Siddharth N. Vijayaraghavan is an author born in India and educated in Singapore and India. He is currently completing his Master’s (Integrated) degree in English Studies at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras.

Empire of the Cholas book is a work of historical fiction. The author narrates his personal feeling while writing this book: that the temple or the characters that have been depicted in the book may be fictional to people, but to him, these are the people he has lived with and conversed with. The book begins with the first chapter in this way: “The sun rose on the eastern horizon, casting a golden pink glow over the sea, the paddy fields, and the coconut groves adjoining the ancient port city of Nagapattinam.” The author further adds that 16-year-old Angayarkanni, a beautiful and reclusive fisherwoman, stepped out of her abode; she hails from a family of pearl divers and fishermen who had lived in Pandya Nadu earlier. Her father, Subbiah, was an expert pearl diver as well as a renowned pearl merchant.

During the reign of Utthama Chola (970 CE to 986 CE), Subbiah moved from Pandya Nadu to Nagapattinam in Chola Nadu, a place that immensely flourished at that time. Subbiah has lost his wife at a very early stage. Apart from his daughter, Angayarkanni, he had a son, Ponniah. One day, Angayarkanni, while fisihing in the mid-sea, saw a peculiar sight: a pink mass more than six feet long, swathed in blue silk and attached to what seemed to be a wooden plank, was bobbing up and down in the sea. It caught her attention, and she was already rowing the boat with a large haul of fish. For assistance, she blew her conch, an instrument all fishermen possessed, to send a signal to others for assistance. A couple of fishermen nearby rushed to her aid. She drew to them the unconscious man clinging precariously to the plank of wood. In order to catch the man, a few fishermen jumped into the sea and hauled the man into Angayarkanni’s boat.

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Once the boat reached the shore, the man was carried to her house. Her father immediately sent for the vaidhyar to treat him. Chidambara Vaidhyar examined him, administered a few herbal medicines, and gave Angayarkanni instructions on nursing the sick man. She took care of the man throughout time until he recovered. While talking with him, she knew his name, Roeland Crape, but found it difficult to pronounce. She addressed him as Vellaiappan and gradually came to be called by others too.

Meanwhile, she became close to Vellaiappan and wanted to marry him. While both agreed to marry, her father could not agree for this long until the intervention of shrewd Prime Minister Aniruddha Brahmarayar, who persuaded Subbiah to agree. So, both were married at the magistic Shiva temple in Nagapattinam. Two years into the marriage, they had their first child, whom they named Aniruddhan. While the story goes on… like this.

The novel is set in the reign of Raja Raja Chola I, one of the greatest empires in India, who has assisted his son, Prince Rajendra, to the throne. He bore the well-known title Kadaramkondan as he defeated the Sailendra king of the Srivijaya dynasty. The author has brought attention to the naval might of the Cholas. In this book, the famous temple of Brihadeeswara in Thanjavur, a UNESCO world heritage site, draws attention to how this temple was initially planned, the execution of the work, who designed it, and many other aspects related to it.