The temple of Siva as Nataraja, the dancing king, in the forest town of Tillai, whose hereditary Brahmin priests (the Dikshitars, in tradition three thousand households) manage its worship, land and treasury without a royal manager.
The Chola kings regard Nataraja as their family god, crowned and gave to him. Kulottunga III is credited by the English Wikipedia with the hall of Sabhapati and a gopura for Sivakami. The temple is the leading Saiva centre of the south and holds a great landed estate.
Who holds it
- Name
- not named in any source we reached
- Title
- The Dikshitar assembly (Tillai Moovayiram) that manages the temple
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
Kulottunga III Chola, who endows it; earlier Chola kings (Parantaka I roofed it with gold in tradition)
What it holds
- Temple villages and lands exempted from royal dues
- The treasury of offerings and royal gifts
- The management of festivals, the gold-roofed hall and the shrine staff
Allies and rivals
Kulottunga III Chola, who endows it; earlier Chola kings (Parantaka I roofed it with gold in tradition)
How things stand that morning
Flourishing, autonomous, and courted by the king.
Wealth
Villages, offerings, royal gifts.
Military
No armed force is recorded for the house.
Threats
- Famine from July 1200 (the famine itself is reported only in the brief and the campaign board's calendar)
Where the sources disagree
- Vaishnava tradition says Kulottunga II removed the Govindaraja image from the temple; the date and fact are disputed and we carry no more than the dispute.
Evidence: The house is well known and its patrons and fabric are described in the pages we read; no page we read names its managers or any act of it in 1200, so the 1200 position is inferred.
On the map: Drawn as a small disc round the shrine; the real estates were scattered villages.
Primary sources for Chola empire
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- The Lesser Chronicle (the continuation of the Mahavamsa), Dhammakitti and later monks of the Mahavihara tradition (the first continuation about the 13th century (chapters 37 to 79), carried on in stages to the 18th century). The only narrative source for Lanka in 1200. Read online
- History of Song, chapters 488 and 489: Jiaozhi, Dali, Champa, Zhenla, Pagan, Srivijaya, Java, Brunei, Chola and Tambralinga, Toqto'a (Tuotuo) and the Yuan history office, from the Song court records (1343 to 1345, from Song veritable records and court diaries). The Chinese court's record of its southern neighbours, compiled from Song archives. Read online
- The Leiden grants of Rajaraja I and Kulottunga I concerning the Srivijaya vihara at Nagapattinam, The Chola chancery (Rajaraja I, Rajendra I, Kulottunga I) (the Larger plates about 1005 to 1014 (completed under Rajendra I); the Smaller plates 1090). Background documents for the relations between the Cholas and the Malay world. Read online
- Corpus of Inscriptions in the Telingana Districts, Various (Kakatiya chancery and temple scribes), edited by P. Sreenivasachar (inscriptions of the 10th to 15th centuries; edited 1940 to 1942). The Kakatiyas of Orugallu (Warangal) are known for 1200 almost entirely from inscriptions, and this Hyderabad Archaeological Series corpus is the main printed collection. Read online
- Epigraphia Carnatica: inscriptions of the Mysore country, Various (Hoysala chancery and temple scribes), edited by B. Lewis Rice and R. Narasimhachar (inscriptions of the 4th to 19th centuries; the series ran from 1886 to 1905, revised from 1972). The Hoysala kingdom of Veera Ballala II (reigning 1173 to 1220) is documented almost wholly by the inscriptions in this series, arranged by district and taluk with full English translations. Read online
- Epigraphia Zeylanica: lithic and other inscriptions of Ceylon, Various (the Polonnaruwa kings' chanceries), edited by D. M. de Zilva Wickremasinghe, H. W. Codrington and S. Paranavitana (inscriptions of the 3rd century BC to the 18th century; the series ran from 1904). Prints with translation the stone records of the Polonnaruwa kings who held or lost the throne around 1200. Read online
- South Indian Inscriptions (Archaeological Survey of India), Various (Chola, Pandya and other chanceries and temple scribes), edited by E. Hultzsch, V. Venkayya, H. Krishna Sastri and successors (inscriptions of the 7th to 17th centuries; the series ran from 1890). The temple inscriptions printed here are the primary record of the Tamil country in 1200. Read online
- Travancore Archaeological Series, Various (Kerala chiefs, temples and merchant guilds), edited by T. A. Gopinatha Rao, K. V. Subrahmanya Aiyer and A. S. Ramanatha Ayyar (inscriptions of the 9th to 18th centuries; the series ran from 1910 to 1938). The main corpus for the Kerala coast. Read online
4 more in the sources library for Southern India and Sri Lanka.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.