Dear SB & others, I'll just take the "birth of rajaraja" issue in your detailed mail.
It is extremely difficult to pin point any year as the year of his birth. I'm not sure what is your view on this. Since the year of birth presents such a difficulty, it also becomes difficult to find out what was his age during aditya's murder, what was his age when he ascended the throne (985 AD) etc.
I actually started writing an article in this topic but left it half way. I was thinking about an alternative theory - going by which, the age difference between RR and periya kundavai becomes very substantial. Kundavai actually becomes a mother for child RR who loses his mother when sundara dies. This explains the supreme respect RR has for his sister (Nam akkan kuduthanavum !). This would also mean that RR was not so old when AK was killed and uttama took over the throne. This may also point to some sort of apprenticeship which RR undergoes under uttama - the power sharing for 2 years and subsequently becoming a full fledged emperor.
I know many of you would not appreciate this viewpoint - it also defies the whole of PS - but the evidence from which all these theories arise is most interesting:
There is a line in thiruvalangadu copper plates - a very touching line - talking about the udan kattai eruthal of sundara chola's wife :
" surantha mulai paal.... magavodu pirintha thaiyal..."
It means that the wife of sundara parted her baby in her arms - which was still drinking milk from her brests and took the funaral pyre.
The million $ question is : WHO IS THIS SMALL BABY WHO WAS DESERTED BY HER MOTHER ?
Assuming that it is the last child ARULMOZHI , we get all the above mentioned theories..we obviously know that sundara only had 3 children - AK, Kundavai and RR
> But Uttma's reign was 14 years, if i am right. Arul > mozhi would have been 14/15 years by then, according > to your theory, when he became the chola emperor, > which might not have been possible. AK was dead before > Sundara and according to SB, AVM would have been > married by then, which contradicts your theory.
Assume arumozhi was 5 years old when sundara died (still in the arms of mother!!:-)). Since he is too small uttama comes to throne - so after 14 years RR is 19 or 20...2 years apprenticeship so by 21 RR comes to throne...:-))
It is not a very convincing story to me as well - but just wondering what was meant in those lines...
dear gokul welcome back Im pleased that last of our heavyweights is back before the end of this year.
That theory of Rajaraja being born and his mother taking the pyre is odd because Rajaraja was a contender forthe throne when Sundara Chola died but he could not have been an infant could he??
> Assume arumozhi was 5 years old when sundara died (still in the arms of mother!!:-)). Since he is too small uttama comes to throne - so after 14 years RR is 19 or 20...2 years apprenticeship so by 21 RR comes to throne...:-)) but just wondering what was meant in those lines...
G, our poets always did exaggerate- just a bit (George Spencer is quite caustic about that:-)). I suspect that bit about a baby being wrested away from the queen actually denotes the people of the Chola land - to whom she had been a fond mother- rather than a referance to Arulmozhi.