covered by the extant literature of the Sangam is unfortunately not easy to determine with any measure of certainty.
Pattinappaalai, Porunaraatruppadai and a number of individual poems in Akananuru and Purananuru have been the main source for the information that is attributed to Karikala.

Early life
Karikala was the son of Ilamcetcenni ‘…distinguished for the beauty of his numerous war chariots..’.The name Karikalan has been held to mean 'the man with the charred leg' and perpetuates the memory of a fire accident in the early years of his life. Some scholars also hold the view that the etymology is from Sanskrit' - 'kari + kalan, or "slayer of elephants". Porunar-aatrup-padai describes the back-formed origin legend of this incident as follows:
The king of Urayur Ilancetcenni married a Velir princess from Azhundur and she became pregnant and gave birth to Karikala. Ilamcetcenni died soon after. Due to his young age, Karikala's right to the throne was overlooked and there was political turmoil in the country. Karikala was exiled. When normality returned, the Chola ministers sent a state elephant to look for the prince. The elephant found the prince hiding in Karuvur. His political opponents arrested and imprisoned him. The prison was set on fire that night. Karikala escaped the fire and, with the help of his uncle Irum-pitar-thalaiyan, defeated his enemies. Karikala’s leg was scorched in the fire and from thence Karikala became his name.
Pattinap-paalai, written in praise of Karikala also describes this incident, but without mention of the fable of the burnt limb:
Like the Tiger cub with its sharp claws and its curved stripes growing (strong) within the cage, his strength came to maturity (like wood in grain) while he was in the bondage of his enemies. As the large trunked elephant pulls down the banks of the pit, and joins its mate, even so after deep and careful consideration, he drew his sword, effected his escape by overpowering the strong guard and attained his glorious heritage in due course.

Military conquests
Battle of Venni
According to Poruna-raatr-uppadai, Karikala Chola fought a great battle at Venni near Thanjavur in which both Pandya and Chera suffered crushing defeat.Although we know very little about the circumstances leading to this battle, there can be no doubt that it marked the turning point in Karikala’s career, for in this battle he broke the back of the powerful confederacy formed against him.[3] Besides the two crowned kings of the Pandya and Chera countries, eleven minor chieftains took their side in the campaign and shared defeat at the hands of Karikala. The Chera king, who was wounded on his back in the battle, committed suicide by starvation.
Venni was the watershed in the career of Karikala which established him firmly on his throne and secured for him some sort of hegemony among the three crowned monarchs. Venni which is also known as Vennipparandalai and now it is known as Kovilvenni. Kovilvenni is situated between Ammapettai(Tanjore) and Needamangalam.

Other wars and conquests
After the battle of Venni, Karikala had other opportunities to exercise his arms. He defeated the confederacy of nine minor chieftains in the battle of Vakaipparandalai. Paranar, a contemporary of Karikala, in his poem from Agananuru mentions this incident without giving any information on the cause of the conflict.
According to legends Karikalan was one of the few Tamil kings who won the whole Ceylon (Lanka). His kallanai was built after his conquer over Singalese kingdom. It was said that he did not want to use the Tamil workers to be used for moving hard stones from mountains to the river bed, instead he used the Singalese war prisoners to move the heavy stones to the river bed.
Pattinappaalai also describes the destruction caused by Karikala’s armies in the territories of his enemies and adds that as the result of these conflicts, the 'Northerners and Westerners were depressed… and his flushed look of anger caused the Pandya’s strength gave way…'
However, there is no evidence to show that Karikala’s conquests extended beyond the land of the Kaveri. the main war land in karikala cholan in in srilanka venni the last battle field and return back to sea to vakaipparadalai.

Legends
Northern conquests
Since ancient times Karikala became the subject of many myths which in modern times have often been accepted as serious history. Cila-ppati-karam (c. sixth century C.E.) which attributes northern campaigns and conquests to all the three monarchs of the Tamil country, gives a glorious account of the northern expeditions of Karikala, which took him as far north as the Himalayas and gained for him the alliance and subjugation of the kings of Vajra, Magadha and Avanti countries. There is no contemporary evidence either in Sangam literature or from the north Indian source for such an expedition.

Raising the banks of Kaveri
Later Chola kings referred to Karikala Chola as a great ancestor, and attributed him with the building of dikes along the banks of the Kaveri.
The raising of the banks of the river Kaveri by Karikala are also mentioned by the Melapadu plates of Punyakumara, a Telugu Choda king of the seventh or the eighth century C.E. This story mingles with another stream of legend centering around Trinetra Pallava, and culminates in the celebrated jingle of the late Telugu Choda inscriptions:
karuna - saroruha vihita - vilochana – pallava – trilochana pramukha kilapritvisvara karita kaveri tira
(He who caused the banks of the Kaveri to be constructed by all the subordinate kings led by the Pallava Trinetra whose third eye was blinded by his lotus foot.)
This has been made the basis of conclusions of the highest importance to the chronology of Early South Indian history.

Grand Anicut
Kallanai / Grand Anicut built by Karikala Cholan, on the River Kaveri, near Tiruchirappalli
The Grand Anicut also known as the [ta:கல்லணை] Kallanai, was built by the Chola king[8] and is considered one of the oldest water-diversion or water-regulator structures in the world, which is still in use.
The Kallanai is a massive dam of unhewn stone, 329 metres (1,080 ft) long and 20 metres (60 ft) wide, across the main stream of the Kaveri.
The purpose of the dam was to divert the waters of the Kaveri across the fertile Delta region for irrigation via canals. The dam is still in excellent repair, and supplied a model to later engineers, including the Sir Arthur Cotton's 19th-century dam across the Kollidam, the major tributary of the Kaveri.
The area irrigated by the ancient irrigation network is about 1,000,000 acres (4,000 square kilometres).
Recently the Delta farmers of Tamil Nadu demanded the Tamil Nadu government honour the great Chola king Karikalan, who built the Kallanai.

DESCRIPTION SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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Taken in: India / Tamil Nadu / Tiruchirappalli (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 2000

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Camera:	Fujifilm FinePix S4000
Aperture:	f/3.6
Exposure Time:	0.007 sec (1/150)
Focal Length:	5.8mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
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