Chidambaram (Tillai)

Who holds it

Name

The temple's own managers, the Tillai Moovayiram (the three thousand Dikshitar Brahmins), under the protection of Kulottunga III

Title

see the lord or tenant line below

Born

not known

Confidence

medium

Lord in 1200

The temple's own managers, the Tillai Moovayiram (the three thousand Dikshitar Brahmins), under the protection of Kulottunga III

How things stand that morning

A flourishing temple city under a king who adds to it. The quarrel over the Govindaraja shrine between Saiva and Vaishnava is a tradition, not a fact we can date.

Wealth

Temple endowments and villages, pilgrim traffic, the surrounding paddy.

Military

The temple guard; no figure.

Threats

• Famine from July 1200
• A king who moves against the temple (not shown)

Charter

The temple's immunities: the villages and shares granted by Chola kings are exempt from royal levies; the Dikshitars manage them collectively

Council

The Dikshitar assembly of the temple (three thousand households in the tradition), its managers and the temple's merchants; no named person for 1200

Communities

Dikshitar Brahmins, temple servants and dancers, merchants, weavers, a Vaishnava shrine (Govindaraja) in the precinct

Fairs and markets

The Ani Tirumanjanam and Margazhi Arudra festivals of Nataraja

Militia

The temple has its own guard and watch; no figure

Walls and castle

The temple precinct's four walls with gopuras; Kulottunga III is adding a gopura (English Wikipedia)

Trade and crafts

Cloth, brass, grain and the temple trade; the sea salt pans and the Coromandel surf are near

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. From about 7 July 1200The famine falls on the south-delta villages that supply the temple.Depends on: A failed monsoon. The famine is a regnal-year statement found only in the brief and the campaign board's calendar (no page read confirms it). Stopped by: A good monsoon.

Places of note

• Cuddalore (Tirupadiripuliyur): Coast town north of the Vellar; the Padaleeswarar temple.
• The Coromandel surf: The open coast with its surf and no natural harbour between Pondicherry and Nagapattinam.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry chidambaram (11.399,79.694) agrees with the gazetteer. The campaign board's Veeranam tank (veeranam-tank, 11.4,79.5) is actually at about 11.33,79.53, south-west of Kattumannarkoil; the campaign board position is about eight kilometres off.
• The campaign board entry the-coromandel-surf (11.57,79.735) is a sea feature north of Chidambaram; accepted as the Bay shore.

Evidence: Temple and Dikshitar management are well attested; the 1200 office-holders are not named.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

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.