Commerce and business prompted the Indians to cross the eastern seas. The economic contact with Southeast Asia was opened by South Indian people in pre-historic times. In bringing India and Southeast Asia closer an important part was played by the sea link. This connection was used most effectively by the Cholas who combined maritime and mercantile expertise. A glimpse of Rajaraja and Rajendra Chola's world of foreign trade and their connection with Southeast Asia is a fascinating chapter in history. The Cholas, who were one of the most powerful kingdoms in South India, ruled in the first two hundred years of the first millennium. They were first mentioned in the Ashoka inscriptions 200 years BC as having friendly relations with Ashoka. They then were eclipsed for several centuries until the rise of Vijayalaya around AD 850 who established the imperial line of the Cholas, with Tanjavur as their capital, governing the entire Coromandel coast. (The name stems from Cholamandalam, the land of the Chola empire.)

THE BEGINNINGS OF TRADE

Throughout this period, trade was the hallmark of the Cholas. Commerce from the Chola country is mentioned in Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (a handbook written by an Alexandrian merchant between AD 81–96). Nearly half a century later, Ptolemy talks of the Chola country and its ports and inland cities. The Cholas controlled the most extensive shipping from the Coromandel coast across the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. They employed ships of various sizes. Colandia were large ships used on the voyage up the Ganges, light coasting boats were for local traffic, and big ocean-going vessels reached Malaya and Sumatra.

Kaveripattinam and Nagapattinam were the two flourishing port towns of the Chola kingdom that became hubs of commerce. The reference to Kaveripattinam, the city par excellence on the Coromandel coast, figures in Buddhist literature. It is described as a great emporium of the Chola kingdom in early Tamil literature. Pattinapalai (an early Tamil poem from the second century) talks of Puhar (Kaveripattinam) having a big colony of foreign merchants and mentions the items of trade. A poet addressing the Chola king says, “big ships enter the port of Puhar without slacking sail and pour out on the beach precious merchandise brought from overseas”.