Give Us A King (1133 - 1151)
When thou art come unto the land which HaShem thy G-d giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein; and shalt say: 'I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are round about me'; thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom HaShem thy G-d shall choose; one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee; thou mayest not put a foreigner over thee, who is not thy brother.
Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses; forasmuch as HaShem hath said unto you: 'Ye shall henceforth return no more that way.' Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away; neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold.
D’varim (Deutoronomy) 17:14-17
The rapid collapse of Ester’s domain alarmed many of the Kochinim, and in particular Ester’s sole living son, Anangpal. He had been ignored for the succession, but retained significant influence in Chera Nadu by virtue of his marriage to the late Mariamma Chera, former rani and daughter of the ancient Chera line of Tamil kings. By now, two of his sons were rulers of powerful trading cities and substantial nobles in their own right. When word arrived that Levi had been deposed, Anangpal gathered his sons together to decide how to save the dynasty from its enemies.
The conspirators were clear that leaving a baby as Raja and High Priest was a cruel joke. They bore Barukh no ill will, but the Kochinim needed a strong ruler to protect them from the interference of the goyim. Nor could Anangpal take his place, for the will of Ester was well known in that matter. So it followed therefore that one of Anangpal’s sons, claiming lineage from both the old Chera dynasty and the new Dharan dynasty, would need to assume the mantle of raja.
Anangpal’s eldest two sons were both men of formidable talent. Kulôttunka, Samanta of Vembanad, was deeply pious and respected for his many charitable endeavors, although his haughtiness could alienate potential allies. Vicayȃlaya, Samanta of Kolathunad, was lax in his practice of the mitzvot, but skilled in matters of secular administration. Vicayȃlaya could claim the allegiance of the shorveers while the devout backed Kulôttunka, and here the matter apparently stalled.
And so things remained for some months, long enough for Barukh’s courtiers to hope that they might play one faction off another until their Nasi came of age. When the dam finally broke, it was for a third man: Irȃcȃtitta, the quiet, plain-spoken youngest son of Anangpal, who had the advantage of being neither arrogant nor irreligious, a man with no enemies if relatively few friends.
Once Anangpal placed his weight behind Irȃcȃtitta, the uprising against Barukh began. The fate of the child raja was clear from the start–the nobility was better organized, better led, and better manned than Barukh’s meager court. The regent accordingly spirited his charge out of the capital to Sri Lanka, abandoning the field to Irȃcȃtitta and his allies.
With Barukh’s secular authority usurped, many hoped that Irȃcȃtitta would prove to be a weak raja, obliged by the circumstances of his ascension to attend closely to his nobility. This view would prove deeply mistaken.
Barukh and his small court would eventually take up residence in Anandapura, guests of the Vijayabahu kingdom in Sri Lanka. There Barukh grew up and eventually came of age, and there he would agitate for a Lankan army to help him reclaim the lands he had lost. His efforts proved fruitless, however. The maharaja of Sri Lanka was found of Barukh and held old family ties to the Dharans, but he had little appetite for tangling in the politics of the Chola kingdom.
As a result, in the late 1140s Irȃcȃtitta would formally re-establish peace with his cousin, Barukh. In a brief written document, Irȃcȃtitta formally ceded to Barukh the high priesthood, in exchange for an oath to forswear the lands of Chera Nadu and Konkana. The concession may seem surprising but in truth Irȃcȃtitta was happy to give the priestly title up.
Irȃcȃtitta may have claimed Barukh’s titles, but in a pointed decision, he did not himself take the title of Nasi. He was raised in his father’s household as a Tamil princeling as well as a Jew, and he modeled his ambitions off of the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms around him, not the ancient kings of Israel. As a result, the narrow sectarian appeal of the high priesthood held little appeal for him. The politics of the peoples of India was what mattered most.
This decision would have long-lasting consequences. The priesthood would remain in Barukh’s line, and while they would eventually regain some landed power, primarily their influence was felt in the synagogues rather than the court. Barukh and his successors would tend towards strict observance of the mitzvot and maintaining a proper distance from goyim.
The secular authority, meanwhile, would largely adopt Irȃcȃtitta’s assimilationist mindset, gathering around them a collection of ‘court rabbis’ who were reformist in their approach to Jewish practice and royalist in their politics. This division between throne and temple would remain through the history of the Kochinim.
Mahasamanta Irȃcȃtitta II had held the capital for perhaps six weeks when he made his first move to power. He was clear that divisions among the Jewish people of Cochin were responsible for the current crisis of leadership, and so he issued curt orders insisting that all hereditary titles, including those of his brothers, were to be relinquished to the raja. Vicayȃlaya agreed immediately, while sustained pressure was needed to convince Kulôttunka to submit to his younger brother’s wishes. However, the lands (and more importantly, the revenues) were granted to Irȃcȃtitta without bloodshed, the first important victory of his rule.
Irȃcȃtitta’s next goal was clear–reclaiming the northern lands of Konkana from the hated Mahasamanta Yesubai. After establishing strong allies in Sri Lanka, Irȃcȃtitta declared for Konkana in 1136. However, Yesubai had not survived in politics for so long because she was foolish. She moved against the Jewish army quickly and savagely, slaughtering Irȃcȃtitta’s forces nearly to a man before the Lanka army could arrive on the field. Once there, she invested the capital and forced a quick end to the war.
What followed was the lowest moment of Irȃcȃtitta’s reign. In the same year, his eldest son died in infancy after a long bout of fever. He was weakened, grieving and humiliated, and had he not purged the nobility already it is highly likely that one of his brothers would have taken his throne. However, his internal opponents were weakened and thus Irȃcȃtitta was able to plot his next move.
Irȃcȃtitta’s fortunes began to change with two crucial events: first, the death of Mahasamanta Yesubai in 1141, which left Konkana in the hands of her daughter, the mediocre Deepabai. Second, the death of the Chola king later that year, which left Bolla as Maharaja and his brother the Rajkumar Munnurůvappattan burning with frustrated ambition. The two Chola princes were equally matched in skill and manpower, and the resulting civil war bled them both dry.
With the Chola kingdom fatally weakened, Irȃcȃtitta declared the independence of the Jewish lands from their erstwhile masters. The maharaja naturally balked, but with his forces occupied fighting against the Rajkumar, there was little he could do but watch as the Kochinim marched on his capital and forced the issue. In 1144, Irȃcȃtitta was formally independent.
A shrewd Kochin diplomat undermined the truce between Irȃcȃtitta and the Chola king in 1146, which opened the way for a second war, to finally reclaim Konkana for the Dharan dynasty and re-unify the lands that Ester had held. With the Chola civil war still raging, this war was nearly as swift as the one before.
By the late 1140s, Irȃcȃtitta had restored the lands of his grandmother. However, unlike Ester he had no intention of maintaining his influence as vassal to a more powerful liege. He meant to establish a kingdom for the Kochinim, equal to the kingdoms in Tamilkam and Lanka, with himself as king. As Nasi, Barukh Dharan would happily sanctify this kingdom. His only price was this: that it be a Jewish kingdom, first and foremost.
And so it was that Irȃcȃtitta was crowned by the young man that he deposed, on the day after Yom Kippur, 1151, before a crowd of priests and shorveers, merchants and diplomats. He would be the King of the Bene-Israel, literally the king of the sons of Israel. For the first time since the fall of Judea, there would be an independent kingdom for the Jews.
