We can see two major themes of later day imperial chola rule.One was war and the other was devotion(building of temples).How are these two connected?
Were the temples built because of the guilt of Imperial Cholas on their war?Or were they built because of the large flow of money due to wars?
wars and building temples were done to keep the kingdom intact.Chola power was crumbling.Revenues were dwindling,power of centralized authority of kings was coming down.Rajaraja and his successors tried to reverse this trend.To unite the diverse entities they started waging wars.
Chola kingdom was not a centralized authority.It was made up of diverse small kingdom which were ruled by sittrarasar's.Soon this created insecurity in minds of chola kings.
George W spencer (1976) says that the chola administration system was not that good.Spencer says that sittrarasars were needed to maintain law and order locally.In due course of time this relationship became nominal and sittrarasars attained semi-autonomy.
These sittrasars also resorted into frequent infightings among themselves.The king had to be the arbitrator.Revenues to the treasury were dwindling.To solve all these problems wars were the only solution.They united the rival sittrasars and also increased revenue to the kingdom.
why did cholas build temples amidst revenue shortages?
George W spencer (1976) says that Cholas built temples as a counterveiling powers to these sittrarsars.They gave more and more bhramdeyas and built more temples to provide a non-monetary alternative to the power of sitrarasars.The kings gave bhramdeyas vigorously and built more temples.The gratituous bhramin community sung the praise of king and cultivated Rajabakthi in minds of people.Thus cholas tried to keep people and sitrarasrs under their control by using devotion as a weapon says George spencer(1976)
Thus we can say that reasons for chola invasions were
1.To unite a diverse country under the banner of the king. 2.To remove rivalry among warring sittrarasars.
War and devotion.Can there be more powerful weapons to unite a nation than these two?
Reference:"Politics of plunder" by George W Spencer 1976.