The 12th century war poem
The Kalinga king was a Chodaganga, i.e., Chola-Ganga: Chola from his mother’s side and Ganga from his father’s side. He controlled the Mahanadi delta in the east, the Cholas controlled the Kaveri delta in the south, and the Gangas controlled the Krishna-Godavari delta in between. This is why the eastern coast was known to sailors as the Chola-mandala (Coromandel). The three kings competed with each other, each trying to make the other a tributary.
Scaling new heights
In the spirit of competition, the Chodaganga built the current structure of Puri’s Jagannath Temple in the 12th century, to rival the height of the Brihadeeswara Temple in Thanjavur built by Rajaraja Chola in the 11th century. When it was discovered that the masonry was a few feet short, the king ordered a long iron flag pole shaped like a discus to be placed on top, so that Jagannath’s flag would flutter higher.
Like the Tamil people, the people of Kalinga were fiercely independent, and declared their autonomy through their deity, Jagannath, who was an amalgam of Shaiva, Vaishnava, Sakta and tribal practices. Later, the Chodagangas would insist they were mere viceroys of Jagannath, distancing themselves from the practice started by some Chola kings who identified themselves with Shiva.
Kalinga kings were known as Gajapati, as they were masters of elephants. Hundreds of elephants would be used to clear the path of the Kalinga army, and block the progress of enemy soldiers. To outmanoeuvre such a moving wall of pachyderms was no mean feat. Hence, it deserved a
What is interesting about
In art, this goddess is shown holding weapons in her hand, surrounded by ghosts, seated on rotting corpses, entertained by carrion crows and wild dogs. The battleground is her sacred space, where she receives blood offered by men aspiring to be heroes.
The poem begins with prayers to many Puranic and Tantrik deities as well as to the
Then come passages describing the yearning and erotic longing of the beautiful wives of warriors — a foreshadowing of the misery of war widows. Then comes description of the goddess, Anangu, her forest, her ghosts, and the temple they built to her with the skull of fallen kings, and bones of animals killed in battle. The goddess, a beloved of Shiva, wears elephant hide, with girdles made of its intestines. Her hand is red with the blood of warriors felled by valiant kings in her honour.
Dark humour
Her ghosts are hungry and emaciated, and yearn for human flesh and blood. Their stomachs are like pots, their eyes like caves, their limbs like unburned wood. A ghost who had run away to the Himalayas returns south and speaks of the Kalinga battle that is under way.
The ghosts cheer and proceed to the battlefield. They learn how the Kalinga soldiers who survived saved themselves by pretending to be Brahmins (they used bowstrings as sacred thread), or Buddhists (they soaked their clothes orange by washing it in blood), or Jains (discarding their clothes, tearing out their hair). In the climax, we hear how the ghosts prepare and eat the porridge of flesh and fat and pulverised teeth in pots made from the wide legs of elephants, under canopies made of elephant skin, dripping with blood. All ghosts are fed — even the Brahmin ghosts, the Buddhist ghosts and the Jain ghosts. A rather bizarre way to show a plural generous society.
In the centuries that followed, songs such as these were gradually overshadowed by songs of devotion to Krishna. Unlike earlier Alvar and Nayanar poetry, later