Army
Chola inscriptions mention numerous regiments by specific names. Rajaraja Chola I created a powerful standing army and a considerable navy, which achieved even greater success under his son Rajendra Chola I than under himself. The army consisted of the Infantry, Cavalry and Elephant corps. There is no evidence for the traditional Chariot corps found in ancient Hindu literature. There were other specialist infantry such as bowmen (villigal). At its peak Cholan army is said to have two million soldiers fighting for their Kingdom at many fronts simultaneously.
Chinese geographer Chau Ju-kua, writing in about 1225, gives the following account of the Chola army:
- This country is at war with the kingdom of the of India. The government owns sixty thousand war elephants, every one seven or eight feet high. When fighting these elephants carry on their backs houses, and these houses are full of soldiers who shoot arrows at long range, and fight with spears at close quarters.
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Famous quotes containing the word army:
“I was interested to see how a pioneer lived on this side of the country. His life is in some respects more adventurous than that of his brother in the West; for he contends with winter as well as the wilderness, and there is a greater interval of time at least between him and the army which is to follow. Here immigration is a tide which may ebb when it has swept away the pines; there it is not a tide, but an inundation, and roads and other improvements come steadily rushing after.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed crisis by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the military situation into a political situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things.”
—Carlos Marighella (d. 1969)